Art Of Entertaining with Estancia

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The Art of Entertaining with Estancia

#ArtOfEntertaining #CollectiveBias

There's not much I'm more enthusiastic about than entertaining. I love having people over, cooking delicious food and making a swoon worthy spread. Over the weekend, we had a wine tasting party, complete with pairings and blind tastings.  When we moved to California in 2007, we weren't big wine drinkers. That quickly changed after many Saturdays spent in Napa, tasting all the delicious varieties that the west coast had to offer. We developed a love for California Cabernets, with Estancia being a favorite. Estancia Vineyards started in Monterey, California, where the midday heat, along with morning and afternoon fog, create a perfect grape growing climate.

There is nothing, in my mind, that goes better with wine than cheese. We've been known to have post-bedtime date nights, with just that for dinner! Creating a great cheese spread isn't that difficult. You'll need several varieties of cheese, some labels you can write on and some condiments. Some type of nuts, dried fruit and some prosciutto or smoked sausage is perfect. You'll want make sure there is a variety of soft and hard cheeses. For this party, I used smoked gouda, jarlsberg swiss, blue, cranberry cinnamon goat cheese and a caramel apple brie. I made the brie myself, simply wrapping a wheel of brie up in a piece of puff pastry and baking it. After it was done, I topped it with caramel sauce and diced apple, them stuck it back in the oven for about 5 minutes. It's my absolute favorite! 

There are plenty of options for the actual board you present on. I found this slate cheese board that I love and it's nice because you don't have to worry about it breaking when people hit a knife into it. 

Since it's Valentine's Day this week, I decided we definitely needed to sip some red wine with a heart shaped box of chocolates, right?!

Along with those chocolates, I made chocolate cheesecake bars and they were amazing. (You can find the easy recipe a bit further down in this post!) I also used some crunchy breadsticks and wrapped each one in a thin slice of prosciutto, which pairs well with Pinot Noir. 
When people are drinking a bit of wine, I like to have some bread around. A little bit of good olive oil, with some spices sprinkled in, makes for a simple, yet delicious appetizer for in between tastes.  

Now for a really fun part, blind tasting. I love doing this, especially with people who swear by expensive wine. To see them pick the $10-$15 bottle over the $50 one is so fun. Have some cards available for people to write down their thoughts, put 3-5 bottles in paper bags (making sure no one can see the labels!) and pour everyone a taste. Allow everyone to vote on each bottle and compare the results. You may have a new favorite wine!

Now let's talk about these Chocolate Cheesecake Bars...they're so good and so easy, so you will definitely want to make these. 

They start with a crust layer, made out of cake mix. 

Top that with a cheesecake filling,

Then finish with some more of the crust mix, crumbled on top. Bake, cool, cut and serve. That easy! 

Ingredients:

Crust layer:
1 box chocolate cake mix 
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

Cheesecake layer:
1 8oz package cream cheese
1 Tbsp. milk
1 egg
1 cup sugar

Directions:
Mix crust, reserving 1 cup. Press into 9x13 and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Whip filling until fluffy. Spread onto baked crust and top with reserved crust mixture. Bake for 25 minutes, cooling completely before cutting into squares.

Hopefully these tips will help you host your very own wine tasting party! Whether it's a romantic Valentine's tasting for 2, or a party with lots of your friends, wine tasting is a fun way to inspire, entertain and enjoy time together. 

You can probably tell that my favorite pairing is cabernet with brie cheese or chocolate. What is your favorite wine and food pairing? 

Inspire your table tonight with Estancia! Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook. 

Minecraft Gameband Party!

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All opinions are mine alone. #GameOnTheGo #CollectiveBias

A couple weeks ago, we celebrated the release of the new Minecraft Gameband, a cool way to have a portable Minecraft, with a fun party. 

Before I go telling you how cool that little thing is, check out our Minecraft everything party. I seriously had such a blast prepping for this party. I made sure nothing was crazy difficult. It's so often that you see these elaborate parties that have just taken so much time and effort to put together. But, I'm here to tell you, that you can throw a fabulous party, without losing sleep or getting grey hair. 

The "Creeper Juice" was a big hit. They were just Mountain Dew bottles with the labels peeled off and duct tape added. 

A little bit of a simpler take on the cake pop, is the marshmallow pop. A large marshmallow is dipped in melted candy melts and voila. Way easier than making all those little balls! I used some black candy melts and a toothpick to make even more Creepers come to the party. 
 When I was done with the marshmallow pop dipping, I used the leftover green candy melts to drizzle on cocoa rice krispie treats. These made for perfect little grass blocks. 

Other cool things we had, were TNT bundles out of licorice, "water blocks" out of blue jello and a pile of "diamonds" from the wedding department of a craft store. I found these printables for the food tent card as well as the small wall art. This one is for the cute TNT wrappers. They used them to wrap little poppers, which were really cute!

There wasn't an unhappy person in attendance, from the little ones all the way to the teenagers!

Especially Cooper, since after all, he was the one with the Gameband.

So what is this thing? The Gameband, by Now Computing, is the first ever Minecraft wearable. It's a USB that doubles as a bracelet and watch. It's also features customization and that's Cooper's favorite part. His scrolls across and says "Coop Rocks!" You can have it show images or phrases, then choose how you want it to scroll. Cooper thinks he's definitely the coolest kid on the block with his cool tech bracelet.

