A few weeks back, I celebrated my upcoming 30th birthday with a lunchtime party with a few friends and a super fun theme! If you’ve been following the blog this year you’ll know that the theme was tutti fruity and I was excited to see how all the different elements came together on the day! I didn’t take many photos myself, but the lovely Emily of Good Things* took some great shots for me! Here are some photos of the set up and party details!
The Food Table
I forgot to get a shot of the whole table and of the awesome watermelon ice bucket – which worked like a treat, but here’s some close ups of it and the cake. From top left:
The Pineapple water dispenser is from Target Australia and held 5 litres of Solo soft drink. The table runner (which looked so great) DIY can be found here. Each table had two bamboo sticks with a decoration on them. I blew up fruity coloured balloons and designed and made that sign using Photoshop and my Scan N Cut for this table!
On the table next to the fruity cups from Ikea (not pictured) was a make your own fruit kebab section. The green punnet bowls are from Ikea and here’s how to make the pineapple labels. I also made and decorated sugar cookies using a Nigella recipe and my letter cookie cutters. I decorated them so they matched the fruit shaped cookies I made that you can see in the last shot. These are all on Ikea paper plates. Next on the table were pineapple donuts that I picked up fresh from my local community supermarket and I also made fairy bread and used my fruit cookie cutters (that I bought from Lark) to make the fruit shapes.
I also added Wonka Runts and Starburst Party Mix and Fruit Mix to a punnet bowl each for mixed fruit lollies (candy). In the pineapple and strawberry bowls that I made here, I had Cheezels, Original Chips and Salt and Vinegar all with the labels. I blutacked on the labels that didn’t have sticks. We also had Victoria Sponge Cake with Lemon Curd filling and icing sugar on the top. I also made the cake topper with my Scan N Cut and Photoshop.
For the party favours I made more cookies and also included a pineapple shaped cookie each. They didn’t make the table display as I ran out of cookie dough! (Rookie error! There’s a photo of them here!) I also made little watermelon name tags that I designed in photoshop and cut with my Scan N Cut. I left one pip uncovered so I could add the string!
I was so happy with how it turned out!
The Party Table
The party table turned out so great! It was a small crowd for party day, but it worked out well. We had the party food from the table as well as pizza and garlic bread that I ordered once my guests had arrived. Here are the details:
I got the chairs for a bargain from Officeworks and they were perfect! The tablecloth is from this DIY here. The round watermelon plates are from Lark, and I turned the icecream cups into fruity themed lolly (candy) bowls by designing them in photoshop and again cutting them with my Scan N Cut (it got a real work out for this party!!). I made pineapple and strawberry cup designs and glued them to the outside of the cups. See the before and after photo here. I love how they turned out!
The table also had these DIY coasters, 4 coloured sundae plastic cups filled with starburst fruit chews, Ikea raspberry napkins and these ace Sunnylife baskets that I bought at Trade Secret – they were the perfect size for the garlic bread! The decoration at the back was fruit repeats that I designed and made with the Scan N Cut. There was a watermelon, a lemon, a strawberry, a lime, an apple, a pear, an orange and a pineapple on each! I attached them at the top and the bottom so they wouldn’t fly all over the place! I also had helium balloons tied to each chair as a last minute addition, as well as giant 3 and 0 balloons (not pictured) just off to the side.
The Craft Table
It couldn’t really be my party without a crafty activity and to stick with the theme I went a little crazy and made each guest a calico tote bag and also made fruit stamps! Here’s how it was organised:
I had an old sheet over the table that was fine for getting paint on and I had 4 colours of screen printing paint that I bought at Spotlight. Each paint bottle had a brush to go with it and there were lots of stamps to choose from. I traced and cut the foam shapes and PVA glued them to cork board I already had, that I cut to size. I had some giant fruit I had designed and made as the decoration behind this table and it looked great! My guests had fun chatting and painting their own bag to keep! It was such a great idea!
Thoughts on the day
I did go a little overboard on decorations and DIYs for the party, but it was such a lovely day that I’m glad I went to the effort that I wanted to. It was so lovely to celebrate this milestone with some great friends and to test out my party design ideas! It’s now one week until my actual birthday and I’m excited to see how my 30s turn out!
Note: Most photos were taken by Emily, with a few taken by me.
Do you do theme parties?
Looks like such a fun party! Just so colourful and bright. Did the chairs come with the red on them or did you paint? Looks like watermelon, so perfect! Love the craft activity. That’s a party bag people will use and keep and remember. xoxo
Thanks, Lucy! They chairs came in that design so I didn’t have to do anything! xo