A Witchy theme for Valentines Day

This year I decided to change it up a little for valentines day so each week I’ll be featuring a different theme. Last week we had a Vampire theme but this week we’ll have a witch theme. This idea has a lot of wonderful features, from love potions, herb infused meals and massage oils to enchant your lover this Valentines day.

Today I have made a ‘Love Potion’ and a ‘Lust’ potion. I was watching Shrek 3 the other day and noticed that the fairy god mother added some lust, passion and desire to her little love potion so I decided to do the same and what better way to throw all caution to the wind than to include some alcohol :p

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To start off you need some cute bottles that looks like it can hold potions. Then you’ll need some old paper to label your potion. I got my little bottles from our local Daiso store ( its like a $5 store). To make your paper look old, you can soak it in some tea and bake it in the oven for 5-10 minutes. It works better if you tear the paper before baking it rather than after.

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First pour some hot water in a container and leave a teabag in there for a few minutesIMG_6843.jpg

Then write your message on a piece of paper and place it in the container. Use the teabag to soak and colour the paper. Make sure you wet the whole piece of paper then remove and place in a baking pan or dish in the oven for 5 minutes. If you feel that you need a more burned look you can leave it in for another 5-8 minutes.

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I glued the paper to the bottles with syrup. That way I could easily remove it after use and reuse the bottles for something else later on.

I made two different cocktails mainly because the first one had grapefruit in it and my husband doesn’t care much for grapefruit. The second one I made with berry juice instead that’s also evident in the colours of the two ‘potions’. I also used LOTS of Vodka…maybe too much, so if you don’t mind a very strong vodka flavour in your drinks you can rather use 1 shot vodka per cup of juice. To be honest the drink is very potent so if you’re not used to drinking rather go for the softer version, because I only had a small sip here and there to taste the drinks and at one stage I was swinging around the living room… not really ideal when you’re preparing stuff for the blog.

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Love potion

Ingredients

  • 8 Tablespoons grapefruit juice
  • 2 tablespoons apple or white grape juice
  • 4 tablespoons strawberry Vodka

Combine in a blender and mix. Pour into cute little bottles for display

img_6911IMG_6912.jpgLust Potion

  • 6tablespooons Grapefruit juice
  • 2 tablespoons Berry juice
  • 4 tablespoons strawberry vodka

Combine in a blender and mix. Pour into cute little bottles for display

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As mentioned above you can do a milder version of either one of the drinks by using 1 cup of juice for every shot of Vodka. You could also try my White wine sangria recipe.

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Beach themed Anniversary Party

More than a few years ago my parents asked me help them organise their 25th wedding anniversary. My mother was already sick by then. She wanted the whole family to be there and she wasn’t looking for something over the top but rather for something casual with some dancing at the end of the night. My parent had a roomy house with a seperate entertainment room and an outside pool. We then decided to have a beach party in the back yard. We wanted a real summer feel to the event so this is what our menu looked like

Entree- Fruit kebabs

Main – Home made chicken and beef hamburgers

Dessert – Ice-cream cones.

To drink my dad made us some sangria in a watermelon

. We threw Gerber’s and candles in the pool to give it that romantic holiday feel.

We further had cocktail umbrellas for the drinks. Crepe paper flower necklaces for each of the quests and we made little palm trees out of carrots and green peppers for table decorations. Our serviettes were in pink, orange, yellow, green and sea blue.

Although my father initially thought that having such a casual party wouldn’t work out well… the party was a huge success and everyone had a wonderful time. We even got to catch up with some relatives we haven’t seen in a while.signature_k22a8w5v6d6jv2mpnr