One of my closest friends celebrated her 30th birthday last week, and I couldn’t let this golden time pass without throwing her a little bash. I always LOVE to do surprises, but for some reason, I just didn’t feel I had it in me to be that stressed. I was already holding this party the day after throwing my daughters 7th Ice Cream party, so I thought I’d just let my friend Shelley know I wanted to do it, and all she had to do was tell me a handful of friends she wanted to have there, and arrive in party mode that night. I also told her that I’d love her to wear the floral crown I used to celebrate my birthday last summer, because I think every party girl needs a crown. And every party needs a cake, and I LOVED this cake my new cake lady, Amie’s Edibles, made.
My plan all along was to have the dinner table set up in my backyard. I was so excited about the strung lights, but it was raining like crazy the days before, that morning, and off and on that night. Boo hoo. My husband helped me put together the fence post table top, of which I took lots of pictures and will hopefully share soon. We basically pushed together our kitchen table with a folding table we have of similar size, and put the table top on TOP for a nice rustic feel. I wish I had enough matching chairs, but oh well, I guess I’m not a party venue full time. You can see the green plank wall in my kitchen, I had to edit out the eyesore of the orange colander light fixture though, hurt my eyes too much, I couldn’t get it out of the way much.
Earlier in the day, my in laws arrived, and they were a great work force along with my husband, to help me crank out the decorations in a small 2 hour window that I had. I was collecting elements for the set up the previous week (along with ice cream decorations) and just had it in a pile in my home. I was gone most of the day at a church youth conference, and then getting my daughters ear pierced, so had just that amount of time to set up.
Besides the table top and cake, I got a bunch of paper products in gold and cream, with square scrapbook paper as a placemat. I got some peach fabric at Wal-Mart to run down the center, and fresh cream roses (2 dozen total) to run along the middle in mason jars that I got at Michael’s pre decorated with cream lace/burlap. I could have done that myself, but remember the stress of 2 parties 2 days in a row? Yeah, I opted out of that option. I don’t know about you guys, but when I decorate for parties, I buy a TON of stuff, keep my reciepts in a VERY safe spot, and return more than half after I figure out what I want, which isn’t usually until I’m setting up.
Here is a bit of a view from the top
I had my designer whip up some water bottle labels with the theme in mind
If you’d like to download these labels, you can grab them here:Â Blush Birthday – Water
I also was able to gift the attendee’s with some Tom’s of Maine Lip Gloss. I’ve worked with them this year, and had some contacts, and they sent these to me for my guests. It was fun to give a little shimmer to everyone.
Lastly, I gifted every attendee a mini succulent in a jar. I have recently felt a deep love for the adorable succulents, and I found the mini version at Wal-Mart for $2.50 each, so I got those and some jelly jars and extra soil, and my assistants helped me put those together.
I had some discussion questions typed up, and all of the guests sat in a circle to really get to know each other with sharing thoughts on these questions. It was fun and funny. You can see the spice rack book shelves and memorize scripture posters in the background.
Here are some of the questions I printed up, cut out, and passed out to everyone:
- What is your current favorite song?
- Favorite cereal?
- Favorite Hymn?
- Favorite restaurant?
- How would you spend 1 million dollars?
- In what ways do you hold yourself back?
- What is one thing that should be taught in school?
- Travel bucket list: 3 US, 3 outside US
- Favorite book of all time (besides scriptures, of course)
- Favorite movie of all time?
- If you could change one law, what would it be?
- Time travel to the past, what time period?
- What fad do you wish would come back? What should be gone forever?
- Best concert you’ve been to?
- If you could play one instrument, what would it be?
- What’s one of the the craziest things you’ve ever done?
- If your house was burning, what would you save besides family and pictures/journal?
- What words of wisdom would you pass onto your childhood self?
Here I am with the birthday girl, of course, dressing myself in the colors, too.
I got in touch with her mom and sisters (who live in Utah) and got lots of fun details and stories about her, to read to the guests, and also some childhood pictures to display around the room. Memory lane is a must on landmark birthdays!
I do love throwing parties, and if you want to see more, head to the party section of my site! I also threw my neighbor Marissa a surprise 40th birthday party last year.
Though some of these aren’t the exact items I used, they can help you get a similar look, and get started with a dinner party! {Amazon affiliate links}
