Well, I had a pinterest inspired birthday. I wasn't sure what to do! Didn't really have any plans but was nudged by questions from friends about what I was going to do.
As a friend said, when you are single, and having a milestone, you kind of think that its a good idea to celebrate with friends :)
A lot of my friends were students, studying, and on tight budgets. As asians, the tradition is if you invite someone to seomthing, you don't ask them to pay - it seems rude - please bring a present AND hey, pay for yourself! So I wanted to do something where I didn't ask someone to pay, (cos hey its expensive) but its nice, and also kind of flexible.
So with that in mind, and the fact that lots of people are busy on weekends esp around end of novemember, and the fact that I have a few but nto many good friends with family I decided on a nice picnic but more of a nice garden party style. This was inspired by my friend's birthday in bowral where she used lace tableclothes.
I scoured pinterest.
I made my own bunting - I followed some incredibly helpful instructions at this page home made happy. You need to have free time to make bunting. It took a very long time. I went to some op shops and in two founds ome old pillow cases that looked vintage. I must say amusingly as I prepared this, I visited a friend's place for a bible study social and she brought out pillow cases they were using that was the same pattern, but different colour.
Anyhow the end result was I made about 50 metres of bunting, with about 254 triangles, with orange bias binding and a myriad of patterns. Most painful was actually ordering the triangles as they were various piles in various numbers. I'll post on the process later. Sorry my face is in this, but you get a good look at the bunting. I don't really have any shots with just the bunting.
I found some pedestal things which I suspect were for burning incense/oils at reverse garbage.
For the table settings, I looked online and decided that I could put flowers on it. - originally I wanted to use jars ( but someone threw out the jars at work that had been collected for months). My friend's mother is very good with flowers so she went to the flower markets bought some vases and I was totally bowled over with how beautiful they were.
I wanted to go with real plates - so those old looking plates that looked dated 5 years ago, suddently looked awesome vintage for my shindig. I also borrowed the cutlery from church. Here is what the tables looked like:
oops this was before the drinks, and plates were moved...
Sourcing:
I got napkins from ikea ( I had purchased blue and white as well, but the blue was the wrong shade)
I used twine and my friends tied them into knots whilst they were baggsing the picnic spot. Shout out to a friend who woke up with me at 5am to get the covered pagoda ( would you believe we were NOT the first there, and the other shelters were already taken!)
Hessian was purchased from spotlight
lace curtain cut-offs were purchased cheaply from spotlight. (this is good if you cant' find cheap lace tablecloths at the opshop - which was certainly my problem)
The main food table was made beautiful by two of the bunting things I made and my friend's beautiful table cloth and the abundance of amazing food. I tried to put things not on paper plates so it looked a little bit grown up.
Work had an assortment of trays that I borrowed - it actually turned out very convenient, as there were quite a lot of catering ish things I borrowed. A lady at work lent me her plate stand from house, and another colleague gave me her cupcake stand.
Things like trays are easy to borrow for this kind of party and look much better than a paper plate!
If you have access to your church's commercial dishwasher this may make washing easier with a few friends. ( which I was very thankful for - was EXHAUSTED after). If you don't, perhaps see if you can source some wooden recyclable cutlery/plates, they look quite nice, and dont' need to be washed.
Food Costs.... this is a bit approx as its been two weeks since...
* purchased 10 bbq chickens $140
* drinks - bundaberg creaming soda, blood orange, lemon lime bitters, agrum in glass bottles from coles, plus some bottled water ($70?)
* cheeses/pastrami - fancy from potts point $100-150
* fruit - mangoes $20.00 for at tray, peaches, strawberries, nectarines, approx $50
* cupcakes - made with love by Halley from church, I gave her the cost, plus a bit more, the cupcake patties I bought at a fete for $12
* salads - I made one with baby spinach, roasted pumpkin, etc and various ppl made a few others,
* bread rolls - provided by a friend
* mango jelly - with fresh mango, with bluberries, gelatine (cost around $15?)
* greek biscuits - gifted from my work friend
* various tablesettigns - doilies, hessian, bunting, costing $150-$200?
* make your own bruschetta - my school friend made enough for 40 ppl!
Friends bought cakes and other various goodies and we had WAY to much food, we ate a lot though and everyone enjoyed the day! :)
