Baseball season is in full swing (here I go again with the baseball puns)! Continuing with our ball park theme this week, we're showing you four grand slam decor ideas for the perfect opening day celebration in today's blog post.

Every great party starts with the food table. Catch My Party shows us a great way to display appetizers (click to see our baseball themed appetizers from yesterday's recipe post) on a food stand with baseballs filling the bottom tier while Project Nursery gives some great suggestions for centerpieces using clear vases, baseballs, and the staple of every baseball stadium - peanuts!

4" Glass Cube Table Centerpiece Vase	23 Cupcake or Dessert Cup Tower Stand	18 oz HEAVY Plastic Pilsner Beer Glasses	Red Foil Swirls Cupcake Wraps

While the game is playing in the background, your Superbowl snacks should be at the forefront in style! Your crowd will go wild with this game-changing Smartyware! You don't need to know the players' names to impress all those football fans. All you need is a Super(bowl) Smarty Set-Up! Lucky you, I've got the steps right here:

1. Cover the table with a grass Green Tablecloth to mimic the football field.
2. Cut white ribbon the size of your table (the short-way).
3. Lay ribbon flat across the table about every 12 inches. These are your yard lines. Start by leaving 12 inches at the center of the table and work your way out.
4. Place two boxes at the center back of your table.
5. Cover these boxes using two Green Cloth Napkins that match the tablecloth.
6. Lay Schoolbus Yellow Cocktail Napkins across the covered boxes. Place so that corner of napkin touches the box's edge. Each napkin should overlap the corner of the next napkin.
7. Fill Clear Mini Ball Chair Bowls with almonds or any type of nut and then place chair bowls in a zig-zagged line on top of napkins. We fit 9 across.

8. On each side of the boxes, place Beer Glasses filled with beer in a slightly curved forward line.

9. In front of the boxes, put two Mini Sample Cones and Tray, leaving space between them to place a decorative mini football.

10. Fill Mini Bamboo Leaf Cones with french fries and mini plastic cones with ketchup. The bamboo cones should go in the back holes of the tray, the plastic ones in the front. (You will have extra plastic cones, but they can be used for ketchup refills.)

11. Throw a couple pom-poms on the table, one on the outer end of each cone tray.

12. Between the middle ribbon yard lines, place two White Rectangular Wave Trays, one covered with Chipotle Mango Chicken Bites and the other with Saucy Asian Meatballs (both recipes are featured on Smarty's Party Recipe Blog!). YUM!

13. Stick a Bamboo Mini Cocktail Fork in each chicken bite and meatball.

14. On each side of the wavy trays, place Biodegradable Natural Leaf Boats. Put one sub sandwich in each. Stick a Tea Colored Bamboo Knot Pick in each sub.

Say Goodbye to your winter blues: The holidays have whisked on by! Their fleeting frenzy has given way to snow and cold winter days, and we’re left seeking new adventures. Well who said the warmth and exciting parties have to stop? And who says we have to freeze and keep trudging around the icy gloom? We don't! Because I have got just the cure: throw a summer party in the middle of the winter! This will help ease our seasonal depression symptoms (plus it costs a whole lot less than flying out to Miami). It's going to be refreshing. I've already done it, and I'm still benefiting from all the sun I soaked up. I'm pumped with energy and filled with sunshine, and now you can be too! This is how it will all go down:

Ambiance:

• Turn those heaters up!
• Strip down to your bathing suits
• Set up some strong bright lights all over the party room and some mirrors to reflect the bright lights all over the room
• Have all your guests apply suntan lotion when they arrive (that scent will really bring you back to those good ol'e warm beach days)
• Hand out sunglasses to all the guests to wear
• Blast some summer tunes or jam to some on a guitar
• Hang up big bright yellow backdrops to resemble the sun

• Dine in picnic style!
• Spread a summery/beachy tablecloth out on the floor.
• Put down some beach towels to sit on or roll them up and place them in a picnic basket on the side for decor.
• Place the suntan lotion bottles on the tablecloth along with some sunglasses.
• Get some beach pails to hold some party snacks like chips.
• Go to the dollar store to find some more summery or beachy accents (I bought most of this stuff from there or found them around the house).

• Fresh cutup fruit on skewers or on a serving platter.
• Hamburger Sliders
• Chips
• Fries and ketchup
• Spiked Snow Cones (or leave out the alcohol if there will be kids around)

This Willy Wonka inspired theme is definitely for the candy lovers out there! Throw a party like this for your kids and you may just win mom or dad of the year!

This kind of party definitely takes some thought and planning time, but that could be half the fun!

Here are a few place setting ideas based on the movie characters Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, and Violet Beauregarde (don't worry, I can't pronounce it either!): Note: For all characters use fun, colorful plates and flatware.

We love these Smarty plates:

Tropical Pink Plates Square Red Plates

1. Fill a bowl with chocolate pudding and place it on top of a plate
2. Choose any thin chocolate bars or wafers, unwrap them, and put them in the bowl of pudding so that the ends stick out
3. Cover the room on the plate around the bowl with unwrapped chocolates, such as Hershey's Kisses and Rolos
4. Fill the glass next to this plate with chocolate milk

1. Cover the plate with salt
2. Place either a plastic gold egg or chocolate eggs in gold wrappers on top
3. Fill a glass with milk to put by this plate
4. If you want, you can add a mini balance scale with a taped on sign that says "Good/Bad"

1. Put a bowl of blueberries on the plate
2. Cover the area around the bowl with individually wrapped gum
3. Fill the glass next to this plate with multi-colored mini gum balls

1. Place a white pedestal in the center of the table
2. Put a clear plastic bowl packed with candy on top
3. Hang a Willy Wonka colorful hat on one of the pedestal's corners

• Use icing to write the name of the character on a chocolate bar, then put it on the corresponding plate
• Print pictures of Willy Wonka movie scenes and put them in colorful frames on the tables
• Scatter miscellaneous candies by each person's plate