Anniversary Party

Well, for the last few weeks I have been pretty busy. I have been planning a surprise Anniversary party for my parent's 30th. I am still living at home with them, so it has been pretty difficult keeping the whole thing a surprise.

I worked on signs, printed out pictures, bought frames, food, ordered a cake, and made about 70 cookies. I planned for about a month, and I was so excited when the time finally came for the party. (Mostly just because I was so tired of trying to keep this whole thing a secret from my Mom. Keeping secrets from that woman is not easy let me tell you). I had to make up a lot of stories about where I was all of last week. (I apologize again for this)!!

When the time for the party did finally come, everything really came together.

 I made little place cards for each food item. I found these little shapes online and then just put text inside of them, and cut them out. I found the little place card stands at Hobby Lobby.

 All of the banners were just individual letters (each on a separate sheet of paper) printed off, cut, and attached to twine with clothespins.

 I went through all of the old photo albums and scanned a bunch of pictures to attach to twine for some decoration.

 All of the frames were from Hobby Lobby. And the little trays had Mad-Libs inside for all of the guests to fill out.

 I decided to go with a big "W" for the guestbook. The guests signed with silver sharpies.

 I ordered a small cake topper and had three different flavors of cupcakes. (All marked with the proper tag of course)

 The chalkboard was a little more difficult than anticipated. It turned out all right, but next time I will definitely try to make the words straighter/bigger. It is just words I printed off from Pages. You just pick the text and words you want, print them off, cut each line, and put chalk on the backside of each one. Once you have the chalk on the back of the words, you just flip it over and tape it where you want it on the chalkboard. Trace the words with a pencil and when you lift the paper, you will have a perfect outline to trace.

 Here are my surprised parents right after they walked in.

 My mom was sort of in shock for a while.

 These are just a few of the (70) Ball jar cookies I made. A few of them said "Having a Ball since 1985" (The year my parents were married).

 Here they are cutting the cake just like they did 30 years ago! 

The inside of the cake was so pretty! 

Here you can sort of see my "How Sweet it is" sign for the dessert table.

A wonderful picture of the party!

Artsy photo of a cookie and a couple of strawberries. 

My silver spray painted Ball jars, put some pink daisies in them and they turned out so cute! 

My mom was happier with me when she found out what I had really been doing all week. 

My awesome family! 

And finally, the hostess and the guests of honor. 

The party was awesome, and I owe a lot of these ideas to Pinterest! It was a lifesaver as always, and helped me get my head wrapped around everything I wanted to get done for the party! Everyone who helped; thanks again! It is very much appreciated! (And a special shoutout to David Young, for taking all of these fantastic pictures! They all turned out really good.) The night was a success, and my parents were overjoyed and very surprised!