Hip homies party giveaway
You know that I dig parties, and not the kind that make you run around like crazy and forget to enjoy yourself by the time they actually happen. No, I’m into the kind of parties that bring people together surrounding a new skill, an everyday chore, or even around the making of a fancy food product. After the best blogger-hosted book giveaway series a girl could ever dream of, it only makes sense that my own book giveaway should involve a party; that’s just how I roll.
(I really wanted to call this post “Party like it’s 1929”, but, you know, these kinds of gatherings are just plain fun whether or not your house feels stricken by austerity measures.)
In true party-addict style, I co-hosted with my good friend Stephanie Austin’s National Can-It-Forward Day party at my house on Saturday. Eight of us all shared the costs, the work, and the dish-doing for ginger peach jam
spicy pickled okra
and lemon sage wine mustard
We ate delicious potluck-sourced snacks, sipped Oaxaca coffee and tangerine hibiscus tea and just got to know each other better. Some of us were very experienced and others had never before attempted sealing jars for shelf-storage. We spread our canning knowledge amongst each other and, of course, divvied up the loot!
This is precisely where the giveaway comes into play. I’m asking you to plan to host any type of skill-share party and invite 5 of your friends.
To enter, leave a comment below telling us what kind of party you’re planning to host. Giveaway will close at midnight CST on Monday, August 29. The winning party proposal will be selected via Random.org. You will not win if your email address is not in the appropriate box on the comment form (since I won’t be able to reach you).
I’ll send the winner six signed copies of my book and a couple jars of our collectively made homemade snackage (to get the potluck rolling).
It’s not required in order to win, but it would be fun to see how your party goes. Perhaps one of your invited friends can snap a few photos and show us all how it went?! I’ll post a round-up of shots and a recap of the winner’s party along with photos from anyone else who hosts a hip-homies-inspired party.
Good luck and happy plotting! I can’t wait to see what kinds of great ideas for gatherings you all come up with.
Entertaining, Giveaways, Parties, Sharing, Skill-Sharing
Reader Comments (71)
I plan on hosting a canning party. So many of my friends are interested in canning but are scared about doing the food preservation part. What a great way to start them on their canning journey my demonstrating for them and letting them go home with some homemade goodness.
I love this party idea! I've been thinking about doing a series of parties like this and now I'm really motivated. My first party would involve getting friends together and preserving apples since it would be fall- apple sauce, apple butter.... Peeling would go so quickly with friends chatting and working together! Other parties would follow with seasonal/other themes such as Halloween treats/decoration, holiday homemade gifts such as homemade beauty products, fudge.... This is going to fun to plan and we will all learn something new from each other!
My friends and I do an apple butter party every fall and I cannot wait this year. A whole day with friends and you leave with apple butter? Please, nothing is better.
What fun!
I work with a bunch of horticulturalists so I'd love to host a canning party and teach people how to can their research produce!
I am so glad that I found my way to your blog- I love it so! I am a new lover of canning and can't wait to host an apple butter/apple sauce party this fall once the apples start pouring into the co-op. None of my friends in Brooklyn can believe that I spend my Saturdays canning and packing the chest freezer full of goods for the winter, so I can't wait to host a party to show them how easy it is! Pies, turnovers and muffins are all musts, and pictionary while the fruit is cooking!
I've got plans to can elderberries in one go, tomatoes and salsa in the next and possibly pear sauce and/or applesauce in a third round. All are being planned as group events to share the work around and help us build skills.
I'd love to see the wine mustard recipe!
I'm hoping to make this year an almost completely homemade Christmas BUT I'm also doing National Novel Writing Month in November. So, my Christmas gifties need to be worked up in October. I would love to host a crafting party where we can work on 3 different short projects. I'm thinking freezer paper stenciling, jewelry making and some type of homemade beauty project. Each pair of ladies will bring enough supplies for all of us and we will all leave with a few gifts for our loves. My Christmas crafting is often a last minute, solo, stressful adventure. I'm really looking forward to being ahead of the game this season and would love the time spent with the other creative women in my life!
