90th Birthday Party

My mother-in-law just celebrated her 90th year here on Earth.  We were thrilled to celebrate with her and throw her a party.  As usual, things didn't go exactly as planned and I didn't make half the decorations I had hoped to, but nobody knew that except me (and maybe anybody who saw my Pinterest board).  I made her a photo book with pictures from all throughout her lifetime.  I had it printed at Costco and used it as a guest book.  Compiling and organizing all the photos took many more hours than I care to count, so that set me way behind for the party decorations.  I've learned to just let it go and it will be fine.  The important thing is that we all had a wonderful time and she can't stop talking about it.

 

 

 This was the bulletin board I did with lots of pictures of her and her family and friends.  I'm (unofficially) in charge of bulletin boards at my church (where we had the party) and this one was due for a change, which worked out great for me.  I did this for the party and then changed it out for our Homecoming celebration the next day.  I cut out the Happy Birthday balloons and the big 90 on my Silhouette machine.  You can't tell from the picture, but the letters and numbers were cut from white glitter cardstock and the balloons were cut from three different teal cardstocks (one was embossed).  I really like how they turned out.  I wish I had gotten better photos, but we were really pushed for time just to get things set up before the guest of honor arrived.

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the Happy Birthday balloon banner.

 

 

 

It took me forever to decide on what I wanted to use for centerpieces.  (I needed ten.)  I knew I wanted to use something with photos, but I had trouble choosing exactly what.  Lack of time finally made the decision for me so I made these lanterns since I thought they would be quick.  They would have been but I had to battle with both my printer and my Silhouette machine.  Also, I wanted to be able to possibly use these again in the future, so I assembled them using repositionable glue so I could store them flat.  It worked pretty well, but it slowed things down some.  The cut file was from SVG Cuts Tiki Party set (found HERE).  I wanted it larger than I could fit on the page, so I had to make some adjustments to the file before cutting.  Inspired by a few different ideas on Pinterest, I printed on vellum two different photos and alternated with text panels for each lantern.  I also cut lots of 90 confetti and spread around everywhere.

 

 

 

 Of course I had to make a crown for the party princess.  She wore it proudly during the entire party.  The cut file was a freebie by Bird's Cards.  I adjusted the file to fit an adult and cut it from silver glitter cardstock.

 

 

 

 This was also inspired by Pinterest (both the punch and the Fountain of Youth sign).  I love Pinterest!

 

 

 

 Costco made the cake, but I added the 90.  I had to guess at what size to cut it since we didn't pick up the cake until right before the party, and I almost made it too big.  I cut it from glitter cardstock and mounted it on clear plastic.

 

 

 

Here is the gift table.  (She requested no gifts, but she is just too loved.)  I had one of my helpers scatter more photos and 90 confetti.

 

 

 

 I take no credit for this.  My helpers did a beautiful job with the food table. 

 

 

 

 Dessert Table

 

 

 

I picked out some of the most interesting-looking/funny photos and placed one at each table for a game.  I asked the guests at each table to work together to make up a story about their photo.  Some tables had one or two sentence stories and others had two or three pages!  LOL