60th Birthday- Football Tailgating Party

My next party feature goes to this unbelievable SURPRISE 60TH BIRTHDAY FOOTBALL TAILGATING PARTY submitted by Jennifer Carver of Banner Events. Woah, what a party!! Jennifer went all out! I'm sure her father was beyond thrilled when he walked through the doors.

Here is what Jennifer siad about the party- "My sister and I recently styled a surprise 60th football tailgating themed birthday party for our father on the eve of the big college rivalry football game. Dozens of family & guests flew/traveled into town to be in attendance. Close to a dozen wonderful vendors contributed towards this event. 

Resource/Vendor Credits:

Jennifer Carver (Banner Events) & Cami Crosby: Party Styling

Anders Ruff Custom Designs: Custom graphic designs/invitation

Shindig Parties to Go: Custom printable graphic package

Nashville Wraps: glassine bags, white window bags, football basket boxes

The Twinery: denim twine

JP Creatibles: custom football cookies

Edible Details: custom football fondant cookie toppers & 3-D fondant football

Two Sugar Babies: custom football fondant cupcake toppers & football helmet cake topper

Pretzels Pleaze: custom football pretzels

The RPM Studio: Custom graphic designs/football field banner

Cupcake Chic Utah: cupcakes

Pop.O.Licious Cake Pops: football cake pops

Christine Olsen Photography: photography

Details:

'Tis the season for tailgating. How do you honor a football fanatic on the occasion of his 60th birthday? By surprising him with the biggest football themed tailgate party of his life, complete with gridiron goodies from some of the most talented dessert artists around. Of course some of the best graphic designers were also recruited to design the invitation, party printables and coordinating banner. Fabulous vendors were called upon for packaging, party favor and display needs.

We kicked off our event with a custom invitation designed by Anders Ruff Custom Designs. They scored big with their incredible design work, which set the stage for a crowd pleasing surprise event. The honoree's college alma mater is Brigham Young University (BYU)--home of the Cougars. Anders Ruff Custom Designs was sure to capture the team colors and college logo perfectly!

Guests arrived to our event on the afternoon of the biggest BYU rivalry game of the year! That evening, the BYU Cougars would host their cross-city rivals, the Utah Utes. Our honoree's immediate family all had custom designed matching navy and white team shirts with Cougars on the front and PRICE and 60 on the back (the last name and age of our guest of honor). 

Guests 'signed in' on mini printable footballs (courtesy of Shindig Parties to Go) where they were able to write their name and a little birthday message on the back. They could then tack up their birthday wishes on our football field banner, created by Ryan Murray of The RPM Studio.

Guests sat down to tables outfitted to look like a piece of the football field itself. Astro turf was cut to fit round tables. White ribbon and die cut numbers were glued on to look like yard lines and markers. Centerpieces were made from coordinating college logo balloons, gift bags, pom poms, footballs and coordinating candy. Each place setting was designed using eye-catching printable designs from Shindig Parties to Go. Notice the custom "60" water bottle wraps, napkin rings and coordinating pennant straw flags.

A delicious lunch was served buffet style with menu items like: 

Hail Mary Honey Bacon Club Sandwiches

Face Mask Fruit Salad

Chips to Cheer For

Buttonhook Baked Beans

Sideline Salad

Jumbo Jello cups

Shotgun Shrimp Pasta Salad

Half-Time Hot Dogs

Safety Soda

Runningback Rootbeer

Wide Receiver Water

Fun faux football leather food labels added some fun tailgating appeal to the buffet table. Adorable football boxes from Nashville Wraps helped house chips on the buffet table and fun party favors on the kids' table.

