Party Like a Pineapple 2014

Last weekend my sweet husband Dan threw me a birthday party, which naturally, I completely hijacked.

I can’t help it. It’s what I do.
I plan parties.

He had announced in early June that he wanted to throw a party for me. My response, “GREAT! I want a Pineapple Party!”

What? Pineapples?

Pineapples are fun, summery, and it seemed like a theme that hadn’t been done. At the time, I couldn’t find a single party invitation (besides a Williams-Sonoma looking housewarming stationary line) and no inspiration whatsoever on Pinterest. Fast forward a couple months and pineapples are EVERYWHERE. I repeat, EVERYWHERE. I see them on bathing suits, beach towels, t-shirts, home decor, jewelry, nails..you name it. There are pineapples. But at the time, nothing.

I always start with the invitation to begin party planning, I mean, ahem, Dan started with the invitation. Since there was nothing besides the pineapple housewarming line, we asked Harper Gray Designs if they could design a Party Like a Pineapple invite with black and white stripes, gold, mint green, and of course yellow. They nailed it.

Since the announcement of the Pineapple Party, I began searching high and low for wood pineapple bowls, you know, the kind you get in Hawaii? Thanks to midnight shopping at Ebay and Etsy, I gathered an impressive collection. They were all different sizes, shapes, and different shades of wood finish, so I pulled them all together with a few coats of gold spray paint.

If you’ve ever used gold metallic spray paint, you are familiar with it’s magic. No other spray paint quite coats the way gold metallic does. It goes on flawless, leaving even the worst spray painter with a project they can be proud of. I went a little crazy with the gold spray paint. I sprayed the bowls, tons of real pineapples, sacrificed a few of my outdoor furniture pieces, and may have gotten a little carried away and turned my bunny hutch into a gold palace. My 8 year old said “MOM. There are NINE cans of gold spray paint in the trash.” (My bunny hutch looks amazing btw)

I found the most fantastic shiny gold pineapple pillows from this darling shop Fancy it Pretty. She was a treat to work with, and even custom designed this Party Like a Pineapple pillow! They are going to spend the rest of the summer on my sofa. So fun!

For food, we tried a new caterer in our area, Katyas. Katyas created a delicious spread of pineapple themed apps (ham & pineapple skewers, pineapple caprese salad, pineapple mango salsa, etc). All the food was displayed on black and white, yellow, and you guessed it, gold spray painted cake plates.

I found these fun pineapple cups at Oriental Trading Company and just added black and white stripe straws to coordinate our theme. And for the men who didn’t want to drink out of plastic pineapples, my friend JoAnne of Oh Goodie Designs custom designed chic Party Like a Pineapple cups drink stirs and coasters! Obsessed!

I should have purchased stock in Dole because the amount of pineapples we purchased was kind of crazy. BUT, hollowing out all those pineapples ended up being a gift that kept on giving because we turned them into vases! The florals were stunning by Bash and Bloom, who arranged the flowers in red solo cups and then just shoved them down into the pineapple. Her combination of ferns, white blooms and succulents gave them the perfect mid-century modern look.

{Side note: if you want to try this at home, I’d advise hollowing out your pineapples no more than 24 hours ahead or you will have extra guests at your party AKA fruit flies.}

The power of social media is pretty fascinating. I was connected to this sweet gal from instagram who runs an etsy shop called Piece Love Paper. A mutual friend of ours had posted a photo of one of her pineapple prints and I knew it would be perfect for my entryway…well 15 of them would. We messaged back and forth and she ended up creating all sorts of fun things to fill my gallery wall! I guess you could say this is my new thing for parties. Swap out all my photos with something party related. I did it at my Book Launch Party and it ended up staying that way for at least two months. Why not greet your guests with a themed gallery wall!

My friend Kim from TomKat Studio sent me the cutest gold glitter pineapple garland that I used all over the party. I filled in two frames with the glitter pineapples as well as a cute banner on the food table.

