I love the 80s...it's all in the details!

Where, oh, where do I begin to explain how much preparation went into Brett's birthday party? Wait...that's not what I meant to say...where do I begin to explain how much FUN I had helping plan Brett's birthday party?!

It was such a freaking blast! Gen made all of these amazing plans and I am so honored that I got to help her execute it all...that's why they call me "the executor." Not the most flattering nickname, but whatever. It works.

Anyway, we had so much fun! We made tablecloths and photo booth backdrops by spray painting "gnarly," "rad" 80s words on drop cloths and then splattering paint all over the place. At one point in time, it looked like I had been splatter painted myself.

Richard Simmons!

Look at these awesome costumes! :)
The photo booth was a hit!!

We also made "Brett Says Relax" floppy disc coasters by gluing cork board to the back of rainbow colored floppy discs. By the way, do you know how expensive floppy discs are these days? I think they might be more expensive than they were when they originally came out. Shocker! But we found them for a pretty good price!

Next we decided some beautiful signs were necessary. We made a whole bunch of them...my favorite is the cocktail sign. :)

Pretty sure that Evan and I were the only ones who played this game...
but with all the couples (and the few singles) it might have been awkward
if more people had played...

Throw in some antique store finds and some super creativity on Gen's part (she did the poster collages all by herself!) and you've got some fun!

Then we come to the chalkboard signs. I found a bunch of metal platters at Goodwill and we covered them in chalkboard paint. Gen found these awesome chalk paint markers. Doesn't it look AWESOME?!

Note that there is only one thing on the scavenger hunt list...

Yes...that's an original Hulk Hogan doll!

Now we come to the part you've all been waiting for: The inside of the cake...

It's NEON TIE-DYE! How oh how did I do that? Simple, I divided the batter up into 4 parts and used neon food coloring to make it super vibrant. Then I poured in about 3/4 of a cup in each pan of alternating colors. That's it. That's all there is to it. :) Here are some additional pics of the cake taken by Rachel and Lauren. Thanks for remembering your cameras, ladies! I can't believe I forgot mine!!

For the love of...US

What a crazy year it’s been…

A little over a year ago, I met the most amazing guy…we went out, we had some dinner, we went to Ikea…we fell in love.

Since then we’ve had about a million adventures and made some really great memories. With Evan’s birthday fast approaching, I wanted to give him something heartfelt and original. Well, maybe not so original…Evan and I recently went to church with my friend Rachel and there was this amazing painting behind the pastor…I might have used that piece as my inspiration, but I definitely made it my own!

What I did was paint the entire canvas red and let it dry. Then I layered different colors top of it with no real rhyme or reason. Finally, I painted a big red heart smack-dab in the center.

While that dried, I sketched out some of the things I wanted to put on our “For the Love of Us” painting. In case you couldn’t tell what really is on there, it’s a year’s worth of inside jokes, things that we’ve done, places we’ve been and a lot of who we are. Evan’s family is from California, mine is from Georgia, we’ve taken quite a few trips this year, we got a dog, we love Ikea…just the usual stuff.

Anyway, after about 3 hours of sketching, I didn’t want to have to re-do all of my pictures, so I decided to use transfer paper and then go over those pictures with sharpie later…

This also allowed me to cut the pictures out and place them where I wanted to and mix it up a bit. So, that’s what I did. After I’d placed all of my important pieces, I realized I had a lot of space left over so I filled in with little phrases we say, tiny little things that only make sense to us.

Now I was planning on giving this to Evan on his actual birthday, but he had to go pick up the pup from my place and I forgot to hide it before I left. Anyway, he saw it way before he was supposed to and now it’s hanging over Evan’s couch. He loved it! (or so he says! Haha)