I would love to host a party in October/November to make homemade frugal christmas gifts and wrapping supplies. Have each friend bring a list of the ppl they want to give homemade gifts for and then make some homemade vanilla extract, infused olive oils, bath scrubs/salts, homemade cards and maybe even some homemade wrapping paper. So when everyone is done they have everything for an amazing homemade holiday gift basket and don't have the stress of that and get to bless someone with a beautiful heartfelt gift!
I'm thinking of having a pantry essentials part. Which would be making butter, canning, basic cheese making, bread, making things like vanilla extract and things like that.
I'd love to throw a fresh fruit facial party. I formulate natural skin care recipes for my day job, and it would be loads of fun to get some girl friend's together for an afternoon of home spa fun. We could also make some smoothies while we are at it.
Ooh, this sounds so fun! We could do a number of things - canning, chicken permit process for Columbus, OH, Square Foot Gardening, no knead bread making. I might have to cook up something whether we win or not.
It's almost blueberry raking time where I live in Maine! About ten of my closest friends and I get together at the end of every August to rake and then make preserves/pies/muffins/freeze the rest of the berries to give to friends and family. It's my favorite time of the year!
I'd love to host a condiment party and have everyone help make mustard, ketchup & relish. I think they are great items to get new folks hooked on canning & diy food making!
I really want to do a hot pepper jelly and/or tomato canning party. I have a few friends from the South who all love hot pepper jelly or want to try it. It seems like a great cooking tool - for stir fries, appetizers, etc.
I'm hosting a sewing party at my house next month, a food swap next week, a meal swap the week after that, and a cloth-diaper-making party soon :)
I'm planning on trying to do a pumpkin butter making/canning party. Really just to get people together to try something new and make some little gifts for Thanksgiving holiday.
Every fall, my friends and I (sometimes just one friend!) get together for an applesauce-making party! We share all the work and bring as many crockpots toegether as we can fit in the house and let it roll! It's great fun and we usually try to time it along with a Packer game so we can watch some of it while the crockpots are bubbling away. ;) I'm hoping to get more people involved this year though and possibly add in some canning since we all want to learn!
Tomato sauce in a few weeks, then hopefully apple butter later on!!!
some members of our CSA are planning a get-together to can some of the multitudes of tomatoes we're getting these days, i volunteered to share my experience but i'm hoping someone with air conditioning volunteers to host, otherwise we'll be sweating it out in my tiny kitchen, and will be far too crowded and hot to take pictures!
I want to host a pie-making party. Specifically, a pie crust-making party. I can only name two friends in my area who've made pie, and one of those used store-bought crust. I think it's something we should learn together (and honestly, it would be delicious!).
I'm planning on hosting a canning party this fall. I just got the canning bug after reading Hip Girls Guide to Homemaking, and can't wait to try! I've got a few friends who already can and a few who don't, so it should be a good mix of seasoned and newbie canners. Can't wait.
I'm planning on hosting a can-what-your-yard-grows party. My yard has some massive blackberry bushes, a friend has an Italian plum and pear trees, another friend has raspberry canes, another has an over-producing herb garden, and another lives across from a neighborhood blueberry patch. The folks that I'm planning this with are all new canners, so books would be an awesome thing for them.
I'm planning a single gals frozen dinner party...I have several single friends like myself who enjoy good home-cooked healthy meals and many of us either shop farmer's markets or grow our own foods but often when cooking a meal you either have to eat on it for days or share with friends. I recently took to cooking 3-4 different meals on Sundays portioning them out and freezing my own homemade frozen dinners. Some of my friends liked the idea so we are planning a meal swap and lunch as well as spending some time in the kitchen trying out some new recipes. The hope is to make this a regular event - what better way to get a great variety of home cooked meals AND spend time with great friends in the kitchen.
I have started a sewing/ quitting party that meets monthly. I am hoping to have it every other week now that school starts back. I only just recently started canning so I hope to learn enough to help others later.