30th Fiesta of Fun!

We celebrated my 30th birthday last weekend with a Fiesta! It was so much fun, so many of my favorite people were there (and some of my favorite food and my most favorite drink).

Part of the fun for me was getting to transform our back yard. We had always intended to fix it up but there is nothing like a dead line to get things moving.

I had already pulled out the awkward planter bed the previous tenants had put in and have been trying to grow grass there for the past 3 months. We don't have a lot to show for ourselves there but it still opened up the yard really well.

Kerry (my husband) added the posts for the hammock and pull-up bar about a month ago. He loooooves hammocks and I gotta say I'm starting to see the appeal. The pull-up bar has been a nice addition to my morning backyard workouts. Between that and my tire that my father in-law pulled out the river for me, I feel pretty set.

Kerry also made me a table for my birthday. It will seat eight if I pull it out from the yard, just enough room to have the whole Carpenter clan at the table.

He also made these two awesome benches.

I revamped the cornhole set that we somehow snatched from my brother in-law's wedding (thanks Chris and Natalie!). While their monogram was beautiful for their wedding, it wouldn't quite work for this party. So I painted over it with cactus, cuz Fiesta. And somehow we had ended up with the boards but no bags so I had to make my own and why make them plain? Next week I'll walk you through it.

The party decor itself utilized a lot of tissue paper. I mean a lot. And why not? Its relatively inexpensive and can add a lot of color really easily. And I needed some bright color for this party without spending a lot of money. The three tissue (or crepe) paper decorations I made were the tassels, the streamers and the flowers. I learned how to make tassels here. And got the idea for the crepe streamers here. I ended up winging that one a little, I think it all depends on how the crepe paper you got is cut and packaged. The flowers I had seen photos of some huge paper flowers but couldn't find a how-to on it. I read a Fiskars blog about making these tiny tissue paper flowers (that I of course can't find anymore) and thought 'why not bigger?'. I'll be writing up a post about how I did it in the coming week.

I had such a blast getting ready for the party and then the party itself was amazing. Thanks to everyone who helped out (looking at you parents, and Carpenters), who cleaned up (Ken & Lila) and came to celebrate. It was a fabulous way to usher in a new decade.