Birthday Party

This weekend, I hosted a birthday party for my very dear friend, Ginny. We got together on Saturday evening to celebrate the last day of her twenties - Ginny's birthday was on Super Bowl Sunday. So, while everyone in line behind me at Target was buying snacks for their game day get-togethers, I was there stocking up for a kid-friendly fiesta.

There are plenty of pictures from the evening itself, but they have not yet gone through the editing phase. I made these sandwiches, these meatballs, and served fruit salad and cut up veggies with this dip. I had big dreams that the food would be all cooked before everyone arrived, but I managed my time poorly and wound up putting the sandwiches together in the kitchen while the guests hung out in the living room. We did have a collection of these:

I went to the party store to pick up mardi gras beads because, well, why not?

I also wanted to tell you guys about a little project I did on Saturday to get ready for the party.

Earlier in the week, I had found myself at JoAnn's. I was shopping for something in particular - now I can't even remember what, but they didn't have it. While wandering around, I stumbled upon this. It's a little pad, containing 24 sheets of scrapbook paper already sized and punched to make a banner. Also, in this pictures, you'll notice the little notch just below the word "pebbles" - it came with matching baker's twine. Yeah! The party theme was pink, so I snapped this up in a heartbeat. I attempted to use a coupon, but couldn't because it was already on sale. It was meant to be. Seriously.

This is sort of a weird shot, but it shows how the pages were perforated to come off the tablet. This is such an awesome idea! I didn't need scissors or any tools except a marker to make my banner!

My first step was to sort the papers. They were in the booklet in an even rotation, so you could just pull them off and use them and get an even distribution of the different patterns. I wanted a little more control. For example, I wasn't very excited about the pink and white grid papers, at the top on the right. So, I removed them from the rotation. I was also happy to have the chance to select the order in which the papers would appear - making sure to have a balance between those that were darker and lighter. This step took me max 3 minutes, because the papers were well perforated and pulled right off the tablet.

I used a sharpie to write the message. I double traced each of the lines to give them a little more impact. This was definitely the "hardest" step in this super easy project - it took about 10 minutes.

And here they are! All that was left was to string them on the bakers twine, which happened to be just about the right length to hang above my living room window.

Up it went! In addition to everything I've already said in my gushing about this project, I'm really impressed with the way it hangs. There's no issue where gravity drags the letters together and towards the center. They just hang there exactly where I put them, and while they're not perfectly spaced, they're legible! Good work people at pebbles!