Hello! I threw a party for my husband over the weekend; it was a great gathering with good friends, appetizers and wine. The last time I threw a “grown-ups only” party was when my husband turned 40. I worked for months throwing that party but on this occasion, I simplified and gave myself two weeks to get it all done. The main theme was the word “40something”, since after 40, who continues to count birthdays, right?

The “sweets” table consisted of a four layer yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting, two dozen of chocolate mini-cupcakes and a tray of strawberries filled with sweet cream cheese (not shown). I bought a table runner from “Minted“, along with a coordinated “Happy Birthday” banner and two table signs.  In the background, I used “starry mini-lights“, which gave a nice warm tone to the whole display.

I found glittery gold sticker paper at Ben Franklins Crafts in Redmond WA. This store has a “die cutting” center, with an array of hundreds of dies in different types of fonts. The 7″ sans-serif font worked great for creating a few sets of “40’s” and a question mark. Applying the stickers to full-blown balloons was a little bit tricky but doable. I went through four popped balloons while trying to flatten the stickers. So if you decide to make stickers for balloons, you have to consider that they won’t lay perfectly flat ;)

The cake is gone… I only had a chance to eat one slice. This baby took around 3 or 4 hours of baking labor ;) First I baked two sheets of cake using a 9″ round cake pan. I repeated this process and put all the sheets away for the evening. The following morning I worked on the frosting. You don’t want to know how many sticks of butter I used for the frosting! For the cake topper, I used a rubber-stamp alphabet set and black pigment ink. The “flag” is made of balsa wood. You’ll notice the candles have a nice gold polka dot pattern. This was a last-minute idea. The candles looked too plain so I added washi tape to each candle. My husband was a little concerned it would be a fire hazard but in the end the candles lit up just fine, though he blew them super fast!

Chocolate mini-cupcakes with “Treats” sign, from Minted.

Custom table runner from “Minted“, wood silverware, berry boxes from garnish (painted black by me, on two sides), and gold & white paper straws.

We purchased a case of wine with various reds. I’m not a wine connoisseur so I designed “wine cards” displaying the name of the wine, type of wine, description and a cool fact. The cards were a hit! Our friends were excited to try different varieties of wines.

 

String lights! My lovely husband, installed these before the party. He found them at Crate and Barrel and we used three boxed sets for our main living room.

We were so blessed to have many dear friends celebrate with us. As always, I’m very thankful for you and visiting kraft&mint. Please comment below, you know your thoughts and ideas make my day! If you would like to receive more posts like this, please click on the “follow kraft&mint” button on the right column.  Now, I’m off to plan a 5-year-old little girl’s birthday party!

Summary of details and recipes:*

Decor:

• Brainstorming ideas found on my board “40something birthday party“
• Birthday banner and runner from minted
• Starry lights found at Amazon
• Paper Straws found at Amazon
• String lights from Crate and Barrel
• Cake Stand from Rossana Inc found at Amazon

Food:

• Yellow cake sheets adapted from “The Cake Bible” found in this forum.
• Chocolate mini-cupcakes recipe from Baking Bites.
• Red Pepper humus from Design, Dining, Diapers (not shown, this item was part of the menu).
• Chickpea hummus from Blue Jean Gourmet.

*This post contains affiliate links. Please ready my thoughts on Affiliate links here ;-)

I’m linking this post to the following blogs:

Three Mango Seeds

Monday Funday

Tatertotsandjello

The Golden Sycamore

Someday Crafts

Work it Wednesday

The DIY Dreamer

Notjustahousewife

Dolen Diaries

Maybeshemadeit

Madincrafts 

Skiptomylou

Notjustahousewife