Birthday on a Budget

 
My past few recipe posts (and, let's be honest, the next few posts) have all been about things I baked for my friend's 30th birthday party. I thought it might be fun to show you some of the awesome, non-edible things from this party, seeing as we pulled off some extreme awesome within a very reasonable budget.

I mentioned before that this was a slumber party. Like, grown women in their late 20s / early 30s in silly pajamas kind of slumber party.  The idea came about kind of by accident. Several months before the big day, the birthday girl was a little mopey, and stated that all she wanted to do for her birthday was go to bed at 9pm.  Right. If you've met said birthday girl, you'd know what a LIE this was. So, I informed her that, if she was going to bed at 9pm, we must then have a slumber party.  From there, the beast was born.



We decided that the guest list should be small-- she invited nine people, with a total of six attending.  This number turned out to be perfect, since we hosted the party in hotel rooms.  The hotel room idea came from fact that none of us has a home conducive to a bunch of grown women dancing around in PJ's.   It turned out great, as we found a hotel in the middle ground between the cities where everyone lives and, since it was not located anywhere exciting, it was inexpensive. For the same price we could have paid to get one, standard room in downtown Chicago, we got two suites. One suite was like a standard hotel room with two beds and an added kitchen area; and one had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living area with a couch, table and chairs.

Since this was a slumber party, we ordered pizza rather than going out for a meal. I mean, we are civilized grown ups in pajamas, we got classy pizza. But it was pizza, none-the-less. We also all brought some snacks and appetizers (stay tuned for recipes!), as well as the deserts you've already seen posted.  Additionally, we opted for BYOB for two reasons- one, it made life easier for myself and the birthday girl; and two, it made sure everyone got what they wanted since we weren't going to be anywhere with a full bar.

Seeing as this was the first slumber party any of us has attended in several decades, so we took it back to the early 90s. I raided my parent's basement for some relics of sleepovers-past; I brought my paraffin hand dip thingie like they have in spas / manicure stuff; we even busted out a classy  dollar store Pin the Tail on the Donkey. We also were required everyone to wear awesome PJs. Two of the ladies even rocked onsies *with* butt-flaps.

Yes, that is the NKOTB board game. And Girl Talk. WIN.

Other things we brought with us included: a number of DVDs and several iPods, and a docking station. As it turns out, the iPods were all we ended up using. The rest merely provided an entertaining backdrop for photos.

The rest of the night was fully furnished by the dollar store. Like, I have MAD LOVE for the dollar store. All the birthday plates/napkins/plastic ware; all the banners/decorations; the curly straws; birthday hats; etc.  I also collected a number of random dress-up items/hats/masks from the dollar store to use as photo props throughout the night. LET ME JUST TELL YOU, I will NEVER again have a party WITHOUT a pack of dollar store mustaches. Way more fun that you can imagine. Seriously. Trust me on this.

In the morning, breakfast was free at the hotel, and, since it was a hotel, we only had to sort of clean up, not really clean up like we would have it it was someone's house. Which was way more awesome than I would have anticipated.

Ultimately, we had a great time, and we spent less than we would have to go out for big birthday dinner/drinks.

Oh, and, by the time we celebrate 40? I hope to be posting "birthday on a extravagant, excessive budget." A girl can dream.