School & the Party

Two days of school done...and I seriously feel like I never left. Its been exhausting already. Tomorrow is my first day of clinicals, I'm on a psychiatric unit for the next 7 weeks, and I'm very nervous. I don't know what to expect at all, be ready for some stories tomorrow!

Anywho...I finally got around to uploading the pictures from the surprise party, and wanted to share them! I loved the way everything turned out. Let me give you a little recap first. I started planning this party literally in the end of April. My mom is one of the nosiest people ever, so I knew how secretive I would have to be. I hand-made all the invitations (see here) and had them sent out weeks ago. The party date was August 21st. On top of planning for the party, I was moving to a new apartment in Chicago, so I have spent every weekend downtown since August 1st moving. Everything is going as planned until the day before the party, when my mom decides she does not want to leave the house on Saturday! She is going on vacation on Friday with a friend for her birthday, and so she wanted to get her hair done and start packing/getting organized. I literally had a breakdown and started bawling in the car Friday night as I was driving to pick up the cake thinking that the whole party was ruined. As luck would have it, she changed her mind last minute and decided to go to Lake Geneva with her boyfriend that day, which was the original plan. So when she got back...complete surprise! Total success on my part!

Here were the napkins. I made the poms poms out of tissue paper that everyone has seen thousands of times before, and just wrapped the remaining wire around the napkins. Originally, I had these laid out real pretty on the table, but we ended up having way more food than I thought, so they had to move.

The table! I absolutely loved the way everything turned out! We had two platters of Jimmy John's sandwiches ordered, but the rest was prepared by my aunt and I. We ended up having to move a lot of the food onto the island in the kitchen due to the other food that people brought, but it turned out better than I ever hoped!

The antipasto tray we put together (which was one of my favorite things). We had salami, provolone cheese cubes, mortadella, homemade roasted red peppers, assorted olives, marinated artichoke hears, pepperoncinis, pickled picante peppers stuffed with goat cheese, fresh mozzarella balls, and grape tomatoes.

The pickled picante peppers were purchased from Costco, and seriously, everyone loved them! They were gone within an hour. If you ever need something like this, I highly recommend them. They come premade, and although I didn't get a chance to try one because they were already gone, people were asking about them all night. The mozzarella balls were also from Costco, in a marinade, and they were also delish!

The cake and dessert table. I ordered a big cake from Costco that was at the center of the table, and then had a cute cake in the shape of a cupcake up on the cake pedestal. I also handmade that pink sign in the background.

And last but not least...the bar area. I made the pink sign, and I wish I had a better picture of it. I bought a canvas, cut out letters on cardstock with my Cricut machine, rubber cemented them down and painted over everything. I used rubber cement so the cardstock would peel off after I was done, and I just love how they turned out!

Of course I forgot to take pictures of all the tables in the backyard set up, but you get the picture. Almost all the food and all the booze was gone by morning, so I'd say it was a pretty successful night :)