my husband turned 30 + how we chose to celebrate!...

Aren't these the coolest things?! My husband made them himself! Totally started the theme of our little party off right! These can now be purchased and customized to fit your own party, at his Etsy store.

Well it finally happened. My husband turned 30.

Let me give you a tiny bit of a back story. We met when he was 19, I was 16. We started dating when he was 20 and I was 17. We got engaged when he was 26 and I was 23. Married when he was 27 and I was 24.... Now, here we are....and he's 30 years young. I'm still taken aback by it every now and then. I just can't believe it. I mean...I do believe it...it's just hard to wrap my head around sometimes. What a 10 years it has been...

Bill decided that all he wanted to do for his big 3-0 was sit around and play old school video games with his friends he's known "forever". That's just what we did. BUT being a 30th birthday, we couldn't just have people over and play some video games...we needed to go all out and do everything in style. Video game style, that would be.

I think it's pretty safe to safe we both...could hang out...with the artistic crowd...I'm usually the "big ideas" and "style and decorating" and he's the "do-er". He knows exactly what I mean when I explain how I want something to look...and if the rare occasion happens where he doesn't, he'll understand my stick figure drawing perfectly. That's exactly how we worked together to make this party happen. I got a HUGE piece of paper out, drew exactly what I wanted each thing to look like and said "Ok...now go!" Everything came out AWESOME. Couldn't be more happy about it!

I had this great idea to do all these awesome banners. True, they were awesome...but cutting each thing out took...well shall we say, forever!

I literally got an 8.5"x11" piece of paper out and said "This big...ish" when Bill asked me what size to make.

This is by far my favorite banner. This was actually the first idea I had when he told me he wanted to do an old school video game themed party. I drew this out on a piece of paper, he went into Photoshop and did his magic, printed up on heavy cardstock and I glued each piece to simple organic twine! Pretty much the exact steps were done for every banner shown.

The favors were sort of tricky. I had SO many ideas for what we could do as party favors. Finally we decided that making them ourselves would be just too time consuming, and opted to spread the Etsy word to all our guests and find something neat there. Boy did we! Loving everything "8 bit" we found brakbudy's store on Etsy and fell in love! So many great 8 bit magnets to choose from! We stuck to some of our favorite old school games and characters everyone would know and love as well!

Our absolute favorites! Little Mac and Mike Tyson from one of our favorite Nintendo games, Punch-Out. Mike was updated with his newer...face tattoo...

Again being the super duper awesome artist he is, my husband created every single label, sign, and whatever else you see. Our party favor bag labels were no exception!

These were my FAVORITE things about the party. They were also the first things we bought! One day we were walking through our local Target store. I wanted to "browse" through their beach/picnic/summer aisle and see what they had. We both stopped dead in our tracks when we saw these little sailor themed water bottles with straws. "THESE TOTALLY COULD TURN INTO BOB-OMBS!!!" We both said that same sentence to each other. I kid not. Needing prizes for games and tournaments we were going to play, they were PERFECT! So, again being the most awesome artist ever, my brilliant husband taped off, spray painted black, and hand painted white our little Bob-Ombs. Hello cuties!! He also made each of the prize labels as well.

I know we've all seen the papers on telephone poles or what have you. Those ads or "missing pet" papers that have the picture at top and the phone number on bottom for people to tear off. Well I thought, "Why not do that same thing, but make it a raffle? The winner would get a Bob-Omb!" So we did. Each guest tore their desired number and during the night, Bill drew a number out of a bowl and called it aloud. The matching number's owner received a prize.

Funny story. Our littlest baby, Mustachio WOULD NOT let me be decoration/party day. Everywhere I was, she was. Everything I was in, she was in. Everything I was a part of, she was too. Frustrating!...but cute. So while I was getting the table ready, she WOULD NOT leave the table while I was there. In fact she plopped herself down and made herself quite comfy right next to this sign. I thought it was perfect.

All Bill wanted at the party was a cake version of our Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes. Cinnamon rolls are his absolute favorite thing in the whole wide world. Done.

Keeping with the theme, we created little flags on cardstock with images of his name and a sprite (or image) of Punch-Out's Glass Joe. I then glued them to organic twine and tied to extra long skewers (available at Michael's) which sat perfectly atop Bill's birthday cake.

Inside view of cake...Can you say YUMMY cinnamon brown sugar caramel!?

Ok ok....now I really need to say something. Little paper flags on top of toothpicks that go into sandwiches?...Totally cute. Making them? SUCK-TASTIC! This was the worst craft "project" I gave myself. BUT they were super neat and made my Meatloaf Sliders with Spicy Marinara adorable.

Yes you read right, Meatloaf Sliders. The food of course had to represent Bill perfectly. Bill loves meatloaf and he adores left-over meatloaf sandwiches!

I had made this little wonderful Mushroom Pancetta Crostata for a recent baby shower and Bill LOVED it. "I don't even really like mushrooms...but this is just fantastic!" So, he requested it to be made for his birthday :)

All the food signs were printed on heavy duty cardstock and just simply folded in half to stand upright. BUT since each picture was a sprite from a video game and there were never sprites made for "Caprese Skewers"..or anything that resembled one...Bill had to do some more magic and create his own. Isn't it just perfect??

Our signature drinks were the Bane of Belmont (sparkling black cherry lemonade) and the 1-Up (organic lemon and mint with club soda- added to give it some fizz)

:)

Of course no old school video game party could happen without...old school video games! They all worked nicely.

We included one...not so old school console as well ;)

Some of our favorite games!!

As said before, guests were encouraged to pick a number during the beginning of the party, for a raffle later on in the night.

This was so funny to us! How little those old controllers used to be!!! Well....and one friend in particular had some huge hands...but still they were tiny back then!

My birthday man!

Happy Birthday to the best guy I know! Here's to 30 million more together!