Murder Mystery Party: At the Vineyard

February is such a good month for an indoor murder mystery party!  I was able to find a time for the Sandbergs & Olmsteds to come over and party!

The setting was a Napa Valley Vineyard, with Italian ties!  So, for our main course, I made up baked Ziti (one of Billy's favorites.)  I ended up making a second casserole, because I definitely overbought!

I don't make this super often, because it is not my favorite, and because Billy likes the sticky noodles lain out in neat little rows, which is very time consuming.  I've tried the dump method, and he didn't care for it as much, so rows it is!

My mom scored 3 dozen or so wine glasses from the free bins at MSU. I only needed 12 for the party, so when it was time to decorate, I pulled out some 'vineyard' looking decor, and used the extra glasses as accent pieces!  Taking inspiration from the audio cookbook that I listened to a year or so ago, I went outside to see what I could pull from nature to add in.  The dry, decorative grass in our flowerbed was perfect!

I painted some cardboard to make signs, and finally got to display my wine bottle basket!!!  The flowers were an impulse buy.  They were dead looking and sad in the Kroger clearance bucket, but with a little love and water, they were beautiful for the party!

Grace helped me cut some blooms to add to our nametags.

Wine corks are few and far between these days, most of the wines we buy have the screw top, but we still had a small stash from years past that I was able to pull out to add to the effect.

Winking Owl no longer uses corks, so this will totally be vintage in 25 years! 

I made a glass storage box to keep these in my sister's basement for future parties.  I am super impressed that my mom was able to snag all of these for free!

I'm starting to think that Grace loves to party as much as I do!  She wanted to help with decorations, so she made some favors for our guests to take home!  She worked hard to make the notes look 'old.' = )

Next time I will split the cheese/crackers, olive, and grapes onto two boards, because it was tough to get the tasty treats at the other end of the table!

Aldi let me down on the Napa wines front, so I ended up with a generic "California" blend.

I borrowed William's Christmas gift to play the cassette.  Grace tried to help set it up, but this antiquated technology is difficult!

I boiled water and used our fancy flower mold to make ice cubes, but they still had white in the middle. = (  They were an improvement over our regular ice cubes though!

Our party crowd!  David was the new owner of the vineyard, Ralph Rottingrape, Kristy owned the vineyard next door, Hedy Shablee, Kim was the wife of Ralph, Tiny Bubbles, Mark was a German wine merchant, Otto von Schnapps, Billy was an old vineyard hand, Papa Vito, and I was the local successful movie star come home, Marilyn Merlot!

We had a great time, and since I didn't give this game to anyone I know, the murder was Billy!  I got it right, but I feel like I always think it's Billy.  I need to tally up how many times he's been the murder, because I'm pretty sure it's a handful at this point!

We finished in record time, and decided to play a second game!  Billy bought me the Hunt A Killer: A Wealth of Murder for Valentine's day.  It was labeled "hard" and they didn't lie!!!  We solved all the mini puzzles, but were worn out by the end, and ended up just guessing at the murderer with minimal evidence, getting it totally wrong.  Oh well.  It was still fun!

Looking at every piece of evidence, using technology!  This was the bottom of a pill bottle, but was not a clue, just part of the manufacturing process, I guess.

It was a really great night, and I'm always so thankful for the time and energy people put into their costumes, and solving all of these murders, that Billy loves to commit! ; )

later days 

edit 4-2-25: backdated for continuity

Murder Mystery: A Murder on the Grill

 At the end of last school year, Tabitha and I made plans to co-host a murder mystery party at her house!

I collected things for a few months, and when we went to set up, I was pleased with how well it turned out, since it didn't feel like much!

Michael manned the grill for us, cranking out burgers and hot dogs (and asparagus!)  Kristy brought some cornbread and streusel muffins, with some candy corn mixture, that I did not try.  I brought corn on the cob, buns, chips, and some condiments. It was quite a feast! Once the flies found us, we had to cover the food. 

These cool sunglasses that I had, acted like a real time filter!

It was a laid back affair, Tabitha invited some non-playing detectives, so everyone got to make some guesses!  As a side note, I totally stole some of these pictures from her facebook page, so I can only claim some of them as my own. = )

Tabitha was the lovely Ms. Kansas, Michael a rebellious mechanic.

David was an en vouge musician, while Kristy was the darling kid sister of the deceased.

Billy was a Russian scientist who defected (to Kansas?), and I was a divorcee with money. (and cool glasses)

Some of the bonus detectives!

These ladies had speaking parts, but were not suspects.  

