Crazy little party girl!

Normally I make a few posts to my blog over the weekend, but the past few days I've been MIA. Well, not completely missing... more like recovering on the couch from all of my birthday celebrations.

On Saturday night, I hosted a LBD/MIB soirée to toast my upcoming year and celebrate with my favorite friends. With all my frugalista efforts over the past few months, I didn't feel right about everyone having the expense of a night on the town just to party with me. Afterall, we really just needed a place to sip wine, drink Bacardi cocktails, eat treats and party hardy. And why not do that all chez nous?

Since I tend to see my friends in sweat gear at the wee hours of the morning, I thought it would be fun to get dressed up and I'm very impressed with how my friends embraced my Black Out theme. I had a 96% participation rate when it came to suiting up (AH's black socks + jeans combo was just not enough to bring it to a full 100%) and all the ladies looked lovely in their posh black attire. I had initially planned to wear a bright pink or sparkling silver dress to stand out amongst the party scene, but my sister spoiled me with a new little black dress so I decided to join in on the theme - I did, of course, wear a tiara to make sure everyone knew that I was the birthday girl.

When my Eye Candy & I go out for dinner & drinks, an evening easily costs us $180. So considering we hosted 15 people on Saturday, I'm excited to say that the final cost of my birthday shin dig was $300. Here's how it all broke down:

SAQ $78.59
For 6 bottles of wine. However, my recycling box had 12 bottles of wine in it this morning which would also explain the pounding headache I had yesterday. Clearly, my friends were incredibly generous with their gifts.

Beer $52.31

Sparkling water & sodas $13.17

M&M Appetizers $27.47
At the start of our party, our oven cought on fire. I do mean 4 inch flames were coming out the grill, and my Eye Candy, very calmly threw baking soda across the fire while I continued to serve drinks (we make an excellent tag team). The fire department was not needed, and the ash was cleaned up rather quickly. Fortunately, it did not impact the cooking of the M&M jalepeno cheesie poppers so I would say the evening was a definite success.

Fruits & Veggies $21.63

Cake Fixings $12.47
My Eye Candy made from scratch a delicious Paleo-inspired chocolate-banana-almond meal birthday cake pour moi. He's a keeper.

Dips & Spreads $15.55

Cheese & meat $60.55

Nuts & olives $17.37

For all party decorations, I dug through the costume box that I keep in my closet (doesn't everyone have that?) and managed to deplete some of my birthday stock. All in all, my party came to $299.12 which we paid for using our Mad Money ($150 and another $150 that I had budgeted for this month).

I was also incredibly touched by the thoughtful gifts that I received. I will do a post on them later because they deserve to be shown off and it's made my 40 day ban on shopping so much more bearable now. In fact, I feel like I cheated! My friends are too sweet and know me too well (or are at least reading my blog and therefore, helping out a girl on a budget).

When I woke up yesterday (afternoon) on my couch still wearing my party dress & for some reason my boyfriend's athletic socks over my tights only to discover my tiara tossed on the cushion beside me and my sunglasses still in my hand, I knew that I had the best party every. In fact, it was downright zazzy.

*Rosie*