A Jane Austen Bunco

Once a month I get together with a lovely group of girls and we play bunco together. There are 12 of us and each month we meet at a different person's house. We always have fun theme (well... some of us are more creative than others... but it's always fun).
We've been doing this for about six years now - and I must say it's getting harder and harder to come up with unique themes. Some of my past themes have been - Barnyard Bunco, Pirate Bunco and Mad Hatter Tea Bunco.

This year I finally decided on a Jane Austen themed party. First of all, can I tell you how horrified I am that some people had no idea who Jane Austen IS?? How is that possible? Don't they at least watch movies? Anyway.... it was a little more thrown together than my usual bunco because of my recent move and the fact that I worked the entire weekend before, but I think it still worked out fairly well. 

My mom helped me out and painted Jane Austen book quotes on 12 mugs. We bought a variety of white mugs at the Dollar Tree and she used a Sharpie to write the quote. Then she baked the mugs in 400 degree oven to make the ink permanent. We love how it turned out!

I also made up some cardstock bookmarks with quotes printed on some velum and tied at the top with a pretty ribbon.

Each person got to take a mug and a bookmark home with them. My mom made me up some  fun banners from a thrift store copy of Northanger Abbey.

This one was hanging from my mantle (it got taken down before I got a picture) and has some Austen silhouettes pasted to the pages. Another one was hung in the dining room above the table. I've yet to get any of my artwork unpacked, so it looked good.

And, of course, we had to have tea and I brought out some of my vintage tea cups for the occasion. I also made up some little books from a download I saw at DearLille blog for some little Austen books. I used another thrift store copy of Sense and Sensibility for that project.

I made a couple very yummy quiche for dinner. We had a Spinich Ricotta Quiche and a Ham and Swiss Quiche along with some rolls and corn soup.

Lastly, my amazing mother, made the two of us some Regency era dresses.

All in all, it was a very fun night and I think the theme was a fun one! I gave away some copies of the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice and some Barnes and Noble gift cards for prizes. 

Now... to start thinking of a theme for next year.... =)