My 30th Birthday
We called it my "Classy As Fuck 30th Birthday"
- I swear all the gd time
- If I'm involved it's only going to be so classy before something debaucherous happens
announcing to the world that i'm 30 and i'm legit ok with people knowing my age
Kyle woke me up on my birthday by shooting off some confetti and shoving sparklers in my face. It was terrifying, but have I now come to the conclusion that really everyone should enter a new decade with confetti - keep that in mind for my 40th KJH. Apparently these confetti canons are great for huge spaces, so when shot off in our 580 sqft a lot of our ceiling insulation came off.
Kyle got me what is now my favourite necklace, from local creator, Foe and Dear and I rocked my Capricorn hair barrettes to work that day.
I got it in my head that I needed to take a photo of me with 30th birthday balloons because a friend had posted a photo of her with 3-0 balloons that were blowing away and she was oh-so-casually-cool and I wanted to copy it really badly. Two major things that should have been considered but were not were:
- I am not capable of looking oh-so-casually-cool
- She turned 30 in the summer // I turned 30 in the winter.
Turns out ice wind deflates balloons and makes it so that the 3 and the 0 refuse to face in the correct direction at the same time. 500 takes later we got these two 'successful' shots.
I tend to make a really big deal about my birthday, and obviously entering a new decade is huge so I wanted to do something but I didn't want to throw a massive party that would take 3 years to plan and execute and then 5 to clean up -because all that energy was going into wedding planning.
from the online invitation
The party ended up as 5 us at L'Abattoir, because it's fancy and sinfully delicious and the restaurant would do all the work for me. My guest list was based on people who would adhere to the dress code, not get weird about taking a lot of photos, and eat meat as I wanted to be able to share appetizers and I wanted them to be disgustingly, delightfully decadent.
Kyle sent out the online invite that explained that the dress code was all black, Mac's Ruby Woo lipstick (as it's known for making everyone look like a mega babe, and it's been my go-to colour for a decade) and party crowns.
I also insisted that I needed a strapless black jumpsuit with wide legs because it was the most 30th-birthday party outfit possible.
Even though the whole point was that I wouldn't have to do a lot of work I decided it would be fun to wear party hats that were like, high-end party hats. I bought some party hats from the party supply store and cut a piece out of each one and then pulled them tighter and taped them down so they would be a little more stylishly small based on this Pinterest Find.
I wanted to glitter them, but the issue of course with glitter is that it. gets. every. where. which seemed unfortunate for hair styles and black outfits.
But! turns out there's a solution! (thanks a million Studio DIY) If you put apply the glitter with Modge Podge and then cover it with the glue and let it dry, the glitter magically stays on, and stays very sparkly. I found that when the glitter got wet with the glue it would move around a bit and leave bald spots so I had to do two coats.
An important note: expensive glitter is 1,000 % worth it. Martha Stewart all the way.
I also would have liked to attach tinsel on along the bottom edge and a little tuft on the top (add it with hot glue) to each of the hats, but I thought it would remove some of the clean lines and be difficult to find good colours for all the different hats. We kind of looked like unicorns, but as if that's a problem.
We hosted the friends for cocktails at our place before heading to dinner and asked my mom to come and take some pictures with sparklers we had bought specifically for photographing.
For cocktails Kyle adapted this recipe from Saveur by replacing the bourbon with gin. We decided to replace the bourbon with gin because clear alcohol can be a little easier to drink, especially when you plan on having some "bottle(s) of your cheapest wine" over dinner. We also wanted to make a St. Germain drink because it's kind of stupidly expensive (but so worth it) and stupidly expensive drinks seemed like the perfect thing to serve to our unicorns to start the night.
elderflower new fashioned
2 1⁄2 oz. gin
1⁄2 oz. St. Germain
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
Strip of lemon zest, for garnish
Fill a shaker with ice, put in the ingredients, shake it until chilled, pour over ice cubes and garnish with lemon zest.
It was our first try using our Polaroid camera and we got what is arguably the best Polaroid ever taken.
could this be the best polaroid anyone has ever taken? complete with a flaming tiki bowl, matching nailpolish and party hats all signs point to yes
The tiki bowl cocktail was a little different as it simply had to be consumed with a straw, shared between a minimum of 3 people and look nice in contrast to the flames. We just loaded it with gin and pineapple juice. The most important thing here was to fill the volcano part with whatever the highest proof alcohol we had to light it on fire and then to take Polaroids to document the moment. The cocktail itself was highly secondary in this case, although a tiki bowl challenge sounds like a great idea for a future party.
we really know how to kill it with the dark night polaroid shots
30 has been a very intense year for me, and celebrating with my best-friend-monochromatic-unicorns was the perfect way to start it.
me + my baby
It was finally time for us stop dialling in our Christmas outfits and so I made us these stunning little Christmas turtlenecks based on a DIY my mom made for my sister and me in the 90s. Here’s how you can get glorious for Christmas too.