The highlight of the event was definitely the dessert table. Also, decorated to look like a football field, with astro turf used as the table covering, the dessert table was the focal point of the party design. Striped pennant flags were hung using denim twine from The Twinery. PVC pipe was cut, assembled and painted to look like field goal posts and held letters which spelled out the honoree's name: DALE. (Thank you to Shindig Parties to Go for inspiring the field goal design!) Bleachers were fashioned out of foam core board to house delicious 'quarterback' cupcakes (Cupcake Chic) with custom fondant toppers by Two Sugar Babies. JP Creatibles outdid herself with the most stunning football cookies I have ever laid eyes on! Footballs, custom BYU jersey and BYU logo cookies with the most detailed design work I have ever seen, were the talk of the party! Many other 'gridiron goodies' also played starting roles on our dessert table. 'Corne rback' cookies were iced and topped with gorgeous fondant cookie toppers crafted by Edible Details. Strawberries were dipped in chocolate and decorated to look like their pigskin counterparts. Beautifully hand dipped and decorated 'play action' pretzel rods were prepared by Pretzels Pleaze. Notice the cute sugar footballs adorning the pretzels! No detail was spared! There where 'wideout whoopee pies', 'blocker brownies', 'touchdown treats' in apothecary jars, maple bar 'cougar paws', 'goal time' cake pops (lovingly created by Johanna Dellino of Pop.O.Licious Cake Pops), and more!

Not to be overshadowed by the other desserts, a delicious 3 layer cake was displayed on its own table, topped with an amazing fondant cake topper by Two Sugar Babies. Notice how the helmet design matches the design work on the invitation by Anders Ruff Custom Designs! I love it when professionals collaborate to make an event even more amazing!

A separate table housed take home party favor window bags and glassine bags from Nashville Wraps. I just love their eco-friendly packaging options! Each was adorned with coordinating ribbon and printable tags by Shindig Parties to Go. They were the perfect thing to allow our guests to take home all sorts of desserts! 

Our event included a tribute slideshow and a presentation of autographed sports memorabilia from BYU's starting quarterback, Jake Heaps, as well as basketball standout, Jimmer Fredette, the 2011 NBA #10 draft pick."

Pepsi Party

In honor of a 6th anniversary of sobriety, Eleven Cupcakes planned this party around the guest of honor's favorite drink; Pepsi! So today I'm sharing a...

Pepsi Party

submitted by, Eleven Cupcakes.

What a great way to celebrate!

Such a fun an original theme.

{My husband drinks a lot of Pepsi so he would love a party like this!}

A pepsi bar was made by stacking cans of different types of Pepsi..

Pepsi can toppers purchased from Hey Yo Yo.

The "you are fab" bunting is from How About Orange. You can download it for free here!

Masculine Dessert Table- 30th Birthday Party

Today's winning party feature goes to this stunning

MASCULINE Dessert Table / 30th Birthday Party

submitted by Rubyju!

You don't see dessert tables fit for a guy very often! The talented ladies {Tammi & Bec of Australia} at Rubyju did an amazing job. I love the brown, orange, blue & cream color pallet. And look at all the CHOCOLATE!

All food and cake bunting made by Rubyju.

Paper on platters purchased from Spotlight.

Bronzed lidded candy jars from The House Of Gabriel in Tumbulgum.

Blackboard purchased at Wheel & Barrow.

Lovely job, Rubyju!

Thanks for your submission!

Congratulations on being chosen as today's winning party feature!

Mustache Birthday Party

Today's winning party feature goes to this

Mustache Birthday Party

submitted by Kangas Commune!

What a great idea for a guys 30th Birthday.

Dana threw this party for her husband, Aaron.

I love the photo booth, drink tags, menu's,

and "wet your whiskers" sign on the drink dispenser!

You put a lot of hard work into this party, Dana!

Congratulations on being the winning feature today.

Thanks for your submission!

Photo's courtesy of Small Beginning's Photography

totally awesome 80's party

my husband was born in 1980 so for the past few months i've been planning a "totally awesome" 80's birthday party to honor the year of his birth & years of his childhood. the party was a hit. thinking back to the 80's was hilarious! so here's his 'radical' night...