While searching for all things pineapple online, I found pineapple beverage dispensers at Anthropologie. As luck would have it, they were no longer available. Figures. I did a little more hunting around and discovered them at a site I had never heard of before, Stein Mart, AND for a fraction of the price. Win!

For a fun backdrop to my drink station, I ordered yellow paper twirls from Paper White Designs. Her twirls are incredible. I hung them the night before the party and stood back in awe. Bright, yellow, vibrant and ready to party. The next morning I realized that was a REALLY bad idea. They had wilted overnight. Sad. Instead of taking them down, I filled them in with the darling garlands she had made for my Summer Sips & Sweets party . Crisis averted.

The centerpiece of the party, as always, was the dessert table. I absolutely loved how it turned out. Last summer I dragged my husband to a random home to pick up an old dresser I had found online. It was old, stinky, and Dan was not grasping my vision. Flash forward a year and a coat of yellow paint and this piece made the perfect dessert table!

We had a bit of a dilemma when it came to the backdrop. I had ordered Party Like a Pineapple lit marque lights to hang behind the table. They were absolutely stunning. Except..they didn’t arrive until Saturday. Not helpful when your party is Friday night. So with an hour to spare before guests arrived, I pulled down the frames and backdrop from my daughter Ally’s kitten party, grabbed my can of yellow spray paint, and went to work. Thank goodness I had extra glitter pineapples and prints from Piece Love Paper and TomKat Studio! My sister had come to help set up so between the two of us, we literally framed a party napkin, cut a striped table runner, framed the back of the invite, and stapled a few left over palm leaves from the photobooth backdrop. Improvise may as well be my middle name.

I may have planned, ordered, and organized the majority of the party but had to draw the line at baking my own birthday cake. That’s just weird. Lucky for me, I recently met an incredibly talented local baker, Megan Gordon AKA Lady YUM. Megan seems to be able to bake just about anything but her specialty is her french macarons. She recently opened a storefront, Washington’s first macaron shop. It’s darling, and her macarons are TO DIE FOR. Personally, I’m crazy for her salted caramel macs. I could eat ten. And, I have.

To be honest, I’d never ordered a cake before (besides maybe a grocery store cake) so it was kinda weird to be sending inspiration photos and nit picky details. I’m sure Megan rolled her eyes at my emails but at the end of the day, her cake was stunning and EXACTLY what I had described. And she took it a step further and baked a chocolate cake with a salted caramel buttercream filling. Stop. It was everything I dreamed of. I ate it exclusively for three days straight.

I couldn’t help but bake a few desserts for the table so I made everyone’s favorite peanut butter cracker cookies shaped and decorated as pineapples, pineapple shaped sugar cookies, cupcakes with chocolate glittered pineapple toppers, and my favorite, mini lemon meringue pies made in these miniature jars. SO easy to make, I just drew pineapple stems with melted green candy onto waxed paper and topped the pies with the stems. Poof, pineapple pies!

What’s a party without a great party photo opp? I recently came across this website Drops and Props that had the most perfectly matching black and white striped backdrop. To jazz it up a bit, I ordered a bunch of palm leaves and honeycomb balls from Oriental Trading Company and bought out my local Dollar Tree’s stock in honeycomb pineapples. My sister and I hung, stapled, taped, and crafted until the backdrop was complete. It was a pain, but it turned out SO FUN!

After we cut the amazing cake and stuffed ourselves with dessert, we brought out even more treats for our guests to enjoy, my favorite cruller doughnuts from Frost, take home ice cream favors (super cute containers, twine and spoons from TomKat!), and roasted s’mores around our outdoor fire pit. Pretty sure everyone left with a stomach ache.

It was such a fun party. At the end of the day, I definitely didn’t feel like I had thrown myself a party because I had actually worked my tail off for two days straight around the clock with no sleep. It was much more like a party we threw for our friends to come and enjoy. But then again, who doesn’t want to celebrate turning 28…again.

 

Photo credit (amazing as always) by KCB Photography

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