“Cali-Boho” 40th Birthday Party

A few weeks ago, I had the honor and pure delight to plan a birthday celebration for a very dear friend of mine and bringing a little bit of California with her so she could celebrate closer to her family. With her sister’s help, we designed her theme (her sister made the watercolor leaves) and made attempts at some plans but with a turn-on-a-dime schedule, things changed a few times in the process and even two days before. But…all the changes ended up putting us in a beautiful venue and I couldn’t thank Fire Station One enough for accommodating us literally last minute!

What made this party unique is that I wanted to do a “Progressive “Party”. If you’ve never been to a “Progressive Dinner”, let me enlighten you to this fun experience! You first start off at one house and have an appetizer or hors’doeuvres and then you go to another house for a salad or soup, followed by another house with a main course and then finally the last home you enjoy dessert (it’s great for small groups at church). So, my concept for a progressive party was to make the whole weekend a time of celebrating in many different ways that would make her feel loved. So the first event was a night alone with her hubby since that’s a rare treat when you have kids, followed by a family fun outing the next day, then a girls sleepover (with just a few ladies mostly from out of town) and the grand finale was the party. Everything was to be a surprise (some didn’t get to exactly be surprises completely because of schedule changes, but…we tried!), so I made little cards to open an hour or so before for her to know how to dress or pack.

A few party details to note:

I am OH so thankful we used GreenEnvelope for the invitation (and no, I don’t get commission, just seriously grateful for the service)!! One, it was super easy to use and design invitations, two, it was easy to share and track all the RSVPs with the other two hosts, and three, it made it a TON easier with all the changes to keep people informed as needed. Truly, it was a life saver and smoothed out so much when it could have gotten far more chaotic in trying to communicate with all the guests!

The 40 standing light was a lot of fun, but I highly recommend transporting them veeeery carefully and ensuring that absolutely no sticky tape touches anything else or you will have a time reassembling (it was a good bit of traveling for me, so things definitely shifted)! Also, I recruited some help with balloons and turns out, they now put a lot of powder on balloons that can cause allergic reactions therefore,…we didn’t do all the balloons or create the full look I had in my head. So again, recommendation here, get an air pump that can blow up balloons (not helium) just in case. Unfortunately, I didn’t know till a few minutes prior so I didn’t have time to make the adjustments but it all worked out since the kids saw BALLOONS and we had to go grab a few of the gray ones to distract from the excitement! An even larger balloon display would have been terribly irresistible!

I knew that there would be several people who would not be able attend the party especially when the date was changed, so I wanted them to still have a part in this special 40th celebration. I created a book through Shutterfly for people to write a note and then take a picture with the retro instant camera there at the party. But for those who couldn’t come, I reached out to the guest list and got as many as I could to send me a note and a picture that I then wrote and printed out to tape in the book (this device is amazing for printing out instant pics that connect to your phone). I hope it will be a special gift for many years!

As a homage to the beach, salt water and coasts of California and of course our pink theme, I made little favor jars of Himalayan pink salt for guests to take home and the jars can be reused again and again.

My favorite project though was actually the trivia scavenger hunt! There were 40 little trivia cards hidden all throughout the event space for the kids and adults to find. Then everyone worked together to answer the trivia questions and write them on a notepad that was prepared. There were also 5 challenges (one for birth year and each decade). A little microphone and mini boombox was available to ask questions but somehow the sound got changed to a deep man’s voice and well…it turned out to be absolutely hilarious! You can also purchase this trivia game in the shop! If you would like a customized version to fit your theme (and/or birth year), simply purchase the game and include a note at checkout what colors, theme or style you would like and I will email you a revised version to fit your theme!

Finally, one other project I thoroughly enjoyed creating was the welcome, gift bags for the ladies’ sleepover. My brother made the wooden leaves that also functioned as a coaster and I just loved how it turned out and added the perfect touch (check him out on Instagram and Etsy)! To fill inside, I made a flaxseed heat/cold pad with a sleeve so it can be washed, a corner bookmark with pen holder since the birthday girl loves to read, lip scrub, lip gloss, face mask, little notebook, shower steamer, bath bomb, pocket scrunchie (scrunchie with zipper to put keys or cash etc inside and again, paying homage to the 80’s), and then I also included some cozy socks, one of my favorite natural companies 100% Pure coconut shower gel (since she loves coconut water), and a headband with lip scrub. These are the clear bags I used.

I had many requests for my cake recipe so I will share that on a separate post to make it easier to find!

There is nothing like celebrating someone you hold so dear and making their day feel so special! And this year has certainly been filled with so many celebrations!