On the 22nd of March, this year, we organized a surprise birthday for my dear mother. She was turning 60! My little sister was to handle the guest list and invite all the guest. (Thanks Tasha!) I did the decor.
I wanted the decor to have a vintage feel so I played around with hessian fabric, lace and wood. I wanted to add some ‘vintage’ objects like old books, shoemakers anvils etc., but unfortunately there were not enough space. I started off making a hessian and lace table runner. This little project took up more time than I anticipated! I think mainly because I couldn’t find a piece of lace broad enough with a pretty enough pattern. So I had to ‘design’ my own. I ended up sewing together 3 lengths of lace to form one broad piece.



(I will add a pic of the whole table runner soon)
I used hessian on glass bottles of various sizes, adding a little lace and twine for detail. Most of the bottles were recycled baby food bottles that I saved. I confess, I can’t through anything away. ”Maybe some day I can use it for something” is always going through my mind.
Bunting always looks so gorgeous at any occasion. I love bunting! I’ll put it up everywhere in my house, if you give me the chance. Naturally I wanted bunting for this occasion too. Not wanting to sew a bunch of flags, I decided to use doilies. Simply folded in half and stuck to a piece of twine with some glue. After making two strings, I loved it so much, (and it was so super easy and quick to make) that I made a bunch more. I’m super glad that I did, because they looked really nice!
We wanted my mother to blow out 60 candles, so I went looking on Pinterest for some cool ideas on how to get 60 candles together, as we didn’t have a big cake to stick them in. I found images of a bunch of candles simply stuck in a length of wood or a plank. Luckily I had a piece of pine lying around that would do perfectly. I drilled 60 holes in it, just big enough for the candles to fit in snugly. To give it a more finished look, I whitewashed the pine. After all the candles were put in place it looked very cool. It was just a mission to light all the candles without the wind blowing them out before we were done. Unfortunately I didn’t get to take more pics of the lit candles and the blowing out of the candles, but I hope you get an idea of what it looked like.
Finally, here are just some more pics of the rest of the decor. I made a bunch of tissue paper pom-poms again, because they look so awesome! I really, really enjoyed this project, like all the others. It was pretty hard to keep everything a secret from my mom, but so worth it :) I also just want to thank my dear friend, Mari, for helping with the decoration making and my sister, Natasha, for all the help and support during this project. Love you guys! xx