Who dunnit?

It was Tabitha!  Or Tabitha's twin maybe?  lol.  

It was a really fun time, and I'm so glad that we got to pretend to time travel back to 1950s Kansas!  We ate, we laughed, we acted sus, and the weather was perfect for it!

Can't wait til the murderer strikes again! ; )

later days

As a side note, I bought a dress just for this event, 6 weeks in advance, and it took forever to arrive (I didn't realize it was coming from China.)  The reviews recommended ordering up a size, so I did, and it was too big. = (  I was so sad, and there was no time to order another one.  I attempted some simple alterations, but the fit was wrong, so it just didn't look good. 

I ended up in my fallout costume again, so Grace assumed we were going to another fallout party! lol.

Murder Mystery: Ski Lodge, year 6

This year, our murder mystery party was set in a ski lodge!

For the past year I've been collecting all things "lodge" including skis, flannel, and every now and again a tapestry:

After our garage sale, Emily came with me to buy some chairs and a settee from the church rummage sale in downtown.  I couldn't help myself and had to see what it would look like!  So we pulled all the chairs from the shed to stage the space!

That evening, we went searching for side tables, that my neighbors had out curbside, for free.  We scored another coffee table, and some planters, and a cool clock shelf, and even one more chair, that didn't even need a cover!  But failed to find any more side tables.

Emily helped me put down some 'natural' bug repellent: cinnamon, lemon juice, and a few other recommendations from online.  We stacked and covered all the furniture in the carport and covered it with tarps and more cinnamon.

During the week leading up to the party, Emily was with her BFF, but Grace helped me make the fake rocks for the chimney.

We started with hundreds of medicine inserts.

We squished them into balls, and brought them out to the carport.

Then we painted them "rock colors" using spray paint that I'd collected during the year.

Once they were dry, we used a TV box that Kristy gave me, and cut it into a fireplace shape.  Then glued them down with glue adhesive, along side other papers we'd collected and wadded into rock shapes on the cardboard.

Turns out the adhesive was worthless. It felt really sticky to our fingers, but wouldn't hold the rocks in place worth anything, so we ended up using copious amounts of tape to get the fireplace to stay put.

Inside, I was making the roast beef for the cold sandwiches on the menu the next day.

The leather of some of the chairs that my mom and I found for free did not smell great, so when she found some spray, as some point in the year, she bought it!  It did improve the smell, which was good, since we weren't able to cover the entire chair, just the seat.

We got all the seats and tables in place, making sure that everyone could reach a table to set their drinks down.

The overnight rain stayed away, thankfully, so everything stayed dry and legible for the party.

Sadly, the fireplace fell in the night, but only so far as the moose head, so we ended up back out in the carport with the ladder, and more tape!

One more picture with all the covers on, and candles and pillows in place!

Party time came on super fast, but everyone looked great!  Matt was the owner of a ski shop, Deb was a police doctor, Scott was in charge of a local government lab, Billy was a private detective, Emily was his daughter, training to be a private detective, I was a flight attendant, Jessica was a bohemian who floated between ski resorts, and Jared was Scott's body guard!

Deb with all of 'her' bottles. lol.

I'll reveal the murder in another post, at the beginning of July.  It was a fun time with lots of laughter and accusations!  Only one person correctly guessed the identity of this years' murderer!  I don't want to post too many details, because of spoilers, but just know it was really fun!

Emily said she had fun, but next year would prefer to spend the evening in the company of her BFF instead of in the cast of the party.  She worked super hard helping me set up everything for the party!  I think she was over it by the time we finished the party though. ; )

I'm so thankful to all of our friends who come and play each year!  I can't believe we've been at this for six years now!  I don't have next years' theme yet, but I need to decide soon.

At the end of the party everything went out on the curb!  Our guests are awesome and help us move the big things and bring in dishes each year!  It was dark when things went out to the curb, but by the time I went out to start moving things around in the morning, many items had already been claimed!

The super cool stem glasses, that were made to look like antlers(!) that I scored at Jellystone (on clearance) did not get photographed, except for in this picture of them on the curb. lol.  I bought six of them, but one shattered in my hand, causing a fair amount of bleeding and a delay I didn't need, as I was drying it before the party, so we only had 5 to use on party day. = (

Three of the chairs (all free) are heading for the dump, as well as two pairs of the skis, but all the rest was claimed by passersby, or fit into a single donation box!

Another year of murder and fun!  I can't wait to do it again next year.

later days

link to the murderer reveal here.

edit 7-20-24: backdated for continuity.