Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration: Totally Awesome 40th Birthday, Stampin Up! Style

Good morning!  Today over on  the Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration blog I'm sharing all the details from a recent birthday party that I made extra special using some fun and easy tools from Stampin' Up!  We share lots of great ideas, techniques, etc. 5 days a week so you're guaranteed to find something that will inspire you, please come check us out!

 

I don't know about you but I love parties and all the fun that goes along with them (if I had a perfect job it would be a party planner and personal shopper, haha!!)  So this year we lots of friends turning 40, including my husband, and since we have 4 of the birthdays within a month of each other this summer we decided to have one huge party.  Of course I decided to wait until the "last minute" but with My Digital Studio, my Big Shot, and dies I was able to pull off lots of fun elements for the perfect party that I wanted to share with you.

The first thing I did was choose a theme and since we had 3 guys and 1 girl I went with blue/lime green/white geometric patterns.  I purchased the paper lanterns, balloons, and fans at a party supply store and then added my own touches so everything was special.  The first thing we did was create a photo booth (which are so popular right now) using a black background, paper lanterns, and balloons.  We also created some mustaches and bow ties using the Big Shot, Mustache Framelit, and Bow die, along with open picture frames for lots of fun props.

Here's the photo booth all ready for fun.

Here are the open frames, mustaches, and bow ties for fun props.

Here are a couple of fun pictures of my family playing around in the photo booth.  It was so fun to see friends posting pictures from the photo book on Facebook during the party!

Of course no party is complete with out food and we had lots of finger foods and desserts for all to enjoy.  I used My Digital Studio to create food labels that match the colors and theme of the party (I love that you can change the colors of elements in MDS so everything coordinates perfectly).  Then I just cut them out and attached them to cardstock tents so they were nice and sturdy.

Here's another picture of the food (sorry I forgot to take pictures before the party so I had to take them during the party).

One more food picture, these Key Lime Tarts were awesome and who doesn't love dip in the shape of a 40?

Here's a picture showing how I hung some of the lanterns over the food buffet.

At the entrance to the party I had this table where guests could sign cards for each of the honorees (I made large cards by folding 8 1/2 x 11 pieces of cardstock in half so we had plenty of space to write and using the Envelope Punch Board to make coordinating envelopes for each of the cards.  I also used the Big Shot, dies and 2 1/2" Circle Punch to make the center piece of the paper fan (I had these throughout the party).

Of course no party is complete without party favors (even for adults) so I made these little treat boxes (filled with M&M's) using the Scallop Tag Topper Punch and I stamped texture on the boxes with the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set.  The tag was made in My Digital Studio.

 

To make the tag I inserted a punch shape (don't change it's size so you'll be able to punch it out perfectly with our punch).  I designed one tag and then grouped all the images and copied and pasted so I didn't have to make it over and over again.  The tag says "Aged to Perfection, Vintage 1974" and once again I used the color theme so they match.

I also made signs for each honoree showing a baby picture and then a current picture as a fun tribute.  It was really simple (I did use a retired Big Shot Die but you could easily use our current letter die for the same effect).  The Happy Birthday is cut out of the Silver Glimmer Paper so it really sparkles and the cool thing is that it's an instant scrapbook page since I used a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock (I gave these to each of the honorees at the end of the party).

One final element I made was a birthday banner, once again My Digital Studio to the rescue.  I just used a punch shape and this time I enlarged it to a full sheet of cardstock, filled it in with chalkboard paper for the background and added an alphabet letter punch so I could fill it in with patterned paper that matched our colors.  I also added some star elements to the pennants before printing them out.

After I cut them out I added some bling in the form of stars that were cut out using the Big Shot, Star Framelits, and Silver Glimmer Paper.  You can see below I even nested some of the stars when I cut them out so I had different size stars and some that were just outlines.  Linen Thread was used to string it all up.



Want to know something cool about this banner?  I specifically made the 40th part it's own pennant so I can reuse the banner and all the matching decorations for another party (awesome!!!)

Last I had to share a picture of the birthday honorees, Happy Birthday!

I hope you enjoyed all the details of these awesome 40th birthday party and see how easy it is to make the perfect party items for your next party using My Digital Studio, the Big Shot, our dies, etc.  It's so easy and inexpensive and is guaranteed to impress.

 

Enjoy!