Posts Tagged "birthday party"
A very merry unbirthday!
I have to admit that I am still in love with my 30th birthday party. Of all the parties I’ve thrown the past few years, this has got to be my best and most favorite [yes, narrowly beating out last year's Ice Cream Social and my 28th Mini Golf Invitational] party to date.
This was a real labor of love. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trolling the Internet looking for the perfect invitations. Since it was my 30th birthday, I figured I mail actual invitations instead of the usual Evite. Originally I had planned on making the invitations myself [see: glutton for punishment] but after searching through countless templates and inspiration pictures, I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. Enter: Etsy. After a quick search, I came across this invitation suite from Aidensmom37 that made my heart stop.
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I had a torrid love affair with these invites, which I had printed through CatPrint [who, by the way was awesome to work with and I HIGHLY recommend using them. I plan on using them for all my future fancy invitation printing needs]. I think they set the mood perfectly for the party.
The vision I had in mind was one of a mismatched tea sets, much like in the animated movie, so I spent several months stalking a few different Goodwill stores looking through their collection of housewares for the perfect teacups and saucers. It took a while to gather all of the settings I would need [and then a backup when I found out my Mom had accidentally broken one of the tea cups...and I was already short at this point with a week to go!] but I actually had fun hunting for them. The original plan was to buy them [I paid no more than $2 for a full set of a cup and saucer] and then donate them back to Goodwill but now that I have them, I plan on keeping them. You never know when you’ll need 20 tea sets again!
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The menu wasn’t typical of an actual tea party, with heavier items since it was a “high tea” and I invited boys. Knowing that tea sandwiches never satisfy MY hunger, I decided to serve something more substantial to appease everyone, especially them. I ended up serving steak & provolone cheese sandwiches, thai turkey sliders, meat pies, and mini quiche along with sweet iced tea.
My dessert table was highlighted with my awesome topsy turvy three-tiered cake [the flavors: the top was s'mores, the second tier was chocolate and the bottom tier was funfetti] and flanked by purple velvet mini cupcakes, banana tartlets and my go-to favorite vanilla bean sugar cookies. With a cake like that, how can you NOT be excited about turning 30? I’ll tell you how: it’s impossible. I was so excited to finally get a professional cake like all those Food Network Challenges I overdosed on for years.
Even though I always get a little nuts for the details, the main point of celebrating my birthday with these crazy parties is too celebrate with friends and family that I love dearly. I always have a good time with my friends and I strive to make sure everyone who attends does so as well. When it comes down to it, even if I had managed to stage a party with the precision of a magazine spread, it wouldn’t matter if my friends didn’t enjoy themselves. But from the looks of these pictures, I’d say this party was a huge success:
I had so much fun with this birthday that I haven’t even thought about what I want to do next year. I’m still enjoying this year [and we all know how quickly I start looking for ideas for the next party]! Thank you to everyone for making this an awesomely amazing birthday.
Note: The really awesome photos are by Abe Arriola. The other not so awesome ones are mine.
Read MoreA sweet beginning to the end of my 20s
Last Saturday I had my “Ice Cream Social” 29th birthday party and I had such a great time. Y’all know how elaborate I tend to get with my birthday parties and this was no exception. I had several different ideas of what I should do however, I had to pare it down a bit while I wasn’t receiving any checks and at first thought I wanted to do a bit of a mini eating world tour, with different food for different countries, like bruschetta, mondu, mini tacos and the like complete with decorations. It sounded awesome in my head but completely daunting to make happen roughly on my own. Then somehow I got in my head that ice cream would be the way to go.
So glad I went with that. I had a blast making all the ice cream [I plan on doing a separate post just on the ice cream and recipes] and now want my own ice cream maker. Everyone had a blast trying all different flavors: Cake Batter, Raspberry Mascarpone, S’mores, Nutella and Candied Bacon [yes, I KNOW!]. The Cake Batter was probably the favorite of the day though Candied Bacon was the dark horse. Several people were skeptical but they were totally on board after trying it. The bacon threw them off and I had to explain a couple of times that the bacon was merely a mix-in and not a flavor.
My mom was a HUGE help too, making the mondu, kimbap and these awesome chicken wings for the party. I rounded out the menu with mini calzones, beef and chicken tacos and pulled pork sliders. And for dessert, cupcake cones!
I was really glad to see everyone who was able to attend and we had a great time stuffing our faces with food and ice cream [and in Pat's case, a face full of cupcake]. It was very casual in comparison to my other parties but that’s probably because it was at home instead of out somewhere else. People were scattered all over the house chatting and relaxing and most importantly, eating. I had so much food that I told everyone their party favors were plates of food. For serious.
So a quick story: I was posing with Pat for a picture to prove that he actually attended a party [he was a pleasant surprise] and for some reason, I pushed my cupcake cone into his face. He’s a weirdly good sport with me and took it in stride only to reveal that he thought about doing the same thing to me. Good thing I beat him to it! So after he cleaned up, we finally took our picture and I made sure to keep my hands empty and where he could see them.
All in all, the party was a total and complete success. I’m already having people asking me what I plan on doing for next year. The expectations are high since it’ll be my 30th birthday and that alone deserves a big blow out. What to do…what to do.
How much do fireworks run?
Read MoreWelcoming the weekend
Dude, it’s Friday. Do you know what that means? Here, let me count it out for you:
1) it’s Friday
2) it’s payday
3) it’s the day before my birthday party
4) it’s now 4 days and a wake up until my birthday
Those make for some pretty convincing arguments, yes? It’s going to be a great day. I can already feel it.
So the little surprised arrived at my door on Tuesday and they look fantastic. I even created a little sticker to put on the back of the ribbons and I’m really excited about the quality of the trophy I ordered.
Yes, you heard me: a trophy.
I go all out for my birthdays. What? Like you didn’t know?
I’ll reveal the deets on the giveaways after the party tomorrow. I’m pretty sure my friends don’t read the blog, but you can never be sure so as to not ruin the surprise I’m shutting up.
But I will say that I wish I were eligible to win the trophy. I’m tempted to throw myself into contention for it but as the host I figure I should leave that to everyone else. I mean, I am getting a couple presents after all.
It’s the least I could do.
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