Fiesta Fifty!

My madre is turning 50 in a few days so we threw her a surprise fiesta!

 

I was inspired by a Fiesta Forty party (as seen on Aesthitic Nest). She was nice enough to post her party invitations on her blog post so I was able to use the papel picado images for various things at my party. I just changed the colours to match our party colour theme (because regular people have party theme colours....)

N and I made a ton of decorations (I may or may not have gone overboard with the party fever) and my sister y brother-in-law came the night before the party to help with decoration and food preparation. I was glad to have the extra help as I was mega stressed and frantic the day of the fiesta. Luckily most of the relatives were fashionably late and everything was done and ready at party time. 

All of the relatives came over and my mom arrived a little later. She knew something was up but we all yelled "surprise" anyways. :-)

We feasted on Mexican food (burritos and tacos in a bag) and drank margaritas while hanging out playing lawn games and talking. I was thankful that it didn't rain and we all dealt with the sweltering heat. We had our picnic table, a card table and another table set up for plenty of seating outside.

Later all over the 21+ went to the Shout House while N and I stayed at home to control the children. We played every game you can imagine plus a handful of made up ones and watched a movie. We ended the night wearing glow stick bracelets and running around the yard in the dark.

Here are photos from the party.

Updated with Tutorials:
Papel Picado
Happy Birthday Banner
Bunting, Circle Garland and Mini Papel Picado
Candle Wraps and Water Bottle Labels

Food and drinks!

The menu: Tortillas, tostadas, bags of chips for the tacos in a bag, tortillas chips.
Burrito/taco toppings: cheese, sour cream, guacamole, mild salsa, hot salsa, spicy taco meat, regular taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pico de gallo, chili con queso, refried beans and chipotle black beans.

I made mini papel picado for the cake (purchased at Costco).

 To keep food cold I had filled two tin container 1/2 way full with water and froze them. Then I added more ice go around the bowls. This photo was taken after most of the ice cubes had melted but the bottom layer of ice lasted the entire party.

 

At the wet bar we had a margarita machine on one side and a fridge stocked full of soda, vino, cerveza y aqua on the other.

Apparently I'm party crazy. Why else would I have made water bottle labels?

 

Decorations!

The TV in our kitchen is connected to our computer so we had mariachi music playing upstairs and downstairs. The tv also played a powerpoint that was just "50" with the background colour changing every few seconds.

This table was set up next to the wet bar. We had cups, straws and markers so people could write their names on their cups. The cooler was full of ice for the margaritas.

 

We made a ton of papel picado y bunting/garland. 

Don't worry - we don't awkwardly have a frame hanging with matting and 5 black pieces of paper. This frame is our last name - we took pictures around town of each letter, printed them and framed them. I wasn't down with posting my last name so I just blocked it out. :-)

 

I made candle wraps with 50 and more of the papel picado images.

 

I made my mom this photo as a birthday gift but thought it'd be great to use as decor. :-) It's a photo of my mom y one of my brothers.

We wanted to cover up our ocho artwork so made this "50" to cover it. 

  

Outside we also had streamers and balloons (blown up and strung to a string). hung between the house and the garage. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture until after the streamers were all down due to wind and kids and the balloons were popped due to heat and kids. It looked nice for a while though. :-)

It took a lot of work to prepare for the fiesta but it was a huge success and my mom had a great time!