This last week my husband turned the BIG 4-0. I wanted to through a party that really reflected him.  Nothing fancy or over the top…. just a simple gathering of some of the things that my husband has come to enjoy.

…food

…wine

…close friends

Naturally a Wine and Cheese tasting party….  but every time I mentioned it to someone the response was always, “ooh, fancy!”

Ummm, yeah, my husband is not fancy.  So my challenge was to rugged this party up!

(to rugged something up it is to make something more manly)

What is more manly then natural unrefined unpolished rock.   I went shopping at one of my favorite places, the landscape store.  A place where they sell all kinds of outdoor material for your yard. I searched through all the different types of flag stone and found a few beauties.  I bought 4 of them.  One for each of the 3 wines I served and one to display and serve the much coveted Smoked Salmon.

Another way to make this party a little less fancy was to wrap the bottles with black card stock.  Then using chalk I labeled the wine and the cheese varieties.  Dress makers chalk worked great, it was much smaller and finer than regular chalk.

Wooden bowls and Terra Cotta pots made great dishes for bread and crackers.  There are so many different sizes of pots, I used small ones for the capers that were served with the Smoked Salmon and larger ones for the bread.

Some really great things about using the rock was that one, they were super cheap thrifty.  All 4 rocks cost $29.00.  And two, I can use them around my house and garden now that the party is over!  Look what I did with the this one.

My Cherry Red kitchen table and the rock complimant each other. 

 And this one! Serving my coffee from a rock really ‘gounds’ me each morning! (hahaha)

Here is one more so you can get an idea of how un-fancy and manly the party was.  Happy 40th birthday to my wonderful hard-working husband!