Tuesday on Jasmine- Tuesday on Jasmine
THE ULTIMATE GALENTINE'S DAY PARTY
Well, ladies and gentleman….we are back to where it all started with this post! Our annual Valentines party is what inspired the ladies of Jasmine to start a blog! AND for the second year in a row, we are super excited to share all of our Valentine's themed snacks, drinks, crafts, games and handmade exchanged Valentines. Follow along with us while we share with you: the Ultimate Galentines Day Party!!
If you have read about our past Valentines party, you know that it all started from restrictions being put on Valentine's Day parties at our kids school. Last year, they weren’t allowed to even exchange Valentines. We have some creative little girls on this block who look forward to this class party, so to make up for the change, we decided to throw our own themed bash!
Most of the parties we throw on our block include all 19 of us - 5 Jasmine Moms, 5 Jasmine Men, 6 girls (ranging in age from 8 - 14), and 3 boys (from 5 - 14). Because of the large range of ages and interests, it can be tough to create parties that can keep everyone’s attention. To make this event feel extra special (and to keep some interest) we made it an exclusive Mother and Daughter only Galentine’s party where we all come in fancy dresses or outfits. The girls always look forward to a chance to pick out an outfit and get dressed up! And to be absolutely honest, so do the moms!! There aren’t many times in life that we get to feel special and fancy…so why not!!
Since there are so many parts and pieces to this party, we will break it down into categories: decor, food, drinks, activities (including our Valentine exchange) and games. Check out all of the details below!
DECOR
Since this is our second year throwing a Valentines’s Day party, we ran into the challenge of trying to make the whole party feel a little different (so it wasn’t a duplicate of the previous year). One of our favorite parts of the party is seeing the girls faces when they get their first look at the decorated rooms for the first time!
If you have been following along with us, you know that we are ALL about re-using party decor from past parties OR using any leftover decor that happens to match your theme. We did just that with this event! One of our Jasmine ladies had a wonderful idea to reuse the red, white, and blue streamers from our July 4th bash…except simply replace the blue streamers with pink!! We were so excited about the quick and easy change - you can check out the before and after below!
GUYS…we need you to know just how easy it is to create these streamers! You can check out our blog post about it HERE! To create shorter streamers, like the ones above, you will cut the strips the same way, but tie them on in the center (instead of the top) when attaching to your wire! This will also help to make your streamers look even more full by doubling the count of streamers that hang down!
One of the things we fully recommend during an event like this is including a feature wall or focal point of the party. For us, that space is usually in our kitchen buffet area. This space allows us to set the theme for the party AND place the food under the focal point, since that is an area the guests will access the most. Check out this beautiful wall…
TIP: You can easily take your party decor to the next level by layering your decorations. In the focal point above, we layered a Valentines themed tablecloth (also reused from past years), our newly refreshed streamers, and some balloons purchased from Amazon HERE. Any one of those things, would be great on their own…but really set a tone/or theme when they are used together! AND cost us less than $10 to create!
Lets quickly chat about the the black and white XOXO tablecloth…this was handmade by one of our Jasmine ladies. We promise you can easily create this yourself: purchase this tablecloth from Amazon HERE (size up or down depending on the area you are covering), then simply use black paint to paint the XOs in the pattern of your choice. And BAM…you have a beautiful and unique backdrop or tablecloth!!
The next thing we suggest for every big event: a Balloon garland. Balloons garlands are a BIG statement piece that can really set the tone for your party. PLUS, they take up a lot of room for only $10-$20!! Check out the one we used HERE. You can hire someone to come into your event space and create a themed balloon arch for you…but they are also very easy to make on your own! If you’ve never created one before, you can check out our blog post about it HERE. We like to hang these in either the focal point of the party OR, in this case, in a central area where they will display in all of our photos. In this area, our guests were able to enjoy the view of them from all main areas of the party!
For the main seating area (our kitchen island) we layered table cloths and runners to create a festive look.
At each place setting we used our girls first initials to mark their spots - each initial was added to a painted wooden piece and then placed on a small heart cake stand. To dress these up even more, we surrounded each initial with conversation hearts.
Lastly, our Photo Booth is always a large feature area of our Galantine's event! We’ve made it a tradition to grab photos with our girls in this area and it’s so fun to look back at pictures from the previous years to see how they have grown 😭. Since this area is so important, we like to use the same ideas mentioned above to decorate the space: reusing, layering AND the addition of the balloon arch! This entire space cost only around $5 (not including the balloon arch). You’ll notice we also reused the July 4th streamers in this area, then added some longer steamers behind for that layered effect!
FUN FACT: The longer steamers are $1 plastic tablecloths from Party City. Here’s how you can create them: Remove 1 plastic tablecloth from the packaging, open one fold of the cloth, starting on the folded end use a fabric cutting wheel to slice 1-2” strips across the folded cloth, Make sure to stop about 3” from the top of the tablecloth (this stopping point will be in the non-folded area. And BAM! You can now open up the tablecloth and hang using the non-streamer end! This took us about 2 minutes to create- so easy!
