A Fashionable Birthday For My Sweet Friend

I love parties, yay! I had another party at the house last weekend but this time it was a 37th birthday party for my fashionista friend! The color theme was her favorite color, red! I used lot of red accents and red roses to create a lounge worthy atmosphere. Oh, and everyone wore something red!

Here's the patio with ribbons around my white paper lanterns and red throw pillows.

This is a unique rose arrangement I made with grass blades and eucalyptus.

My neutral decor works well with red and chocolate accent colors! I used the dress form mannequins from my friend's boutique to add a little of her fashion flair.

I also borrowed her red circle rugs (Ikea) and lined the hallway with votive candles. The screen is a vintage Philippine capiz shell door with a red spot light behind it and a white ceramic Kuan Yin statue in front. The tabletop candles were $0.99 vases from Michael's with a rose bud submerged in water and a tea light floating atop.

My favorite arrangement was this one that I made for the buffet table. I had a white ceramic thrift store footed base and topped it with a large glass cube.  I filled it with polished river stones and built a grid surrounding it with curly willow and branches. I made a short bouquet of red roses and inserted the stems into a kenzan (pin frog) and placed it inside the cube. I added a Ti leaf in the corner and some beaded stems from last year's Christmas decorations. I love how it turned out! Kinda like a heart beating inside a glass with wings reaching upwards. Oh and the patchwork silk ikat table runner is from last year's Thanksgiving dinner decor.

This is the entryway floral arrangement with Asian wood stands and an Aveda candle.

I had a few fun games for this party! My girlfriend and I both love CSI and so instead of a guestbook I decided to have the guests "Caught Red-Handed." We took Polaroid "mugshots" and a message instead of a police number and fingerprinted everyone with red ink. It was hilarious! My mugshot read, "You're Never Too Old To Wear Red!" We also passed around a sheet for folks to write 37 Things they liked about my friend while asking each other 37 questions from a card set that I created. Lastly, since we're both designers, I had the guests become designers too. I printed out fashion illustration pages with my friend's face and provided InStyle magazine tear sheets for them to cut out outfits from and glue onto the fashion illustration. The guests loved it! Even the guys!!! Some of the outfits were fully accessorized with jewelry, hats, bags, shoes and even champagne! It was fun! Oh and there was plenty of food, from burgers to chicken fajitas and chocolate covered strawberries!

Comments

[nay-k]

what a beautiful decoration! i love your patio!!!

[silviya]

My dear you are doing perfect job.I wish I am one of your friends.A big well done from UK.