shown in the above pic: mr. t, mr. t, mr. t...i found a huge life size stand up of mr. t online. we used him as a photo op and backdrop. for drinks i had capri sun's (capri sun's were the bomb in the 80's...remember?) and water in plastic spiderman cups..oh, and you can't forget the neon straws :). scooby doo adorned my food table (we had pizza by the way), along with neon plates/napkins and old school comic books.here's the invitations that i sent out. i found these neon wallets on ot and just had to get them! i put the invite inside (also neon) along with an uno card (great 80's game). the invite read, "uno you wanna' be cool, right? so totally come to celebrate the year of ben's birth! it's a radical 80's birthday party! come ready to have a tubular time! don't give any bogus excuse! dress in your 80's getup and be the bombdigity!" i attached the recipients names to the wallets with an 80's friendship bracelet. they turned out awesome :). and this was the bithday cake...i brought back the rubik's cube baby! the cake took forever but was well worth it :). i even made the middle layer a neon swirl :).

ah, the days of cassette tapes!! i wanted to incorporate cassette tapes (as well as vhs tapes..which are shown below) since that's what was hip during the 80's. i painted them (neon colors of course) and hung them from the ceiling fan. it was a really fun decoration, i was actually pretty pround of myself :).

i purchased a bunch of candy that screamed '80's'...poprocks, bazooka gum with comic strips in each wrapper, flinstone candy sticks, tom & jerry candy, and scooby doo candy packs. all of it was in a spiderman bowl (spiderman was one of my husbands favorite shows when he was young by the way). you can also see slinky's in the background. i hung a bunch of them from the ceiling behind the cake table & above the bar. and there's one of the vhs tapes i was talking about..i painted them in neon colors as well :). oh, and you can also see the neon table cloths that i had all over..i used some as back drops and some as actual table cloths.

do you remember these glasses?! they were the COOLEST in the 80's! i was so happy when i found them online! i set them out for the guests to wear :).

i also set out neon glow bracelets (above in the spiderman cups)...

and here's a close up of the SLAP BRACELETS and 80's character pins!!! the neon slap bracelets were the best...and the pins were rainbow brite, my little pony, alf, karate kid, and she-ra/he-man! here's some of the party goers in their 'getup'...EVERYONE looked great!!! you can also see the authentic old school xmen poster i found online..and of course, our photo op, mr t :). i had our polaroid camera out for anyone who wanted a polaroid pic...we took a bunch of 'em with mr t and all the other 80's decor.

more of our 'totally awesome' guests :).

this is an inflatable boom box that i found on ebay...it has an ipod dock so it actually plays music (i had 80's music that i purchased on itunes playing on and off throughout the night). it was awesome!

i bought a used old school nintendo machine! does this say 80's or what?! we played pac-man and mario bros throughout the night. it brought back so many memories!

here's my make shift stage. one of the best parts of the night took place here..and it may not be what you think. poetry readings faded out in the 80's...but i decided to bring one back! i asked each guest to write a poem to ben/about ben to present to him at the party (this part was a surprise). IT WAS GREAT! everyone was SO creative!! some poems were hilarious and others very touching...all of them were SO clever. i got video of everyone reading the poems (no pics) so i need to upload one of the videos to post.

here's some more of the 80's decor. i decorated my whole upper bar with 80's memorabilia...spiderman books, connect four games, scooby doo snacks, whistles, gelly bracelets, glitter bracelets, friendship bracelets, koosh balls, uno cards, garbage pail kid cards, aqua net hairspray, slinky's, rainbow brite, transformers, and more...

i also had trivial pursuit totally 80's out on our coffee table for guests to play. some of the questions were a riot...

i found some old school looking t shirts at target for my boys to wear. they had 80's cartoon characters on them. they worked perfectly! here they are eating their pizza on the kitchen floor.

here's a closer look at some of the 80's stuff....gotta' love it!does anyone remember trapper keepers?! i found most of these things on ebay. i had a trapper keeper exactly like this one! and the alf luchbox and thermos...wowsers...now that was cool!

Here's the birthday guy and our two little guys as we were singing happy birthday.

rock on! here's one more polaroid for you all :). i bought inflatable rocker guitars that fit the theme.

i also played a tv trivia game..i downloaded a bunch of 80's tv theme songs (again, on itunes) like mash, muppets, carebears, hawaii 5 0, doogie howser, alf, stairway to heaven, love boat, and a lot more, and played them for guests..first one to guess the tv show got an 80's whistle keychain or a hulk paddle ball. it was a really fun game!

all in all it was a great party. my husband loved it. happy birthday babe!!!!