Garden Birthday Party

Almost all of my friend's birthdays are in the spring so I decided I wanted to throw a girl's only birthday party for all of them. Two years ago one of our friends threw a great one that was so much fun! She did Minute To Win It games. It was so so funny and was such a great time. Last year another friends invited everybody to go to her parent's cabin for a girl's retreat. (I missed that one :(We were leaving for Hawaii the day after they got back and I just could swing it. Boo hoo) I heard it was a blast though. So, this year I thought I'd go a little more formal.

I decided on a Garden Party theme sense I knew I wanted to do it in my backyard. Two of my friends said they would help with the food and another friend helped me with the set up and decorations. It was beautiful! Ok. Here are some pictures that I know you are so ready to see.

These were part of the table decorations. I was going to put my tables banquet style but my friend, Karen, convinced me that putting them in a square would be better. That way we could all see each other and chat. Thanks, Karen, you were totally right! Dinner was going to be around sunset so I needed a lot of mood lighting and these lanterns were perfect. I put battery powered LED lights in the bottom then put some flowers on top. I wrapped the roots of the flowers in pink tulle. You can see it poking out. I got the flowers to "hover" on the top by poking toothpicks in toward the top of the roots to keep them from falling all the way to the bottom. Worked like a charm.

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of them lit up. (I'm not the best at pictures). They looked like they had fireflies in the bottom. I wish they twinkled. That would have been way cool.

I picked up a few 6-packs of flowers. The ones I didn't use in the lanterns I put into little mini galvanized tin pots. Added a little greenery for the garden theme.

I made homemade cloth napkins and folded them into a lilly flower. So pretty :) (Side note. It took me four hours to hem the edges of all those napkins! I told my hubs that I WANT A SERGER!! sigh)

I ran lights in my trees and my friend, Laural, brought some tissue paper pom poms to add. I made a chandelier from trimmings from my grapevine and icicle lights. I couldn't get it to hang high enough so I had to bring out my pole for it to hang on. See, we decorated the pole with pink fabric. lol.

The sun was starting to go down. Doesn't it look magical? :)

Everybody helped out with the food. We had chicken salad sandwiches, green spinach salad with nuts cheese and craisins, pasta salad, fruit veggies, and homemade pink lemonade. mmmm YUM!

 Can I just say, Annie! I covet your hair! Look at those long locks. Soooo beautiful!

 I know you guys are going to hate me for posting this. Sorry! I love you!

I love all these girls!

I had everybody bring a $10 gift (sense it was a birthday party after all). After we were done eating we played a little game. We all grabbed a gift and somebody rolled a dice. If it was even we passed our gifts to the right, if it was odd we all passed to the left. After 5 minutes whatever gift you were holding was yours. I got some hand cream and some really pretty earrings.

For dessert we made nests. I'm so bummed because I don't have any pictures of the dessert. I need to ask around and see if any of my girlfriends took any. We made the nests out of shredded wheat and melted chocolate. They were put into little bowls to shape them and a little hollowed out in the center to look like a nest. I put a scoop of ice cream in the nest and fanned a strawberry on the side of the ice cream in the nest. Thanks, Annie, for making the nests for me. You are awesome!

Thanks for the fun night everybody! It was such a blast!!