Favorite Things Party + Giveaway

My friend Dani and I hosted a Favorite Things party last month. It was a lot of fun, both to plan and to participate in. Can you guess what my favorite thing was (our budget was $10 per gift)? I'll tell you at the end of this post, I promise, but do feel like most people that know me well will be able to figure it out. Hint: it's from a beauty aisle, the one where you get stuff for your hair.

Dani and I wanted to go with neutral colors and some metalics for the decorations and supplies. I threw some cute tags together and copied a cute gift bag that we saw at Target by sticking gold labels onto plain burlap bags from Michael's (the bags at Target were $3 each, which is fine if you're purchasing one bag, but definitely not when you need ten. The bags I made were under $1 each and were, if you ask me, pretty darn cute). We also put together some small gifts for our guests (CD's of our favorite jams, lip balms wrapped like candy, chocolates, and pen/notecard sets). Everything turned out really well.

For food, we did a soup and salad sort of thing. We had white chili, spinach salad, some appetizers, and a few yummy treats (chocolate chip cookies and salted caramel brownies, anyone?).

Each guest brought four of one of her favorite things to give out and in return received favorites from four other ladies. I loved everything that I received, which is probably because it was all beauty-aisle related. I received nail polishes, hair products, a brush, lip gloss, lotions, and face wipes. I had fun seeing what everyone else opened, too. There was a lot of good stuff up for grabs at our party and the selfish part of me was a little disappointed that I didn't get one of everything. The good news is that I kept a mental note of the things that were interesting to me so that when I go shopping, I can pick them up for myself. Our guests definitely brought, and went home with, some cool favorite things.

My only regret is that I didn't take any photos of people. I only had my camera out before the party. Once it started, I forgot to pick it back up again, which is pretty typical of me when I'm in party mode. I guess I will just have to host another favorites party so that I can take photos of the women that I love.

I gave two of my can't-live-without hair products as my favorite thing:

Batiste Dry Shampoo and Garnier Beach Chic are two things that I don't want to live without. I love them both because they help me keep my hair routine simple (and because they aren't $30 a bottle). 

Have you ever tried either of them? Would you like to? If so, go ahead and keep reading...

I am excited to announce that I am doing a giveaway. One winner will receive both of my favorite things, along with a copy of the CD we gave out at the party and some of the other little prizes that we included in our guests' gift bags. I'm so excited!

To enter, comment on this post. Tell me what your favorite thing would be if you were invited to a Favorite Things party (it doesn't have to be a beauty product- food, drinks, accessories, kitchen items, and pretty much anything that you love is fair game). For an extra entry, share a link to this post on Facebook (leave a second comment if you do). I'll announce the winner one week from today! Good luck and much love!