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Valentine’s Day

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The Portland Bloggers, a local bloggers meet-up group and resource, hosted a Valentine’s Day brunch potluck this past month. We were happy to have decoration supplied by Minted.Com and tasty mimosas with Santa Margherita Wines. All thoughts and opinions are my own. To see my sponsored posting guidelines please visit my policies page. Thank you to Jennifer Landers for helping us find a swanky venue and Suzannah Stanley for these fab photos! 

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

 

What kind of potluck should I host? …. BRUNCH!

 

When you live in Portland you tend to come around to the amazing-ness that is B-R-U-N-C-H. You see, it may have to do something with the rain and the grey skies or perhaps it is the laid back nature of this town… but, getting up early in the morning and heading out to breakfast really is just not our thing. Yes, it happens. Yes, there are people that seem to make it out of the house before 10 AM. Those are the people who get to walk right in and sit down for a tasty meal with no wait.

The rest of us, well, we do brunch and we do it hard. We have some of the most amazing restaurants out there creating brunch menus just for us. Heck, even the amazing Gregory Gourdet of  Departure (you may know him from Top Chef) is getting into some brunch mischief with a pop-up brunch feature this Easter. Personally, I love brunch. There is something about the perfect mix of sweet and savory breakfast food paried with a breakfast cocktail all while fully rested. My love of brunch is one of the many reasons why we decided our recent Portland Bloggers meet-up was going to be a brunch potluck. One of the other reasons is that brunch is perfect for a potluck.

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

 

Brunch Potluck Food

 

There was such a great variety of foods and treats. I love brunch foods for potlucks because they can be savory or sweet. Great brunch potluck foods include mini bagels with cream cheese, quiches, muffins, waffle bites, deviled eggs… the list goes on and on! And for this particular brunch, because we hosted the party near Valentine’s Day, there were a lot of sweet treats on top of the great brunch foods.

 

Brunch Potluck Beverages

 

One of my favorite parts of any party is the beverage choices. Because we were having a brunch, we felt mimosas were a must! Santa Margherita wines sent us some of their Prosecco to try out. The crisp Santa Margherita Prosecco was stationed in a ice bucket ready to pair with either orange juice, peach puree, or strawberry puree. My favorite pairing was with the peach puree because the lightly tart taste of the Prosecco brought out the bright and juicy flavors of the peach. We also had plenty of sparkling water to pair with the juices to round out our beverage selection.

 

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

 

Beautiful and EASY Party Decor

 

We decorated the meeting space using Minted’s Party Suites. Seriously, such an easy and beautiful solution to party decor. You simply pick your suite, customize and purchase and then a neat little party package comes to your door complete with custom items, paper straws, plates, and napkins! We chose the Valentine’s Ombre Love Party Decor in the Perfect Party package. The mini note cards made for perfect labels for the food for the potluck. The banner is such great quality of paper that I’ll be keeping it to use over and over again at upcoming Portland Blogger meet-ups.

 

Simple and beautiful party decor compliments of Minted

Simple and beautiful party decor compliments of Minted

Simple and beautiful party decor compliments of Minted

 

What makes potlucks so great?

 

I go on and on about potlucks like they are the butter to my bread… but, heres the thing, hosting parties can be quite expensive. Going out to eat and be expensive. Heck, even a drink or two at a bar can break the bank at times. Hosting events potluck style gives everyone the opportunity to gather together to enjoy a meal while not sticking one person with the check. I love the laid back feel of potlucks. I enjoy getting to try the items that other people bring. To be perfectly honest, in the end, I love not paying for everything. Cheers to whoever invented the very first potluck—those cavemen and women who all came to the table with something to share. Cheers also to the awesome guests that came to this potluck. They brought their A-game in the food and networking departments!

 

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

Portland Bloggers Valentine's meet-up with sponsored decor by Minted and beverages from Santa Margherita

My weekend began on Thursday with a lovely Valentine’s Day! I mean… it was the BEST. My little guy and I hung out during the morning hours and met my husband for a delicious Japanese lunch at Koji Osakaya in downtown Portland. We love this restaurant for its authentic cuisine and great service. The little guy even managed to work his chopsticks a bit! While my husband went back to work the little one and I hit Playdate PDX for some good ole fashion playtime. I was certain that after 3 hours of playing hard on the Playdate PDX indoor playground X would go to bed early in the evening. But, alas…. he was not giving in! I made a steak for dinner and topped it with a spicy cherry salsa. SO GOOD. And, finally, the night ended off with a nice hot bubble bath with a glass of wine. It was the best Valentine’s Day I’ve had in a long, long time. What did you do for Valentine’s Day?
Lately I’ve been trying to make a point out of hanging out with just the ladies at least once a month. Friday night the hubby watched the kiddo while I went out to paint the town red with a few ladies. The night was an evening filled with delicious Paddy’s lemon drops, an amazing steak sandwich from the Realto, and a lot of laughs. The pictures above are at the end of the night when we started getting silly with our iPhone cameras. Jenn, of Pfaus Photography snapped the beautifully lit shot of us ladies being ridiculous with her iPhone… check her out on Instagram!
After such a busy couple of days we decided to hang out at home and be a little lazy. We played outside in our pjs, enjoyed homemade cauliflower-crust pizza, and chilled on the couch. I did get some new sketchs done and they’ll be heading to my Etsy shop soon!
What did you do this weekend?
* This is a for-profit blog that accepts sponsorship in many forms…. however, none of the companies mentioned on this page are sponsors of A Well Crafted Party. I really did go to these places! No product/money was given in exchange for this post. 

Happy Valentine’s Day!!! I love today. As a Valentine’s Day treat I am sharing a {Real Party} feature. I think real parties are always my favorite posts. I like to see how everyday people do parties and what the parties ACTUALLY look like in process. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

This past weekend a few of us ladies got together for a fun Ladies’ Night. (Galentine’s Day anyone?) It was hosted at the beautiful home of Suzannah from Create-Enjoy. Seriously, her place is so nice that we barely needed to decorate at all! I wanted to steer away from using too much pink at this party…not because I don’t love pink, but because I’ve used it SO much over the years. I wanted something that made me think coziness and winter. We went with a beautiful red, black, white, and grey plaid for the base of our decor. From there we added in some pink and red heart confetti, red flowers, and warm and fuzzy decor items