The greatest feature, is that the Gameband saves your worlds, changes and all your work and backs it up on its cloud-based servers. It makes it so that you can play on your computer at home, grandma's computer while traveling for the holidays, or dad's computer on a trip to the office. (Or wherever else you happen to play!) Cooper loves that he can use it on his computer, or mine and always have his work saved for him. 

The Gameband is available in sizes small and large, to fit every Minecraft fan. I found mine in the mobile gaming department at Target. If you have questions or feedback about the Gameband, Now Computing are the folks to reach out to. They make the Gameband and are affiliated with Minecraft. 

Think your Minecraft fan will want one under the tree this year? They're a hot item for the holidays, so make sure you call ahead to see if your store has it in stock. Happy diamond mining!

You can find more from Molly on StilettosandDiapers.com

The new way of shopping: #AmazonCart

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias. #cbias

Have y'all heard of the new #AmazonCart collaboration between Amazon and Twitter? In a nutshell, it allows you to reply to any tweet that contains an Amazon link and the product ends up in your cart. Cool, huh? 

Now you may be thinking, why not just go to amazon and shop for what I want? Well, you can. And you, of course, still have that option. But, I love Amazon's flash deals and I'm constantly missing them. (Probably because I'm busy on Twitter.) I love that I can see a tweet, reply with #AmazonCart and the item is ready for purchase. I don't have to go searching for the item, it's already in my cart and all I have to do is checkout! And on top of that, it's just plain fun! 

Honestly, when I tried it for the first time, I was confused. Tried to add a cool phone charger to my cart and ended up with a nice tweet back from Amazon saying my account wasn't set up. This video cleared things right up for me to easily link my accounts and get to shopping! 

Over the past few days, I've bought Rubbermaid containers (huge deal on a flash sale!), baby wipes, socks for the hubs and packaging for my boutique. It's so nice to have the reminder of things you need, while you're on social media.

Here's a look at how it worked for me. 

Isn't that tweet back to you so cool? A little reminder to go buy your goods! 

This was a little different situation. I replied #AmazonCart for a flash deal on a Rubbermaid storage set. Amazon replied back that the item was no longer available, which happens sometimes for flash deals. BUT. When I went to buy the diapers, it was in my cart! Wahoo!!! 

After the tweet, all you have to do is go to Amazon and checkout. Of course, I used my Amazon Prime account! I can literally get things I need delivered to my door before I can schedule in a run to the store. It's amazing. 

You can share on Twitter about your purchases, making it possible for your friends to buy the same things you do. Something you love on an Amazon deal? Tweet the link to share it with your friends! 

There are several Twitter handles you can follow for Amazon, including @amazon, @amazondeals, @amazonfashion and @amazontechdeals. 

Happy Shopping! 

Date Night Makeup Looks on a Mom's Schedule.

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser. #CollectiveBias

Lets talk makeup. 

I typically don't wear much outside of eye makeup, but lately my body has forgotten that I will be 30 this year and I've been breaking out like mad. I'm blaming all my sweaty workouts for this case of teenage insanity.

I definitely needed a fresh makeup look. I started off with Rimmel's new Stay Matte Foundation. I was shocked at how well it covered all my imperfections, but didn't feel caked on at all. I was even more shocked that 8 hours into a 75 degree day later, it was still holding up perfectly! 

Since I'm not the best at pairing eyeshadow colors to create a perfect look, I always get a trio of colors. I just love this one by Rimmel called Summer Chic. 

First, I swipe bottom half of the upper lid with the brown on the right. Next, it's the darker grey-ish color on the bottom of the case in the crease, followed by the light shimmer under my brows. I usually skip the eyeshadow step on a daily basis, so I love the look when I take the extra minute to get glam eyes. I do always wear a dark eye liner on the top and bottom lids. 

I love a good bronzer and am a big believer in it. It can completely change the look of your face and give you a nice summer glow. The Stay Matte Foundation really held my bronzer in place all day.
Last step in the perfect quick date night look is mascara. I am quite the mascara junkie and have a little collection. The perfect mascara leaves thick, long lashes without clumpiness. I used Scandaleyes Retro Glam Mascara to create that look quickly!

A little pink lipstick and this girl is ready for date night! 

Check out all the other amazing Rimmel products on your next trip to Walmart!

Does you need a little #BeautyInspiration? Rimmel is giving away 25 $50 gift baskets full of Rimmel products! Simply enter using the rafflecopter widget below! Also, April 2014 is Rimmel's 180 year anniversary, so to celebrate, there will be a $1 off coupon in this Sunday's newspaper for both the Stay Matte Foundation and Scaldaleyes Retro Glam Mascara I used!

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NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. The Coty® Rimmel® Giveaway starts at 4/2/14 at 12:00 A.M. (midnight) ET and ends on 4/25/14 at 11:59:59 PM ET. Open only to (i) members of the Social Fabric community, (ii) legal residents of the fifty (50) United States, the District of Columbia, and (iii) who are at least 18 years old at the time of entry. Click here for Official Rules and details including how to enter, entry criteria, prizes and restrictions, etc. Void in PR and where prohibited. Sponsor: Collective Bias, Inc.