Wine Bottle Menus

This beautiful and unique menu was featured on the adult guest tables of a lovely Parisian-themed Bat Mitzvah.  As the French wine flowed, the adult guests passed around this wine bottle, and salivated at the description of French food soon to come their way! This menu also doubled as a table number, with each table being named after a famous Parisian landmark. To make this wine bottle menu, the original wine bottle labels were removed after the bottles had been soaked in water. The menus were printed on sticky paper and carefully adhered to the bottles. You can purchase letter-sized sticker paper at your local office supply store. Bon appetit!

Photo courtesy of Party Perfect

Fun-Dip Shots

Looking for a fun and inexpensive addition to your mitzvah desserts? Try Fun-Dip Shots! This just shows you that presentation is everything!  These fun-dip shots were butler-passed at a recent Bat Mitzvah, and they were a huge hit with the kids. To make these for your event, simply buy some individual Fun-dip packets in your theme colors (we bought the Fun-Dip candy at Party City). Pour candy into plastic shot glasses, and add the Lik-M-Aid sugar stick. Arrange them on a platter for a fun sugar blast!

Photo courtesy of Party Perfect

Fun Mitzvah Catering Ideas!

Just got an email from the fabulous Lisa Teiger at CuisinEtc Catering. They just catered a really fun "Elvis Rock and Roll" Bar Mitzvah in Connecticut. Their mitzvah clients found them through our previous posting about their company on Mitzvahlicious!

What I really love about CuisinEtc is their unique and creative menu ideas and great presentation. I go to their blog regularly to get inspiration from their innovative menus. To see what I mean, check out these photos:

CuisinEtc smoking panko chicken tenders drizzled with Asian chili jam + sprinkled with shaved coconut.

Elvis rocked the house with this kosher style version of his favorite banana and peanut butter pinwheel.

cones of sweet potato chips waiting to be drizzled with herbed ranch dip

Cows in the Comforter: All Beef Kosher Hot Dogs in a Pastry Blanket nestled in a catcher's mitt in a field of wheatgrass

To see more photos, including a delicious mashed potato martini bar, check out their blog at:

CuisinEtc: Rock the House Bar Mitzvah

DIY: Cookie Menorah

Loving this cookie menorah idea from Amy Atlas... 

How did she do it? 

Step 1: Purchase this candle cookie cutter from Sur La Table (cost $1)

Step 2: Purchase some lollipop sticks

Step 3: Make sugar cookies, cut out the dough, and bake them with the sticks inserted into the dough. Then decorate the cookies with royal icing and sprinkles. Finally, glue gun the lollipop sticks into your menorah. Wouldn't this make such a fabulous centerpiece for your Hanukkah table? Or if you are having a Bar/Bat Mitzvah around Hanukkah time, this would fit in perfectly with your seasonally themed decor as well!

Hanukkah starts early this year, so let's get baking!

Find the entire project and her post at her blog here.

Fireworks Cake Candles

I'm flipping through my People magazine this week, and they featured this photo of Kim Kardashian's awesome birthday cake. I take one look at those candles and say I WANT! What a way to make a definite show-stopping moment with a birthday/mitzvah cake!

They are called indoor fireworks candles, and are apparently safe to use inside. I had trouble finding them for sale here in the U.S., but they are available pretty cheaply on Ebay (I found them for $3.95 plus shipping). Just search on Ebay for "indoor firework candle". Each candle is a 5 inch tube with a small spike to stick into the cake. Once the candle is lit, the sparks will shoot up 10"-18", and will continue for about a minute or so. There's no smoke, and it looks pretty harmless, but should be used by an adult. Obviously you should try to keep the guests relatively clear of the sparks as well!

Looks like a great way to add some exciting sparkle to your party!

Photo Credit: Chance Yeh

Candy sushi: A fun dessert option!

I made these candy sushi pieces for a friend's sushi party, and I thought I'd post the photos and share how they are made. They are very easy to put together, fun to make with kids, and would be a really fun addition to your dessert offerings for the kids at any Bar/Bat Mitzvah!

I followed these candy sushi directions from Mommy Knows, which are wonderful, because they include photos of how to make these tasty treat! In a nutshell, melt the butter in the microwave, then mix in the mini marshmallows and rice krispies, just like you would when making rice krispie treats.  To make the rolls, press the mixture down on some wax paper. Then place gummy worms across the top edge (about an inch or so down from the edge), and roll the sheet up, so that the gummy worms are now in the center of the roll. Trim once you have a full roll of krispie around your worms (because you don't want it to be too thick). Cut into slices, and THEN wrap the edge with fruit-by-the-foot rollups (the instructions say to wrap the roll in a full size fruit rollup, but i wanted the edges to look nice and crisp, so I thought this was a better method). This would look better with green fruit rollups to make it look more like seaweed, but I couldn't find any, so I used the red. For the nigiri, just make little rice cakes from the mixture that are about 2" x 1". Place a swedish fish on top, and wrap with a slim piece of fruit rollup! Easy peasy!

But display is really important to get the full effect. I went to our local supermarket, and asked if I could have the sushi trays to display my candy sushi. I also asked for the little green fake grass, to separate the rolls from the nigiri sushi, just like the real thing. They gave me a strange look, but then handed them over to me for free! Putting the candy in these little sushi trays really makes it look so real! Enjoy!

Candy sushi directions with photos from Mommy Knows

Video Arcade Themed Candy Buffet

We recently coordinated a super-fun video arcade themed Bar Mitzvah for a very sweet young man. He loved all types of video games, from retro pong and pac-man all the way through to wii games. We had so much fun with his theme! Here's a glimpse of his candy buffet. We created his custom signage to look like a video game on a tv screen (Matthew's Candy Mania). We made a pacman graphic and had it imprinted on these oversized plastic stadium cups, which doubled as candy containers and a take-home favor. Each candy jar label was customized with the individual images from that candy's box, with the Candymania candy buffet logo along the bottom edge. Overall, an exciting and fun effect for this festive candy buffet! 

All photos courtesy of Party Perfect

Brownie Burgers!

Check out this great new dessert food invention from the Entertaining Company as featured by Style Me Pretty... I love food that looks like other food! Especially when it's dessert!

Assembly of a Brownie Burger …

Use pancakes for the “bun”. The brownie is the patty. Condiments for the burger include Pomegranate Jelly (no ketchup on these babies) and White Chocolate (subs for Mayo). But what’s a burger without fries? Shortbread cookies are the obvious stand-in for fries. Very, very modern twist on an age-old favorite!