Arizona Cowboy!

This past week­end my Dad turned 75 and to cel­e­brate, we put togeth­er a West­ern par­ty, hark­ing back to his cow­boy roots grow­ing up in the Ari­zona desert! We went back to the park where we had my daugh­ter’s “Yee Haw, Cow­girl!” third birth­day {the birth­day that sparked my fon­dant obses­sion!}, which has to be the coolest park EVER! West­ern Trails is an eques­tri­an park with cov­ered-wag­on tables, a wind­mill, a bon­fire pit and dare I say, the most awe­some bath­rooms dis­guised as a Gen­er­al Store!

Since I had worked on a kids’ West­ern theme in the past, I want­ed to make sure the styling had a more sophis­ti­cat­ed, adult feel this time around. I uti­lized nat­ur­al, brown col­ors in tex­tures and fab­rics, such as burlap, wood, straw, etc., but also infused shades of greens and reds, promi­nent in Ari­zona cac­ti. I had made a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” burlap ban­ner, but unfor­tu­nate­ly the wind was blow­ing a bit too much that day and I was­n’t able to use it. In the crazi­ness that can take place while set­ting up for a par­ty, there are always unfore­seen issues than can arise and I am slow­ly learn­ing to go with the flow and let it go!

The dessert table includ­ed some sim­ple desserts, includ­ing a s’mores bar, cup­cakes with fon­dant top­pers, pas­try wheels, oat­meal cook­ies and minia­ture pecan pies. I accent­ed the pre­sen­ta­tions with paper fans and tags with dig­i­tal designs by Pop­py­dreamz and used bas­kets and lug­gage trunks to dis­play the sweet options. The rest of the table was dec­o­rat­ed with a cou­ple of ter­rar­i­ums I put togeth­er with cac­ti from our local nurs­ery, straw and wood­en tumbleweeds.

The “Chuck Wag­on” car­ried a deli­cious bar­be­cue served “fam­i­ly style”, demon­strat­ing a casu­al, but clean and classy set­ting, while the “Water­ing Hole” dis­played the refresh­ment options. I car­ried the col­or assort­ment over with the red plates and cac­tus green nap­kins wrapped around wood­en cut­lery {from Cup­kate’s Event Design} inside mason jars. Baked beans were kept warm in minia­ture mason jars at each place setting.

For favors, guests rode off into the sun­set with lit­tle box­es of old fash­ioned pecan pie, along with minia­ture mason jars with suc­cu­lents to remem­ber the day!

Despite the high winds, we tru­ly had a won­der­ful time com­mem­o­rat­ing my Dad’s mile­stone birth­day! My favorite aspect of plan­ning par­ties is tai­lor­ing and per­son­al­iz­ing the theme to the guest of hon­or to ensure a mem­o­rable cel­e­bra­tion and this occa­sion was no excep­tion. We were still able to {quick­ly} cook s’mores and as my Dad put it, it will just give us more rea­son to remem­ber the day! Besides, we had to rough it a bit like true cow­pokes and the turn­ing wind­mill cap­tured the mood perfectly!

Merci Beaucoup!

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