a valentine's day themed "favorite things party."

*Note: I'm just going to apologize for the number of pictures beforehand.  Sorry!

I love parties.  You know that emoji with the two heart eyes?  That's how much I love planning parties, hosting parties, and going to parties!

My friend, Lauren, and I have been wanting to throw a "favorite things party" and invite a bunch of our friends, and with Valentine's Day coming up, we knew it'd be the perfect opportunity.

Here's how our "favorite things party" worked:  

1)  Everyone picked something that they love that cost between $1-$5 and they brought three of that item.    

2)  Upon arrival, everyone wrote their name on three slips of paper.

3)  When the time came, we went around in a circle and showed everyone our item, described why it's our favorite, and drew three slips of paper.

4)  The people whose names were read got to go home with that item.

Basically, you bring three of the same item and go home with three different items!

After deciding on a date, I began scouring the internet for some party inspiration and decided to base the feel of our party around this cute invite from Tiny Prints.  The mix of bright and light pink and the cute striped pattern on the back caught my attention, and wanted to incorporate them into the party somehow.  I customized the invite so that instead of adding photos to the card, I added different squares of pink that we used for a game.

Here's how our "favorite things" game worked:

1)  Since there were four empty pink squares, we asked four random questions.

(Favorite actor or actress, favorite movie, favorite vacation spot, and favorite jellybean flavor.)

2)  Everyone filled out their card without showing their neighbors.

3)  I collected the cards and read something off of a card.

4)  Everyone had to pick three people from the group who it could be.

("This person's favorite spot they've vacationed is...Paris.")

5)  I'd throw a small treat to everyone who guessed the right person.

It was so much fun to get to know other people's favorite things!

I'll admit... my favorite thing about parties (besides friends) has to be the food!  Nothing beats enjoying some treats and chatting with some of your favorite people. :)  I definitely begged my awesome friend to make her fabulous White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (you can find the recipe here!).

I also customized these address labels from Tiny Prints to make a "thank you" tag for little gift bags.  To be completely honest, I had a lot of fun looking through all of the different fonts and came up with quite a few variations that I loved.

I'm already itching for another "favorite things party" and it hasn't even been a full 3 days since this one!  I just love hearing about new products that people adore, and I love getting to know new things about friends. :)

invitations (used as a game):  Tiny Prints c/o

address labels (used as a "thank you"):  Tiny Prints c/o

black & white striped table runner:  Floratouch

pink chevron paper straws:  SweetCarnival

white & black polka dot paper straws:  PetuniaCrafts

white platter:  World Market

red cake stand:  World Market

pink cake stand:  Michaels - painted it pink myself