Crazy Hat Party

We headed to the bay area on Saturday for a Crazy Hat Party. Our friends Paul and Tom were hosting and I knew I needed to create the perfect hat. Since I’ve been obsessed with all things “Food” lately – I came up with a food concept and spent last weekend searching for supplies.

The first stop was Chinese food for lunch. Our goal was to score some “to go” containers. I barely ate any of my chicken salad, so I asked for a “to go” box and our server brought us one of those clam shell styrofoam compartment boxes. I saw shelves of the cardboard wire closure boxes in the hallway next to the bathroom. I grabbed my purse and planned on “borrowing” a few. All of the containers were sealed in plastic sleeves – foiled again. We got our food and had lots left. This time I asked for the smaller cardboard “to go” boxes and our server delivered two to the table. SCORE! I scooped our food into the styrofoam one with the salad, filled one with the least messy food – fried wonton and then slipped the unused one into the bag.

My next stop was Smart and Final for chopsticks. I didn’t like the ones they had, but picked up some Pancit Kanton, Phillippine-Style Noodles for a whopping $1.89.

I then went to an Asian Market and picked up some cool chopsticks (5 packs for 75 cents each) and fortune cookies – a bag with over 50 for $3.00. The Chinese gardening hat was found at the Halloween Spirit Store for $7.99 – this was before I went to the Asian Market – could have picked one up there for $1.99 – ugh. Too bad the Halloween store doesn’t do returns.

The hot glue gun process began. Spacing the chopsticks was a bit of a nightmare. Thankfully Dan helped with the engineering.

Dan also helped cut a circle in the container to glue it to the hat. Then I got my Pancit Kanton (noodles) loaded on top of tissue paper that I stuffed into the “to go” container. Hot glue-gunned noodles, yummy!

Dan modeled my hat after finishing it last weekend. It came out really cool and I was excited to wear it to the party.

The hat in action… Dan’s hat was a military themed hat. We both got lots of compliments on our masterpieces.

Love the army guy up on the turret. Green men were on one side, tan men on the other. He used a roll of camo tape to cover a germen helmet from the Halloween Spirit Store. Our friend Deede went to Toys R Us and Joanne’s with us to grab up all the other supplies.

It was a blast looking at the other party hats. I tried to get photos of each one, but balancing my enormous hat, a glass of wine and the camera proved to be a little challenging.

Matching lamp shade hats, a drum cover with ribbons and Tom’s hat – covered in every plastic figurine you could think of. It was awesome!

Foodies/besties for life. I LOVED Paul’s french fry hat. He used 3 bags of fast food style frozen french fries. He had to let them dry out for 3-4 days after cooking  – they were too greasy to glue – yum! He also had to add the tie, because the construction paper red ring made the hat too small for his head.  If the fries weren’t stale and covered in glue, I totally would have grabbed one off his head – they looked that good!

Loved the Pantone/paint chip and the walking foliage with butterflies hats.

La la la-la la la,  Sing a happy song – the Smurf hat rocked!

A top hat/flower-pot making homemade ice cream. Yum!

Taking over the ice cream cranking. This hat had lots of photos and other vacation/travel memorabilia.

Leigh and Paul showing off their creations. The dove and flower hat was made out of a “Frosty the Snowman” head she cut open. She found the snowman head and the flowers at Michael’s. Very crafty! She also makes jewelry, so her necklace matched the flowers on her hat. Very chic.

Hah! Hah! Panties, lumpy legs and dangle feet – what more could you ask for?

FOOD! Yes food…there was amazing food. Paul and Tom hosted a taco cart. Didn’t get a photo of the actual cooks or cooking station, but the tacos were killer. Steak, chicken or potato – I actually had one of each. The couple that did the cooking came all the way from Modesto, CA. They had beans and rice as sides and onion, cilantro, radishes and two different salsa toppings for fixings. Party food perfection.

The dessert table had platters of cookies and the wonderful homemade vanilla custard ice cream – with all kinds of fun toppings.

Ummmm… Yummy ice cream.

Is that a giraffe in my ice cream? Why yes it is! Truth be told – I actually ate my dessert first. The taco line was so long, my table got up and hit the dessert table first… breaking all the rules.

I had a blast catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, hearing everyone’s hat decor stories and just chilling with good, good people. I wish I had taken even more photos. I missed capturing so many of the really great hats.

Today will be spent cleaning house, doing laundry, grocery shopping and Foodiddy recipe planning for the upcoming week. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends as much as I did.