Every Year Gets Better: Ringing in the New Year : 2013

Happy New Years!

I hope your New Years Eve was as fun as ours. We hosted a NYE/Housewarming party and I thought it was a lot of fun. So much fun, in fact, that we might just make it a annual thing... we'll see. :)

We decided to 'go all out' (at least 'all out' for us) and take advantage of how much free space we have in our house right now. First, I hung lights in our formal living room to create an ambiance. Actually I put lamps all over the house so no harsh overhead lights were on. It created a really nice mood.

Our dining room became dedicated to poker. I have a large piece of green felt that I got from the fabric store when it was on sale. It does a good job of not only making the table more poker-like, but it also protects my table from men who sometimes forget to use a coaster. For our party we decided to limit the game to 2 hours, and give prizes for the top three spots. When the guys play for cash the games tend to last all night and we wanted to make sure we didn't have the poker group off in their own room for the whole night.

The kitchen housed the food and drinks (obviously). I got to show off that Christmas gift I told you about. LJ made 3 types of queso... why is it not surprising that Mild was the only one left at the end up the night! (Thanks for making that one for me babe!)

LJ also made jalapeno poppers. They all went pretty fast - no surprise there! Hmmm.... is it obvious that food is one of LJ's passions? :)

I wish I had a picture of the living room but somehow I forgot (whoops!) We moved the TV in front of the fire place so we could open up those weird folding doors to one of the bedrooms. We also had an xbox kinect stet up with a dancing game. Not going to lie....I might have been unbeatable ;)

In that bedroom (you know, the one that connects to our living room) we stet up a resolution board, memory board and photo booth. All three turned out to be quite fun.

I also set up my craft room with a little craft for the ladies. Yes, I'm that dorky. :) I got the idea from this pinterest pin:

(Hint: if you do this, decorate the hat BEFORE you attach it)

Here was my set up, I used my cutting table and put out a bunch of fun little decorations I found at Hobby Lobby:

I wish I had pictures of the party in progress that I could share, but my camera was on a tripod all night as part of the photo booth. It was worth it though, because we got some great pictures. I'll leave you with a couple of my favorites (notice the tiny party hats everyone is wearing - see! people like crafts!)