Cowboy Party and White Party Birthday Extravaganza

So, if you didn’t already know, August is a pretty big month for the Hansen family.  Both of our birthdays are in August, as well as my sister’s and mother-in-law’s birthdays and my parent’s anniversary. Not to mention, both Mike (my brother-in-law) and Melanie’s (Jeremy’s sister) birthdays are the first week in September. All of this craziness occurs in just one month. Usually, we combine my, Suzi and Jeremy’s birthdays together because they are within 2 weeks. However, this year was Jeremy’s 30^th birthday – it’s a big one, so he got his very own party. If you also didn’t already know, Suzi and I like to throw theme parties. Her birthday happens to be the day after mine and we have celebrated together for as long as I can remember. We used to hate it (i.e. – Suzi and Elizabeth as middle-schoolers), but now we LOVE it because we get to do it together and act like we are in middle school again because it’s our birthdays and we can do what we want, right? Anyway, this year, Suzi and I decided to do a Rollin’-in-the-hay party. I’ve got to admit, Suzi did most of the legwork on this one. She did some research online and purchased all of the decorations and I loved them all – especially the cowhide balloons, which inspired the cake I made. We had a FANTASTIC time listening to country music, drinking some cactus coolers and hanging out with our good friends. I couldn’t have asked for a better 29^th (yikes!!) birthday, or for a better friend to share my birthday with…

So, since it was Jeremy’s 30^th birthday, I knew I wanted to something extraordinary for him because well, he’s an amazing husband, a great friend/son/brother/son-in-law/brother-in-law/therapist…and dang-it he deserves it! So while we were in Montana over Christmas, his mom and I began conspiring about a surprise visit for Jeremy’s birthday. This became a little tricky because we were leaving for the cruise the week after his birthday, but in the end, it worked out perfectly. There are positives from working for the same company, for instance, when you want to surprise your husband with an extra week off of work, it’s quite easy to call the business office to get him coverage, call the owner to get him up-to-date, call his secretary and bribe her to keep things under-wrap at the office yada yada yada…I totally thought that he knew what was going on, probably because I’m a terrible liar and when he straight-faced asked me (ON MY BIRTHDAY) when his parents were coming in I almost had a stroke right there at the dinner table. Anyway, apparently he had no clue because when he came home from work and his dad yelled from the backyard “Hey, what’s a guy got to do to get a cold beer around here”, he almost fell down the stairs. He also was completely shocked to hear that I got him and extra week off of work, meaning that he not only had one week, but TWO weeks off of work (the cruise, remember?).  The surprises continued when the next day we went out to dinner (and I have no idea how he didn’t notice that we were all wearing white), then headed to O’Sullivan’s in Carlsbad for a few drinks and all of our friends were there to surprise him for a P-Diddy-Inspired White Party.

Ok, so I am in no way an expert on throwing parties, but I (or we, if you include Suzi) have a great time doing it. So I thought that I would include a few tips on throwing a theme-party:

·      Plan Ahead. 

      Not gonna lie, I’m terrible at this. I’m good at coming up with ideas for these parties, but Suzi totally got my butt in gear this year to get things done. Come up with your idea early, because it’s a lot harder to find everything that you need the day before a party.  Also, if your theme requires that people dress up, they are going to need some time to prepare, or in Jeremy’s case, to make a trip to goodwill.

·      Go to goodwill. 

      This place is awesome for costume ideas!

·      Google is your best friend. 

      Suzi found all of the decorations at one place, which is awesome. But, it doesn’t always happen that way. I googled “cowboy party” to find inspirations for food and extra decorations. Unfortunately, most of what I found was for a little boy’s party, but still, I got ideas.

·      Tell your friends they are not allowed to come in unless they are dressed up. 

      It’s really true that you have more fun while dressed like an idiot, I don’t know why, but I know it’s true.

·      It goes beyond just decorations. 

      It’s a lot about the decorations, but it’s the food, the music, the costumes. It just adds to it. Of course, the best part is the people there, but we are talking logistics here, right?

·     

    Make your own cake. 

      Cupcakes also go over really well and are crazy-easy to decorate. Again, google will provide you with tons of easy cake or cupcake decorating ideas.

·      This sounds expensive, but it’s not really. 

