Kind ladies and gents! Can you help me?

Because various friends are leaving the city in January, I've decided to host a small (6 people) dinner party at my apartment. I have had successful parties of many kinds, but never a proper dinner party, because I've never had a place with a proper table and room for everyone. Now I do!

The menu is set (sort of -- see below), I know what I'll wear, and I know what the room will even *smell* like -- but what will it look like?! The theme is sort of a warm tropical asian thing, trying to conjure up where we'd all rather be in December, but not in a "let's-all-wear-mumus" way. Nothing remotely X-masy (I'm Jewish).

Here's what we'll be eating/drinking:
*lychee martinis
*and/or blood orange martinis (if I can *find* blood orange vodka or blood oranges, can't remember if they're in season)
*Edamame (soy beans still in pod, delish) with sea salt and maybe sesame oil
(http://japanesefood.about.com/library/recipe/bledamame.htm)
*carrot ginger puree (Joy of Cooking)
*another main dish?
*cabbage rolls stuffed with salmon and wild rice (still hedging on this one, other main dish suggestions?) (Joy of Cooking)
*Mango Yogurt Ice (If I have room in my feeezer!)(from a book called Gluten-Free Cooking)
*and/or Tremblique, which is coconut milk pudding, garnished with papaya, lychee, or whatever I can find (also from Joy)

My apartment is fairly boring looking, sparse, with lots of white walls. I really want to convey a warm, cozy feeling. My thinking is: lights off, lots of candles and flowers, but.... how? what? colours? anything clever that I can do with these things? any cool lighting things i could do to set a mood would be much appreciated.

i own lots of cool fabric, much of it in scrap form, marbles, glitter, tons of paper and collage making supplies.

any ideas, you fabulously talented people?

-Bess

I forgot to mention that we're having baked wontons! Sorry, I just had to say that.

Taking a cue from your menu - how about an arrangement of tropical fruits along the center of your table? A couple of pineapples, mangoes, coconuts, those little red bananas - sort of a horn of plenty without the horn. You could fill in/dress up with some tropical greenery - real or silk, depending on your resources, and put candles or tiny vases with one or two tropical flowers in among them. All of the beautiful fruits could be eaten later - no waste! I often make an arrangement of fruits or baby vegetables with flowers in a basket or on a tray - my table is not large and I like to be able to remove the centerpiece to the sideboard when I serve the main course.

Have to say that I've been to a few dinner parties, but never with such a an exotic and fabulous menu!!!! Your friends are lucky people! Oh, and the horn of plenty idea sounds brilliant as well! All I can contribute with is that cutting off flower heads (red gerberas are good) and have them floating in bowls always look nice. Am sure there's a good website out there with decorating-themes for dinner parties tho..

I agree with the suggestions already given!! What a fun idea!! I think your decorating scheme should include a lot of red and orange. The candles could be red, orange and white. Paper lanterns would be nice. Floating flower/candle arrangements are a good idea. Sorry, can't think of anymore ideas right now....but I'll try to think of some.

Peace,
Jenn

Red and orange also came to my mind for a colour scheme...right now I am crazy for these little mini light covers:>http://www25.brinkster.com/waldentoons/origami/water.htm
If you used red and orange paper and hung a couple of strings, it would add a fabulous glow to your room!!
What about melon balls soaked in mandarin and/or vanilla vodka, served in the hollowed out honeydew melon with funky toothpicks (umbrellas, flowers, etc.)to pluck them out with. These have always been a huge hit at our parties...be sure to greet your guests with melon balls in hand!
You could also hollow out a pineapple and put coconut shrimp inside.
Oooh...can I come for dinner? ;)

Great ideas, people! Thank you! Keep 'em coming!

Re the minilight covers -- I love this idea, but suck at interpreting diagrams. While the pattern mentioned above looks easy enough, I'm wondering if anyone has a diagram for super-easy, ultra-beginner origami mini-light covers, or even ideas on mini light covers that don't involve origami.

Thanks!!

Bess

Here's something easy for your lights, but a tad time consuming. Get yourself some vellum paper, and come up with some sort of image. I've used clipart stars or moons in the past, something easy with not a whole long of detail.

Enlarge it to the size you want and trace or print it on the vellum.

Cut out all of the pieces and paper clip two together.

Using your sewing machine or a needle and thread (I've used one strand of gold embroidery thread on the white vellum stars and it looks fabulous!) and sew around the outside edge. Can whip stitch it or just make simple straight stitches.

Just make sure to leave an opening at one end so you can slip it over the little light bulb. It's really easy and looks pretty cool.

If youre impatient, can probably skip the sewing/stitching and use glue.

ETA: Oh, I've always wanted to try these too. Martha made candles out of lemons - that'd work with your theme:
>http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=channel1397&catid=cat271

And these are really cool, if you have a lot of cool scrapbook/collage paper lying around. Pinwheels are festive and fun and funky.
>http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=channel1154&catid=cat268

i saw these candles where you carved out half of a melon, lemon etc. and put the candle in and stuck cloves along the outside. heres the link: (click on bright ideas) http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/2003/1109/

sorta tacky (especially considering your classy menu), but pretty fun idea for place cards:

put down a shallow dish or some kind of waterproof fabric by each person's plate. fill it with a small mound of sand. scatter some seashells, and stick in one of those mini paper parasols. you could even embed a tealight in the sand. write the person's name on a mini banner and attach it to the parasol toothpick (or place it on a separate one). so each person has a mini beach at their spot. the tealight might even make the parasol sort of glowy.

another idea with the mini parasols is to create a simple mobile with them by attaching different lengths of fishing wire to each toothpick, affixing them to the ceiling over the table, opening the umbrellas and having them suspended over the table. you could add some beads to the wire if you felt like getting fancy.

a really simple light covering is actually egg shells. drain the eggs as you would when making easter eggs (i've never done this but i'm sure you could figure it out) and gently push coloured xmas lights into small holes in their base. they look really warm and sort of spacey. not christmassy at all....

I would have to agree with other people here..Go with warm colors..reds, oranges, maybe some yellows..that not only will go with the theme, but create a warm feeling in the room. You could also try getting a red or orange table cloth to go with, maybe make some napkin rings, definately lots of candles. An idea for the centerpiece-the large, thick pillar candles to center it..maybe three different heights..and surround them with the already mentioned fruits/flowers. If you have any kind of shelves or windows with curtain rods, try draping them in light meshy cloth or sheets of the same colors. Possibly add some greens in with the color scheme to go along with the green that may be in any fruits/flowers on the table.

Hilltop, I love the sugar cube candle holders on that site as well...neat idea!

You could slice some blood oranges really thin and place them on each plate, the place a clear glass plate on top of each one. I have no other idea's right now, because my mond is full of idea's for my own party and it's like the opposite of yours. lots of people, all h'orderves, ver x-masy. Sorry. My brain only owrk on one problem at a time, but you might try looking up idea's froma show called you're invited it's on the style network. I'm not sure if the web page gives out the ideas used on the show or not, but it's worth a shot.