Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Birthday Party Revisited

I love to entertain, and in the past have done some event/party planning that I've really enjoyed. I thought I'd take today to revisit one of the parties I did a few years ago and hopefully share some great ideas with you!
This was a surprise 30th birthday party for a friend of mine. It all started with the invitations (which, of course, I don't have a picture of!). They consisted of a lime green square booklet with the invitation inside. Around the booklet was wrapped a black and white striped ribbon belt that I made with some grosgrain, d-rings, and a glue gun.



My girlfriend loves all green and white for floral arrangements, so in the entryway we put this arrangement of hydrangeas, white roses and hanging amaranthus (the green hangy downy stuff). It was a learning experience making this arrangement! I had never tackled anything this large before.



On the food table we lined up rectangular glass vases filled with white roses. We also added tea lights for effect.



Since the food was served buffet style I thought it would be handy to "package" all the utensils together. I tied them together with, what else?, a grosgrain ribbon belt. These are super easy to make and I've re-used them several times since.







For the food we had cheese slaw with crackers and carrots (recipe this afternoon), chicken satay with spicy peanut dip, soy-ginger marinated flank steak and veggie crudite with spicy asian dip (see prior posting for this delish recipe). As you can tell, we kind of had an asian theme with the food. I took some scraps of fabric I had and made horizontal table runners over a black tablecloth.



The cake was store bought. To make it look prettier I added some chocolate dipped strawberries and placed it on my Southern Living at Home Barley Twist Stand. YUM!



Last but not least, I made CD favors for everyone to take home. They had the top 10 hits from the year my girlfriend was born.

Overall, a great party. It was held at her house so when she came home from shopping with her mom we were all there waiting! Her sweet husband was the one who got the ball rolling by calling me in the first place. Good guy!

Hope you've gotten some great ideas. I'll try to post some recipes this afternoon.

10 comments:

Gabi said...

I LOVE those napkin ties! Thanks for sharing all your great ideas, I may just have to get out my glue gun!

Stefanie Weber Photography said...

you are amazing--full of good ideas!

The 5 Bickies said...

What a fun and beautiful party. Can't wait for the recipes!

The Charmed Life Online said...

I must use the ribbon belt idea some time! I can't wait to hear the recipe for cheese slaw. I have never heard of it before. Great job, you have a lucky friend!

sle said...

OMG, I made the cheese slaw, found the recipe on HH's Blog, my husband ate the whole bowl in three days. Well, at first he put it on a hot dog until he realized it was cheese. Love your party tips.

Just Kiddin' Photography said...

OK. That is too funny. The cheese slaw really is amazing. It sounds weird but it's delish. I'll get that recipe posted soon!

Anonymous said...

That party looks awesome!

Olivia: (mostly) Happy Homemaker said...

Gorgeous party post! I have posted the cheese slaw recipe but I use it so often that we'll probably all see it again!

Tres Poshe Preppy said...

So nice! I love the table setting, it all looks great and yummy. I really like white/green flower arrangements myself. So fresh looking.

CG said...

What a great looking party! Love the CD idea and those little ribbon belts for your forks are so cute!