spending hiatus: party particulars

There was only one little blip on my spending hiatus radar this week.

Just after all the Christmas and New Years excitement died down, my friend and party planner extraordinaire, Margarita, approached me with an idea for a dinner she wanted to host. Though she always throws the most rocking parties in their smallish apartment, it would not do for a sit-down dinner so we planned to use her culinary skills, my dining room table and the opportunity to get together her friends and mine.

Once we sat down with the guest list though, trying to keep the numbers down to ten or even twelve was absolutely impossible. It seems that when you try and pick out a few folks from a whole circle of friends, it all unravels at the seams. So the idea evolved into a cocktail party rather than a dinner and when we looked for a date February 14th seemed ideal. Soon we realised that cooking up something to eat for twenty might be a bit of a challenge unless we kept it simple, like a stirfry. Thus a theme emerged and we thought, wouldn't it be fun to dress up? Werner, not knowing what he was getting himself into, had bought me Playstation Singstar for Christmas and 1,2,3 just like that, a Chinese (non) Valentines Dress-up & Karaoke party was born!

The Valentines date had its pros and cons. Most singles were only to happy to have a party to go to with a distinct lack of hearts and lovey dovey paraphenalia. A whole group of couples also found it a welcome release from the usual pressure, expectation and often disappointment of Love Day. I'd never had a great Valentines Day before, and while I don't publicly slander the 'holiday' I do find it a bit forced. On the other hand I feel: how can celebrating love ever be wrong? Conflict of interest there!

So on Saturday we spent quite a bit of money on the party. Werner and I dug out a kimono and a black velvet robe from my closet (I told you I have a lot of stuff in there!) so we didn't spend a cent on outfits. We told guests to bring their own drinks but I wanted to serve cocktails on arrival. Between the food and liquor, prawn crackers, fortune cookies, lanterns, flowers and other decorations, it all came to quite a shocking amount.

However, as I haven't been spending any money on clothes or accessories and since it was the first party we hosted since our house warming almost a year ago, I decided it was well worth it.

By the time the party was in full swing and everyone for clamouring for a go at the Singstar, it was priceless!

These pics are all from very early on in the evening. I'm afraid the China Blue cocktails I made were far too delicious to resist and impaired any photo taking abilities straight off the bat! I highly reccommend it!

Ice
1 Measure vodka
1 Measure lychee liquer
Top up with grapefruit juice
Add a dash of blue curacao

Yum.
Just the thing to get me through the second half of Simple Lovely's hiatus! Don't you think so agirl and october12? Welcome to the club! x