A Birthday Cocktail Hour

She set the last detail with a few minutes to spare. Her eyes scanned the room accounting for each carefully crafted decoration. For a moment she forgot the party, relishing simply in the quiet success of a beautifully ornamented room.

The above is a brief narrative of me, just minutes before guests arrived for my 25th birthday party. What's missing from this account is my smirking boyfriend who interrupted my peaceful reflection to laugh, "This is what you were looking forward to. You don't even care about the guests!".  At the time I slighted him, but there was some truth to his less than witty observation.

I love throwing parties. The preparation for my sophisticated and cleverly coined party, "A Birthday Happy Hour" was fairly intense, and after everything was in its place, I felt really happy - euphoric even. But I also wanted to share the fun with my friends.

Fortunately, I can also share my party planning love with my internet friends. Below are some pictures from my fabulous little bash. Enjoy! 

A festive and welcoming sign just outside the entrance. I simply took sharpie to a grocery bag, decorated it a bit with washi tape (printed craft tape you can put on anything!) from Target and temporarily housed the sign in an old frame.  

To make a more colorful entrance I cut rectangles out of a cereal box, lined the edges with washi tape, wrote the letters in Sharpie and hung them with some twine.

Flowers and streamers. Done.

No cook yummies because I love decorating, not cooking. I added some pizazz to the table with the polka dotted silk linen I bought at a thrift store for $5.

 Appetizer sign made again with my friends "cereal box", "sharpie" and "washi tape". The plastic berry containers are from Target's $1 bin and the mixed nuts holder is an upside down paper fortune teller.

Toothpick flags. Tedious, oh so tedious but oh so cute. Wrap a piece of washi tape around one end and cut a triangle out.

The scrumdidlyumptious desert buffet. When you are young, it basically takes a wedding to get nice things but why not bargain hunt for somebody's old nice things at a thrift store? These oversized cupcakes with toothpick flags sit in glass sherbert bowls found at a thrift store for $1 a piece. The silver serving trays were a total of $15 and were also hunted at a thrift store. The white embroidered linen? $3 at a thrift store. 

Mini cupcakes from the gourmet market. 

 

Pennant flags made from brown paper bag cut into triangles, twine and washi tape. The flower is made from a streamer.

I made two long pennants to hang across the ceiling using twine and washi tape. I even decorated the fan with washi tape!

I bought the tissue paper balls from Target for $4 and used thumb tacks to hang them.

The cocktail station took the place of my record player for the day. The drink dispensers are from Pier 1. White wine sangria on the left, mango mojito on the right.

I really enjoyed planning and creating for this quarter of a century birthday party. I had been looking for a reason to get crafty and found the perfect one. I was able to enhance this occasion by using washi tape in subtle but impacting ways. For more washi crafts visit The Washi Blog.

Let's get the conversation rolling...

Questions:

1. When are you too old to throw a birthday bash?

2. What picture in this post most grabbed your attention? Why?

3. Have you done any washi tape projects?