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Friday, February 5, 2010

Planning a Party for the 'Big Game'?

Are you hosting a party this Sunday for the Big Game? We've got some great entertaining ideas for you:


food and drinks

decorations

  • Printable Decorations from Paper & Cake - invitations, bottle charms, banners, napkin rings and food labels

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Happy Groundhog Day!


These Punxsutawney Phil Pudding Pops were posted by Junior Society. These would be fun for a kids celebration or just a special treat for the day. Thank you to Susan of Poca Cosas for pointing out this fun treat.

Monday, February 1, 2010

What parties are you planning for February?

February is filled with so many reasons to throw a party - what do you have planned?




  • Groundhog Day

  • Valentine's Day

  • Chinese New Year

  • Mardis Gras

  • Olympics

Friday, October 30, 2009

Real Parties: Halloween Cookie and Cupcake Decorating Party

Dana Brown is the owner of Simply Sweets and Desert Parties.

This year I hosted a cookie and cupcake Halloween themed party for some of my girlfriends. My husband and I host a large kids cookie decorating party but for Halloween I decided I wanted a night of fun with my girlfriends. I baked Halloween shaped sugar cookies and some of Simply Sweets' double chocolate sourcream cupcakes but left them bare ready to decorate. I colored buttercream for the cupcakes and royal icing for the cookies and put together a huge tray of sprinkles and candy.

I demonstrated 2 cupcake decorating ideas and then everyone got creative designing their own.

Decorating party cupcakes


Food and Drinks:

  • Spiced Apple Cider - Penzey's makes a great mulling spice mixture. I just added a table spoon of the spices into a crockpot filled with cider and let it warm up for awhile. yum!
  • Witches Brew - this drink was a big hit! Its a mixture of gingerale, white cranberry juice and orange selzer with a little green food coloring. The recipe is from Matthew Mead's Halloween Book
  • Jones' Halloween sodas
  • Jello brain with gummy worms
  • Gummy worms
  • Simply Sweets Candy Corn Bark
  • Halloween Snack Mix - this recipe was also from Matthew Mead's Halloween Book

Halloween Party

Decorations - the house was already decorated for Halloween so no special decorating was needed other than just arranging tables for the decorating and adding a few vinyl Halloween themed tableclothes.

Invitations - I kept it simple and used a Halloween themed evite from evite.com


Halloween mantel decorations



Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Want to be featured on Desert Parties' Real Parties?

We'd love to hear about your fabulous and creative parties! We're looking for people who want to share the details about parties they've hosted here in the Phoenix metro area.


We want to see your creative ideas. We want to learn about great vendors and resources in the Valley. We want read about your helpful hints.

  • Party type and theme - what was your inspiration?
  • Party location
  • Invitations - do you make them, order them, or use evite?
  • Decorations
  • Games and Activties
  • Food - what was your menu? did you make the food yourself? any special recipes you'd like to share with us?
  • Cake - was there a cake or cupcakes? Did you make it or order it?
  • Party Favors
Please include your name, part of town you reside in and something about you that you want to share (how long you've lived here, something about your family, or do you own a local business?). We'd love to see photos of your party especially all the fabulous details. Please also include the name of vendors you used (local or web) and any postive reviews you would like to share.

*By submitting photos to us, you are agreeing that the photos are your property. Please make sure that the people in the photo have given you permission for their photo to be posted online. When you submit your party and photos you are giving Desert Parties permission to post your description as a whole or parts as decided by Desert Parties.

*This blog is owned by Dana Brown, Simply Sweets. Real Parties featured on this blog, are not exclusively Simply Sweets customers. We welcome parties where the cake is home made of purchased from another bakery.

*Desert Parties reserves the right to choose not to feature a submitted party. Desert Parties is a family friendly blog.

To submit your party, send us an email with the header "Real Party"

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy 4th of July!

4th of July red white and blue mini cupcakes

Hope your day was filled with friends, bbqs, sweets and fireworks!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Dinosaur party featured on Creative Parties and Showers

The "Real Life Parties - Dinosaur Themed 3rd birthday" is being featured today over at the Creative Parties and Showers blog. Check out the blog for some really great party ideas. And while you're there, show a little blog love and leave them a comment!