      We certainly cannot afford to supply dinner and drinks for everyone. So, we make it a BYOB event -even though we really don’t have to even say it, our friends are awesome and there’s always a TON of “adult beverages” left over- but we still make sure to have some staples and what we want on-hand. We also did a “signature drink” for the cowboy party (Cactuc Coolers, get it?) that got everyone started. I also usually specify in the evite to eat dinner before hand because while there will be appetizers, we all need a full stomach before getting too crazy. Appetizers are easy, and again, usually our friends bring a ton of stuff over because, you guessed it, they rock. Anyway, Suzi made buffalo chicken dip, I did pigs-in-a-blanket, we did the usual chips and dip, but it all was relatable to the theme. My favorite go-to for a party is Subway foot longs cut into individual slices – co cheap, so easy, and soooo good.

·      It’s not essential, but it’s definitely fun to have an activity that relates. 

      This year we played horseshoes in the backyard. We didn’t buy a set (though it might have been easier that way haha), Suzi got some actual horseshoes from a friend at work and Jeremy got stakes from home depot and make a backstop.  We did the Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes party last year and played table tennis. Again, not essential, but still fun.

Anyway, that’s pretty much how we prepare. Hope that helps you plan your next shindig!

Love, Birdie

Tania's Wedding & Bridesmaid Jewelry

Ok, I know that I just got back from a cruise and you all want me to post about that, right? Well, I want to post about that too, but we need to get caught up first. So, let’s re-wind back to June/July so we can talk about these bad boys for a minute:

Jeremy and I flew out to Durango the first week in July for Tania’s wedding. We also celebrated our anniversary while there. I haven’t been back to Durango in 6 YEARS! It was such a weird feeling to be back in the town that I went to college in. So many memories pretty much every place that I looked. I couldn’t help but spend the entire time reminiscing about all of my Durango friends. I also probably could have spent another week there just to eat at all of my favorite restaurants! Don’t worry, though we made it to Serious Texas not once, but twice! We also drove up to Silverton our last day there and I realized how much I did not appreciate how beautiful that little town was when I lived in Durango. One stop on my must-see list was the college and man, it’s a totally different place! They have completely remodeled the entire college union building – it’s beautiful! Why didn’t they have that when I went there?? Anyway, here is a little montage of our Durango trip (and apparently I was too busy reminiscing to take any pics, these are all from Silverton):

Now, not to mention the actual reason that we went to Durango, Tania’s wedding. For those of you who don’t know, Tania and I met while working together as lab aides/phlebotomists at the hospital.  

Tania has been one of my dearest friends for quite a few years now – you know, 

the kind of friend that you don’t have to talk to for months, 

then you’ll pick up right where you left off with just one phone call. 

The kind of friend that sends you encouraging cards in the mail that have writing not only on both pages inside, but on the back as well. 

She’s the kind of friend that when I met her, she brought me out of a kinda rough time in my life. 

Basically she’s the kind of friend everyone should have. 

So, needless to say, I was ecstatic when she called to tell me that she was getting married and I was even happier when she asked me to be a bridesmaid. So, check out how gorgeous her wedding was:

Anyway, now that you know how beautiful my friend is and what amazing taste she has, you can tell how honored I was when she asked me to make the jewelry for her and for the bridesmaids. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty new to this jewelry-making stuff, but I learned a lot from this whole experience. Tania asked for bracelets and earrings in yellow for the bridesmaids, and a set in ivory for her. 

Basically what I did was make rosettes from fabric. You can find a million tutorials out there on how to do this, but it’s pretty much just twisting and hot-gluing fabric. Then for the bracelets, I hot-glued the rosettes onto a ribbon. The hardware for all of the jewelry came from Michaels. The bracelet hooks, just clamped onto the ends of the ribbon. However, I didn’t clamp it down quite tight enough and the ends started to come out when we put them on, so I spent the morning of the wedding re-clamping. In hindsight, I should have added some glue inside of the clamp, but you live and learn, right? 

This is the only pic I have of anyone actually WEARING the jewelry

 and I took it after work just to send to Tania to get her approval, 

that's why it's super blurry...

Anyway, since this was for a wedding and she had such a beautiful theme (yellow with black and white damask), I figured that it needed some pretty packaging, so I bought some plain white jewelry boxes from Joann’s, then stamped a chandelier on it and tied it with the same yellow-colored ribbon.

I loved doing this and if you happen to be getting married, or would just like a set, let me know, I’d love to make one for you! Anyway, I’m working on some really fun fall-themed décor tutorials and may have a guest-blogger coming your way. Stay-tuned and as always, thanks so much for your comments, I get giddy every time I see a new one!

Love, Birdie