Colleen Langenfeld mailbox@paintedgold.com

PaintedGold http://www.paintedgold.com

'Clever mom creates buzz with fun and easy holiday party idea!'

'Successful hostess relates that her guests were amazed at the fun time they had! Whipping the party together was a breeze!'

Want to be the hot stop on this year's holiday circuit?

Then a cookie-decorating party is just what you're looking for!

This delightful idea will bring laughter and joy into your home for just a little planning and not much cost. It works great with mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, grandparents and grandkids. Even your sorority! In fact, it's a great way to connect all kinds of people who can benefit from a little time spent together.

Here's all you need to make this idea a grand success.

The hostess's checklist:

-*-Guests. Who are you inviting? How many? Keeping in mind the available table or counter space you have (see next paragraph), send your invitations. (For some creative ideas on invites you can quickly make yourself, see link at bottom of article.) And remember, if you're making this a team effort (like mothers and daughters) each invitation that is accepted will yield two guests.

-*-A space to work. Can be your kitchen, dining room, basement, even a deck (assuming you live where it's warm!); just needs to have plenty of table and/or counter space for your guests to do their cookie decorating and be an area that can take the mess. You'll need access to water for cleaning up, too. And don't forget the floor underneath!

-*-Icing. You can buy multiple tubs of ready-made frosting, but whipping up some of your own is easy and generally less expensive. Make two or three large mixing bowls full of frosting. Divide into four or five smaller bowls and color each with different food coloring.

-*-Buy ready-to-use tubes of colored frosting for easiest decorating. Or assemble several pastry bags and tips. Fill different bags with different colors of icing from bowls mentioned above. Be sure and save a fair amount of frosting in the bowls for icing the cookies themselves.

-*-Purchase a variety of decorator candies. Chocolate chips and small candies work well, too.

-*-Utensils. Lots of table knives or spatulas will do the trick. If your icing is not too stiff, plastic (disposable) table knives work great and save on clean-up later. Provide some bowls of water to drop sticky utensils in as you go. Toothpicks come in handy for dragging icing and drawing designs, too.

-*-Lots of hand towels or a couple of rolls of paper towels.

-*-Cookie decorating ideas that are easy and fast to do.

-*-Some soft background music, if you like. And drinks would be appreciated by your guests, too. Make a big pot of warm apple cider for simplicity (and it smells great!).

-*-Don't forget to have a camera on hand. Snap a roll and send each guest a print. What a great memory-maker!

Adjust these ideas to meet your needs. You are the hostess, you set the rules! For example, maybe you will want to skip the tubes of decorator icing and only offer the bowls of frosting and the decorator candies. That's fine.

Now for the guests' checklist:

-*-Cookies ready to be decorated. Suggest your guests bring un-decorated store-bought sugar cookies, or use ready-to-bake dough and slice and bake before they come. You can also provide an easy sugar-cookie recipe as a part of the invitation for those who want to bake from scratch. See the link at the end of this article for a yummy recipe you can use.

-*-A container to take their decorated cookies home in.

-*-Clothes that can be messed up and cleaned up easily.

-*-A desire for some fun and fellowship!

One last thought: the party's not over until the clean-up is done! Schedule it into the party and it becomes part of the fun!

To see the suggestions for party invites, cookie decorating and recipes you can use, click here. http://www.paintedgold.com/CookieParty.html

------------------ About the Author:

Colleen Langenfeld helps families run smoothly at http://www.paintedgold.com, a fun online home and gift resource center. Sign up for our online newsletter and get our Creativity Toolkit for FREE!

This article provided by the Family Content Archives at: http://www.Family-Content.com