Ladies’ Night!

Well, what a party!  I must say, I am guilty of going overboard (Mom, I believe I get this from you) and I invited everyone I knew and put in too much effort on the food!  I need to learn to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid!), for the sake of my sanity

Anyone know what these are?  Lavender flowers!  I’ve had them for a while and never knew what to do with them…a ha! Delicious drinks!

I found this amazing Lavender Thyme Martini recipe online and it was so simple to make!  I made a simple syrup using the lavender flowers.  1 cup water : 1 cup sugar : 4 tbsp lavender flowers.  I multiplied this by 3 since I invited all of OH to my house

It made two mason jars full of syrup and I only used one for the drinks!  I plan to use the other jar for lavender lemonade

And how cute is this drink??  I dipped the glasses in lemon juice and rimmed them with sugar.  The recipe was:

- 2 shots gin

- 1 shot lavender simple syrup

- 2-3 sprigs of thyme

- juice of one lemon

- handful of ice

They were delicious!!! For the food, I made fondue…quite an undertaking.  If people have said that fondue is easy, they were wrong.  The number of ingredients required are insane and not cheap!

I focused my picture taking skills on the dippers.  They were gorgeous in the early afternoon light

Lots of veggies to dip in the cheese, along with salami…an interesting twist

Another neat addition?

Fennel!  Delicious!

And for the sweets??

Aren’t those strawberries brilliant?  No photo editing here.  I wish I could have the time to take my photos in the daylight every day!

I also made some paradise bars from Betty Crocker GF Cookie Mix.  I believe I’ve posted this recipe before…ah yes, here is the recipe!

I also whipped up some GF brownies (thanks, Betty!).

We dipped these in the chocolate fondue.  Unbelievable.  It is amazing how much high quality chocolate matters!

Our craft was homemade sugar scrub and it turned out great!  The jars were cute too.  I followed the instructions on this blog almost to a tee.  Here were the two I made at the end of the night

One was lemon and the other lavender peppermint…we’ll see how that one turns out

What did you do this weekend?  Do you enjoy hosting parties?  What are your strategies for a smooth and fun event?