With the successful completion of the first year of Handmade Happiness, I decided it would be a great idea to throw a party. I wanted to celebrate all the fun and growth I have had with Handmade Happiness in the last year. And who doesn't love to party right?!! So I quickly started planning. I wanted a party that would be fun for the whole family to enjoy.
First I decided on a theme, and fruit seemed perfect since it would be in the middle of Summer. After I set a theme, I knew it was time to do invitations. This would give everyone a little heads up on what to plan for. I used Greenvelope for invitations and they couldn't have been better. It was so quick and easy to design an invite and get it sent out to everyone. A bonus about Greenvelope is that it is all digital. This makes it easy to send out invites quickly and efficiently. Here is how the invite turned out:
After that, I started brainstorming ideas of activities we could do and what I wanted to eat. I wanted to keep the food very light and fresh since it was going to be a hot summer day. So here is the menu I decided on:
For the chicken, we thawed and marinated it overnight in an Italian Dressing. This kept it moist and very flavorful!
For the Fruit kabobs, I used the fruit we had on hand and threaded onto skewer sticks. So easy but so yummy and pretty!
For the green beans, we got a bag of fresh green beans and sautéd them with olive oil and some bacon bits. They were such a hit!
For the shortcake, I bought mini angel food cakes and topped them with whipped cream and fresh blueberries and strawberries. YUM!!
Lastly, for the lemonade I got minute maid light lemonade and added some fresh puréed strawberries and fresh lemon for garnish. So yummy and perfect for a hot summer day.
Now for the table decor. I was so excited to decorate the table. First I started out by getting some cute fruit plates from Zurchers. I also picked up a green table cloth and some confetti from Zurchers. My placemats were a lucky find from Hobby Lobby on clearance. Such a steal of a deal at $0.49 each!! For my centerpiece, I really wanted to tie in the fruit theme so I made a vase from a pineapple. I just hollowed it out and added some fresh flowers! I also hollowed out a couple oranges for candle holders. Here is a good look at the table:
Now for the fun part, the games! After we ate, we had a whole bunch of games. This was the lineup!
After eating, we walked to the backyard and everyone was greeted with this cute sign and some ice cold waters. Just what everyone needed on the 90 degree day.
So our first game was the lemon toss and it went like this...
Everyone had two rounds to score as many points as they could. Each round consisted of 3 lemons. it was tricky as we tried tossing lemons into hula hoops for points because they would bounce. It definitely evened out the competition though! We added up the points and put them on our score sheet. What a fun game to start out with!
The second game was pineapple bowling and it went like this...
For the setup, I placed 6 pineapples in a triangle. We decided to play with 6 pineapples instead of the standard 10 for regular bowling. After setup, each player had 2 tries each round to knock as many pineapples over as possible. Our bowling ball was a coconut. I thought this would be fun and keep the fruit theme going. We let each player do 2 rounds of pineapple bowling. What a hit!!
Our third game was fruity bocce. This was a fun twist to the game we love in our family.
This game didn't really have any set up. We just divided ourselves into teams of 3 and each team got 4 pieces of fruit. One team was lemons and the other was oranges. We used a lime as our target ball. The goal of this game is to get your ball the closest to the target ball. So to start, one team throws the lime. After it has settled, teams take turns throwing their fruit until all have been thrown. Each round, the closest team gets 2-3 points. You win once you reach 10 points.
The last game we did was the pineapple relay. The object of this game was to get the pineapple to the finish line without using your hands and be the fastest. Each team had a creative idea and tried to beat the others. This game was so fast and fun that we didn't get any pictures. But I would definitely recommend doing this again.
And to finish off the fun, we had dessert. Yummy angel food cakes with fresh
fruit and cream.
What a fun way to celebrate 1 year of Handmade Happiness!!
As always, remember to keep making happiness.
XOXO,
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