DRINKS
We decided to keep it simple this year and repeat some of our favorites from the past! For the adult drink we made Strawberry & Champagne Margarita. If you are a fan of tequila and champagne, this one is for you! We decorated our champagne flutes by cutting a slit in the bottom of some heart shaped marshmallows and sitting them on the edge of our glasses. We found the heart marshmallows at the dollar tree - cheap and so pretty!
For the kids we made our Cupid’s Kiss drink, which is really more like dessert - the kids LOVED them. Raspberries, vanilla ice cream, raspberry sherbet and sprite are combined to make this delicious drink. We wanted our little ones to feel extra classy, so we created their drinks in these adorable plastic heart flutes we found at the Dollar Tree!
FOOD
We have been seeing waffle bar examples all over our feed and HAD to give this a try….with a Valentine’s theme, of course! The waffle board ended up being our main “course” at the party, but we always include some extra desserts and treats. Here is our full menu:
Waffle bar This included homemade waffles, strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream, chocolate chips, syrup, and lots of extra candy topping options :)
Charcuterie board
Mini caprese skewers
Layered heart cream tart
Mini chocolate and vanilla cupcakes
Mini cheesecake bites
Chocolate truffles
Heart sugar cookies
Is it a lot of sugar? YEP! This is the one party during the year that we let the kids go wild with all of the sweets they could ever want. They are big fans, of course :)
VALENTINE’S EXCHANGE
Our girls are certainly crafty! Each year they look forward to making super special Valentine’s for each other to exchange at the party. Since there are only 4 girls that attend, their creations can be a bit more involved/creative than the typical Valentine’s that would be exchanged in school. We will quickly take you though each one of their awesome creations from this year!
Chocolate Smash Hearts
There are examples of these everywhere right now…and for good reason! They ended up being fun to make AND for the girls to break into at the party. Inside each heart was a Valentine themed Pura Vida bracelet. Check out our reel to see the full experience!
Love is in the Air Hot Air Balloon
How creative are these?! The balloons were personalized with each girls name and the “baskets” were stuffed with some sweet treats and a Starbucks gift card! Check out our reel to see how we made them!
Tickled Pink Boxes
Our girls went crazy for these gift boxes. Again, each box was personalized with a cute note on the top that read “I’m tickled PINK that you’re my friend” along with their names. The boxes were filled with lots of pink themed goodies including: hair ties, pencils, candy, socks, and nail polish!
Be Mine Baskets
These fun baskets were loaded up with Valentine’s themed treats and goodies from the Dollar Tree! Our kids always love a good basket gift, and honestly, so do the moms! See some great examples of our past basket gifts HERE.
We let each of our girls hand out their Valentine’s and they get to open them one by one to fully enjoy each others creativity! This is always a big hit at our party each year!
ACTIVITIES
As we mentioned, it’s always a struggle to keep the attention of our pre-teens. We try to find themed activities that they will enjoy and an extra bonus if it’s also a take-home keepsake! Our main party activity this year was a heart shaped string art craft. We created a full post with all of the items needed and step by step instructions HERE.
Other activities that keep our girls entertained: our Photo Booth and our polaroid camera. Make sure you have lots of film ready. The printed photos also make the BEST take home keepsakes :)
GAMES
Have you ever created a tissue paper punch board? We’ve been wanting to for a LONG time and thought this was the perfect event to give it a try. Here’s how it works:
Hot glue Solo cups to a poster board in any shape that matches your party theme (in this case, a heart)
Fill each cup with small prizes and/or ‘would you rather’ questions
For the small prizes we used lollipops, socks, washi tape, and Valentine’s mochis
The ‘would you rather’ questions were a blast - you can get creative with these. One example: would you rather have licorice for hair or conversation hearts for teeth for the rest of your life?
Cover each cup with a square of themed tissue paper and secure the tissue with a rubber band
Use a Sharpie marker to number each one of the cups - we wrote them directly on the tissue paper
Write the numbers down on paper and put them in a bowl
Each girl took turns pulling a number and then punching the corresponding cup
They got to keep the prizes inside PLUS read the question out loud and tell us their silly answers
For an even more simplified party game, try this conversation heart stack challenge! All you need for this one:
Wide wooden lollipop sticks (one per game player)
Conversation hearts
Each girl held a lollipop stick end in her mouth and then was timed for a minute. The goal is to place as many conversation hearts on the stick as possible in that time. Check out how many hearts these girls got!
This party is an absolute BLAST each year and we all look forward to it. We would love to see your photos if you do any of our suggestions above! We promise you and your crew will have the best time :) And don’t forget to grab some photos of everyone dressed in their best!
