Aly's 24th Birthday

For our first post, we'd like to offer a few ideas from our most recently planned birthday party, which happened to be mine! Mom was thinking of a "Happy Birthday Little Lady" theme with cute red and black ladybugs, but I had a more mature black and white theme in mind. After all I was turning 24, not 2+4!

We think every party theme needs at least four essential items to make it a success; paper goods, invitations, decorations, and a cake!! Here are our four....

Paper Goods: My mom found this great damask print made by Amscan at ShinDigz.com called "Always and Forever." It features a black and white damask pattern, with a pale blue trim and dot accents . The pattern was designed for a wedding or bridal shower, but can also be used for other occasions, like my birthday! We chose the pieces that only had the damask pattern; the cups, cake plates, and small napkins. We paired them with plain black dinner plates and large black napkins . 

Invitations: Since the matching invitations were for another occasion, mom gave me the task of creating my own . I used a black and white damask print for the background and an elegant curl in a matching pale blue. I added black dots to really tie it all together . I then sent them to my local print shop to be printed on card stock . The invitations turned out exactly as I had hoped they would!!

Decorations: Our theme was simple, black, white, and blue, so we thought simple decorations would be best. Some of our decorations were a birthday banner, balloon bouquets, and candy dishes with matching M&M's from Powell's Candy Shoppe. We used martini glasses as our candy dishes which enabled guests to see the colorful candies, and at the same time gave it a fun and festive look!! This was our downscaled version of a candy buffet, which are very popular for almost all occasions. (Check out Candy Buffet Creations to see where we got our inspiration!!) We also used a decorative decanter with an iron stand to serve lemonade. By adding a few drops of food coloring to our lemonade we made it a beautiful blue, which matched everything else perfectly. We then topped it off with a splash of Sprite and lemon slices from my mom's very own lemon tree!!

Cake: My mom ordered my fantastic cake from Baskin Robbins because she knows I love ice cream cake!! She gave them a napkin from the paper goods so that they could do their best to create a design that matched. Most bakeries will do this. It's a great way to show them what colors and patterns you are looking for in your cake design.

Everyone who attended our party seemed to really enjoy themselves, especially me!! Mom and I were extremely satisfied with how our party ideas turned out and we can't wait to plan our next one...My dad's 50th!!!