You are my sunshine!

Last week was hubs' 34th birthday! Last year, we didn't get to do anything because we had no money and were stuck in the flat, so couldn't have people over. Well, this year was different :) we are in the house, and we decided to have a BBQ to celebrate!
Woody shares his birthday with my Grandma, who turned 80 this year, so a joint party seemed like a good idea. 
Even though it was joint, I wanted to emphasis to be on Woody. I tailored the decorations to fit his personality - being ex-Royal Navy, I used a lot of anchors and maps.

Bunting


I used a local A-Z map book, folded each page over and cut out a triangle. Fold it back out,
place the string through the fold and glue each side to the other. Easy!

I also made frame bunting with photos of hubs in.

Table Decorations

I decided to make table decorations to give the whole house a party feel. I made one for the dining room, one for the BBQ outdoor table, one for the hallway and one for the living room.
I started with cleaned babyfood jars that my friend had collected for her wedding. Using a glue gun, I stuck lace around the centres, before wrapping some string around each one.
I then printed, cut out and stuck on a picture of an anchor.

I bought some purple flowers to sit in the jars, that matched the purple/blue 

colour of the anchors.

And finally I made pinwheels out of map wrapping paper, striped straws and split pins!

They looked amazing! I'll have to add a tutorial on here sometime as they're the simplest thing ever to make!

The table

The food table is always the hub of activity and I wanted ours to be beautiful.

As well as the pinwheel flower jar, I sprinkled sunflowers and hearts all over it,

and spread out the cute cupcakes around the different dishes.

We also made a huge poster of photos for my Grandma, from her as a baby up to being a Great Grandma.

Setting up

The Cakes

The cakes were my favourite part!
I made one for my Grandma and one for Woody.

For Grandma's, I used a Cath Kidston print to make bunting attached to string, attached to two kebab skewers. I printed out the number 80, and added a thick outline of glitter to each digit. The cake was an angel cake with icing and sprinkles. 

Woody's cake was my favourite :) we joked about getting him a stripper,

and he told me he wanted me to do it, so I bought a Barbie doll and cut her hair to match mine. I bought a donut cake as they're his favourite, and after detaching Barbie's legs, I frosted over her lady lumps (!!!) and added sprinkles, and stuck a glittered '34' to her hands.

My Mum also made cupcakes - half were Madeira and half were Carrot Cake.

I cropped photos of Grandma and Woody's faces when they were younger (and some of Woody now) and printed them, cut them out and attached 'party hats' to them made from craft paper. I glued them to cocktail sticks and stuck them on the cupcakes. 

Everyone loved them and they were a great keepsake for people to take home with them and enjoy later.

My sister on frosting duty!

Presents

I went all out this year as much as possible. I decided to lightly use the theme 'you are my sunshine' because it's something special between me and Woody. I started by painting this canvas, then adding the letters to it having printed them out and transferred them on.

Following the theme, I wanted to get hubs a zippo lighter. I searched eBay for weeks looking for the right one, when up popped an HMS Sceptre one. Being an ex-submariner, this was perfect. It also turned out that HMS Sceptre was a sub decomissioned the year we started dating, and was one that my Grandad worked on. I had it engraved with the date, our nickcames, and the quote 'love anchors the soul.

Amongst other presents, I made him a 'box of sunshine'. The idea came from Pinterest.

Pretty much, it's just a box of yellow candy. I went a little further and painted an old toy suitcase with a sunbeam, made sunflower bunting for the inside, and 'you are my sunshine' sheet music hearts and quotes to scatter inside the box.

Before being painted

 I painted both inside and outside cream, with a paste yellow sunbeam on the lid.

I printed our the sheet music, backed it onto itself and cut out double sided hearts.

I made the bunting from sunflower images I printed onto photo paper and cut out, and thread onto string. I also cut out some sunbeam shapes that I had written quotes on.

The box looked so cute, and he loved it.

The guests

Unfortunately a lot of people couldn't make it, but my lovely cousins and a few of our friends popped in to wish Woody a happy birthday :) we were so overwhelmed by peoples lovely cards and gifts :)

My Grandma had a few family members over and they spent most of the day doing a quiz my Dad had put together. 

Just as my Gran had done for her Mum's 80th in the same garden, me and Kerri made Grandma a big silver tin-foil '80' necklace to wear. 

xo