Trail Mix Bar

 

Do you remember the days before Pinterest? Did anyone else have fat file folders filled with pages ripped from magazines? I sure did. (Not surprisingly, they were color coded and alphabetized.)

                Pinterest sure saves me a lot of space in my office, and it saves the day when I need an idea quickly. And I needed an idea quickly a few days ago. Ryan signed up to be in charge of a birthday party for one of his coworkers, and we needed something fun and different to provide for a come-and-go-throughout-the-day sort of celebration.

                I should also mention that the party happened to fall on a week when I was gone three days and evenings in a row, and we were also committed to taking food to three other events. (And we haven’t been to the grocery store in a couple of weeks.)

                Pinterest to the rescue!

                I should have known that a site called A Girl and a Glue Gun would have the perfect solution.

                A build your own trail mix bar.

                Perfection! We went to the store, picked out a whole bunch of fun food – a mix of sweet and savory, of course – and then I shopped the house for bowls and set up the station! Want to see?

                The printable came from the website. She has two different color scheme options and one black and white option. I just printed it out and framed it. I made a little happy birthday sign on Canva and framed it, too. (Both frames were in our stash at home.)

                We picked out some white-chocolate-covered pretzels, a carton of Whoppers, and some popcorn. (Reportedly it was the crowd favorite.)

                Ryan picked out the multi-colored goldfish, bugles, and plain party mix cereal.

                We added some mixed nuts, and then we found this bag of peanut butter cups/pieces – which is really part of the baking aisle, but we thought it would be a great addition to the mix. Threw in some pretzel goldfish, cheese crackers, and cinnamon cereal, too.

                We provided cups and let everyone mix and match to their hearts’ content.

                Ryan also made a batch of caramel surprise brownies (I had a committee meeting and couldn’t bake that night) and did a GREAT job with them.

                I thought the party turned out so cute. I was grateful for the Pinterest inspiration and for Ryan’s help putting it all together!