Walking into year twenty-eight with a porch full of pale pink, white and gray pumpkins—dozens of rose, peach and white balloons to match—a cutting board full of the most perfect and equally difficult batch of homemade champagne and raspberry macarons—and a house full of laughter and friends (plus a bar cart full of frosted handles of Costco vodka). Sounds like my kind of year.

I love seeing all these pretty balloon garlands, so I wanted to try my hand at one (with some help from the guys blowing up balloons, and Christina helping arrange and secure them). With the exception of a few that popped and a handful that came with holes, we used just about all of the balloons we bought, which included a pack of 15 white 12” balloons, a pack of 20 white 9” balloons, and 20 assorted (chalk blush, matte blush, and matte pink) 11” and 9” balloons.
(If you’re curious about the table—you can see how I made it over on my DIY Hairpin Dining Table post!)

Not gonna lie, it was really hard arranging all of the balloons and getting them to stick because we were only using tape. I HIGHLY recommend getting a Plastic Balloon Arch Strip, and while you’re at it, a Balloon Pump too, especially if you’re going to get the matte/chalk balloons that I got because they’re actually two balloons layered over one another and hard as heck to blow up. Our little hand-held balloon pump broke when we were about five balloons in, so if I were to do it again—which I totally would because I loved how it turned out—I’d just invest in that electric pump. Of course if you don’t feel the need to completely handpick all of your balloons and colors, here’s a really cute pre-packaged option: Rose Gold Garland.

I served everything on various sized/shaped cutting boards and set out some white Rae Dunn paper plates, rose gold paper snack plates, and gold plastic flatware.

Our charcuterie board turned out way better than I could’ve expected (and was promptly eaten up). I feel like there isn’t really a wrong way to put together a board, just use a variety of crackers, fruits, cheese, and other bite-sized goodies. We used Milton Multi-Grain Crackers, Open Nature Everything Flatbread Crackers, Old Croc Australian Sharp Cheddar, Van Kaas Smoked Gouda, President Wee Brie, mixed Greek olives, strawberries, grapes, and some kind of salami (no clue, I don’t really eat meat). Just slice and dice everything, and then arrange and fill in!

I also made some caprese skewers (with grape tomatoes, mozzerella balls, basil and a balsamic reduction drizzle; this is the platter I used for those), a super simple spinach artichoke dip bites (I rolled out a Pillsbury crescent dough, cut it into 24 - 2” squares, pressed those into each cup of an oiled mini muffin tin, then scooped some spinach artichoke dip into them and baked at 375 for 15 minutes), and I dipped a bunch of pretzels into melted white chocolate (half white and half with a tiny drop of red food gel added to make a pale pink).

Okay these macarons were for real an accomplishment. I’ve never made macarons before and I’ve heard that they can be tricky. I thought I was being so precise, measuring everything down to the gram with a food scale and following directions exactly. But my first batch was SO ugly I wanted to cry out of frustration. The next day after I got off work, I went to the store to get more ingredients to try again because I was so disappointed. And then these guys came out. 😍

I think I’ll have to make them again and blog it so I can give you my tips and takeaways, because I know I sure needed them and scoured all sorts of blogs to see where I was going wrong. These are the recipes I used, with some minor tweaks: macarons / pink champagne buttercream / raspberry buttercream.

I don’t remember the last time I actually had a birthday party, I usually do something low key with family or go out for drinks with a few friends. But all these people made the night a blast (and I hope the rough morning was worth it for everyone 😉).

And there we have it, successfully took another ride around the sun.