Birthday Workshop

I turned 50 earlier this month and since I'd had 49 birthdays that were all about me I decided this year to give back.  I gave a few goodies, flowers and yummy treats out here and there and took in a big, but healthy lunch to the girls at the office.  I sent a couple of gift packages to friends, posted several letters to surprise a few people and then hosted a birthday treat craft workshop for some of my girly friends.

I spent the better part of the week before hand stamping, die-cutting and prep-ping all the various elements that made up everyone's goodie pack.  It was time consuming work but I was so excited to be able to do this and surprise the girlies.  The chipboard buttons were my absolute favourite thing to create and I was so excited at the thought of them making their own buttons to craft with.

I even made up little paper bags to pop all the different embellishment bits into.  This way they wouldn't get lost or over looked plus the little bag could be decorated too.  I used a combination of Papertrey Ink stamps and Waltzing Mouse stamps - both of which I just love to bits - plus a Spellbinder sewing themed die set.

I added some 6 x 6 squares of patterned paper, some stamped ticket sentiments, a card of ribbon, one of lace, several stamped button cards, a pretty paper doily and then a cute little tag that read:

'brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favourite things....'

I had pinned the tag idea on Pinterest only a week or so earlier since I knew it would come in handy and whilst I was stitching the paper sack pockets it came to me to use it.

I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to be teaching at this work shop but that I would just let the girls design and create however they wanted to.  Instead I grabbed a chair and just table hopped, spending time visiting at each table, catching up on everyone's news and just enjoying their company.  I made it a 'bring & share' dessert event so there were lots and lots of yummy treats to help us keep our strength up throughout the evening. 

My actual birthday was the day before and I hadn't made much of a fuss - just lunch with my mother and sisters like we usually do for birthdays, plus hubby joined us too.  Later in the day the grandkids came for dinner as usual and that was about it.  No fuss, not even a cake, although I had planned several nice days like a day out with Jilly and a friend or two for lunch.  One even turned up with a scrummy homemade coffee cake (my all time favourite) complete with lashings of coffee frosting that I just couldn't get enough of.  In fact between my friend, Dave and myself we had it devoured in 2 days!  It was no small cake I can tell ya. Clearly my maintenance diet was off the radar for the week and a half that I had off work.  I took that much time off to fit in everything that has been going on of late.

All in all it was a fab time and I'm so very glad I got to share my birthday treating just under 20 lovely girl friends.  I won't wait another 50 years before we do this again tho'.  It was such fun!

Big HUGS

Suezie