Palm Springs Birthday Bash

 Because I've been positively yearning for a Palm Springs vacation and have no vacation days to spend there, I decided to bring Palm Springs to me!

Of course, every great party starts with a great menu. If I had three wishes, one of them would be for an self-replenishing buffet table that was always laid out with delicious appetizers and hors d'oeuvres. So when I make a menu, it's usually all finger foods. For Palm Springs I wanted a menu that was fun and light and slightly tropical so I bought dozens of tiny utensils and picks and clear plastic serving vessels in different shapes and filled them with chicken salad, marinated baby corn, sugared blueberries, teriyaki sausage with pineapple, avocado and shrimp toast points with lime, and lemon cupcakes with cactus and flamingo toppers. Plus chips, Chex mix, cans of Spindrift (they're so pretty and perfectly color coordinated!), and pink martini glasses for sparkling apple cider (a stand-in for champagne because none of us are big drinkers around here).

The color scheme was aqua, pink, orange, and lime green so I made piles of tissue flowers in those shades, put down a fake grass rug surrounded by pool chairs (did I mention we used the pool as our setting?), I bought a leafy umbrella (and added pink fringe) and pink table cloths, and filled up unicorn, flamingo, donut, and pretzel pool floats, and stuck cactus and flamingo and palm tree cut-outs on everything.  Phew!

Soundtrack: Lounge music and Rat Pack swinging standards

Party Game: Bingo! Because, hello, Palm Springs! It was either bingo or golf =)

And once again, I apologize for fuzzy photos. Sometimes I'm just having too much fun to worry about the perfect shot. I know, Instagrammers everywhere just fainted, but that's how it is, folks.