A book club party with bookish party favors

The annual holiday party for our book club was at my house, well, I have to admit that it always is at my house.  I tend to hog the date because I love parties so much.

And I love party favors!  I decorated the table with the book page/paper ornies that I’d made and sent one home with each person.  You can’t see it in this pic, but each ball has a tiny, book charm dangling from it.

Here is the table before my friends arrived.

I have been collecting 49 cent Christmas plates from Goodwill all year, there are a few different patterns, but I like the mix.  


It’s all a bit of a mix match.  The water glasses almost all are the same, but the silverware, wine glasses, napkins, and plates are all over the place.  The placemats are pages from the Grand fairies’ outgrown Christmas books.

Here is what I have learned about hosting a party:

NO ONE CARES IF IT MATCHES!

But they do appreciate an effort to make things pretty for them.  I doubt if they cared that the plates were only 49 cents each and were various patterns. Or that to have enough wine glasses, I had to use a very non traditional, purple one.

They might have cared that the pie was a little dry.

Durn it.  I used frozen blueberries, but made it the same as I usually do with fresh ones.  That just isn’t the same, I love the juiciness of the fresh ones.  Frozen requires more sugar, liquid and some lemon, I think.  

The peach pie was better.  I used pecan flour, eggs, some juice from the canned peaches, cinnamon and brown sugar in it.

This was my first time using Aldi’s crust (I never make my own crust).  It was so-so.  Not very flakey, and a little dry.  I’ll stick with Sprouts, their crust is always ideal.  Plus it is vegan, which is good when I am feeding my family.

Also, this might not be the prettiest place to set out desserts, but it worked.

I found some “Vintage Tinsel Sprinkles” at Homegoods and happily glittered all the treats.  I love them so much that I had some glittery, festive-ness on my peanut butter toast today.  Using my holiday plates.  

One very nice thing about my big stack of thrift store plates is that I don’t have to be gentle with them.  They are special, but they aren’t worth anything, so we have been using them daily since Thanksgiving.  

Dishes are breakable, so I never want to own any that I am afraid of using.  I like plates that I can enjoy.

 

 

 

Comments

[Ellen D. Bailey]

Everything looks great, Karla. My mother used to say that we are our own worse critics! That goes double for me since I'm a perfectionist! Enjoy all that you have done to make your holiday special.

[yvonne]

Wanted to let you know that I have been having the BEST time making the paper ball ornaments that you wrote about. They are so much fun to make and since I'm a huge paper hoarder they cost nothing. THANKS!