Last Friday night, I went to a Favorite Things party that my friend Jen hosts every year. The idea is that everyone brings three of their “favorite thing” that costs roughly $10 – $20.00 each. Then, we do an exchange of sorts (while also drinking wine and catching up with girlfriends) and everyone goes home with three fun, new items.
I shared the photo below — of the three Emily Ley At-A-Glance planners + stickers that I took (because, of course I did) — on social media last weekend, and I got several questions about how the party worked, so I thought I’d do a quick write-up about it here in case anyone else wants to try it out. It would be SUCH a fun party to throw for girlfriends around Valentine’s Day, but it works any time, and I highly recommend it for a great girls night in!
Really, it’s all super simple. Jen sent an invite to 25+ friends about a month in advance telling us to bring three of the same item – our “favorite thing.” We were to spend $15 – $20 on each item and bring them unwrapped.
Then, on the night of the party, she had her dining room table cleared with room for each person to display her items. (I think it would be fun to cover your table with brown kraft paper and let everyone do a little write-up of their item too — but that’s just me!)
Once all the guests had arrived and enjoyed some socializing and eating/drinking, Jen had everyone go around and introduce themselves + tell what item they brought and why. I actually really liked this part because – even though I wouldn’t get to try everything that night, I still learned about all 25 things. Then, everyone drew a little colored piece of paper from a jar. There were three colors total, and the color you drew determined in what order you would get to “shop” the Favorite Things table. So, everyone that drew a blue square shopped first – for ONE item; then everyone that drew a red square shopped for one item; and, finally, everyone that drew a yellow square shopped for one item. We repeated this process for three rounds. *Jen used a different jar of different colored papers for each round; but, you could keep it super simple and just switch up the order that each colored group gets to shop for each round. (Blue goes first one round, red goes first the next, and yellow the third.)
In the end, everyone enjoyed a night out with friends and came home with three fun new items to try! (I got mascara & lipgloss, a candle, and a new novel, in case you were wondering.)
As a variation on this, you could invite a smaller group of girls (say, 5 of your BFFs) and ask everyone to bring 5 gifts. Then everyone goes home with everything and there’s no need for any “shopping.” Jen did this one year and had cute little bags with each of our names on it for us to take our things home in – a nice touch.
Also, the budget is totally flexible. Three $15 – $20 items made the quality of things brought a little nicer, obviously; but, there are plenty of great things you could buy for under $10 or eve $5 if you wanted to keep it more low key. (See my list of favorite things under $10.00 below for ideas.)
If you’ve been to a party like this, or hosted one, I’d love to know how it worked for you!!!
And… Just for fun, here are 10 of my favorite items that are UNDER $10 and would be perfect for something like this:
- My favorite pens
- Sideways large initial necklace (I wear mine all the time!)
- Essie Petal Pushers nail polish
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
- Voluspa Petite Candle
- Acrylic Drop Earrings
- Anthropologie Monogram Mugs
- Spiral Hair Ties
- Rifle Paper Company Pocket Notebooks
- Pores Be Pure Skin-Clarifying Mask
What’s your favorite thing under $10 these days?
Have a great weekend!
E