Recycle Those Resources When Decorating!

This past weekend marked the eleventh birthday of my oldest

 grandchild and the beginning of my twelfth year as a grandma. 

How can that be?

It was so much fun being a part of her surprise birthday celebration!

My daughter had reserved a room at a local mexican food restaurant for the occasion. She called to ask me about party ideas and decor to personalize the room. I told her that I would check my resources and let her know what I had.

After checking my resources I told her that we could go with a red, yellow, and green color scheme. 

I had fringed mats and paper flowers stored in my fiesta tubs. I had made the flowers for a large Christmas Fiesta that I had decorated for. The paper flowers had decorated Christmas trees at the fiesta. I now planned to use them to create table centerpieces.

The red and green baskets that had once held silverware on the fiesta serving tables became the base of three mexican floral arrangements. I also added some fun and festive tissue paper wrapped toilet paper rolls with curly ribbon that I had in my fiesta stash.

To personalize the cake table I pulled a frame out that I had used previously on a memory table that I  had done for our sweet baby Caden when he passed.

I used brightly colored card stock scraps in red, greens, and yellow to change the plain white frame into a festive and personalized decoration to frame the face of our beautiful birthday girl. (I used low tack tape to attach the card stock and photos so that the frame could be easily reused.)

We covered the cake table in a bright red linen that I use for Christmas, Valentines and any other event where primary colors work well.

My daughter added helium balloons in red, green, and yellow to the centerpieces. She also picked up a brightly colored pinata that matched our color scheme perfectly.

We hung a birthday banner at the end of the kids table. Within minutes this very adult looking room had been transformed into a space perfect for our very special celebration.

The kids table was directly in front of the doors where the birthday girl would be entering. On the kids table each place setting had a children's menu, crayons, and a fun party favor as a napkin ring.

We had pulled it off. 

The birthday girl was very surprised!

So were her two friends who thought they were just over for a sleepover.

After a very delicious dinner it was time for the 

confetti topped cupcakes, the gifts, and the pinata.

Yep, an indoor pinata.

This is nothing new to our family but I have to admit that we had never done it outside of our own homes before. We have done many indoor pinata's for our summer birthdays here in Arizona. We pushed the tables back, the room had a very high ceiling, and the adults kept the other children, the furniture, and the light fixtures all safe from the swinging stick.

My daughter and her husband had one

very happy birthday girl!

And me.... I was one very happy grandma

for being a part of this very special occasion.