90 Years Young

Yesterday, Jim's Aunt Ruth turned 90.

You might remember Aunt Ruth from my posts about our Annual Turkey Trot, Run, Amble, Walk or Crawl that we hold every year with Jim's family at Thanksgiving.

Ruth is always rip-roarin' and rarin' to go at the starting line, wearing the snazziest pants.

She usually walks about a block to everyone else's mile but she gives it her all. She just shows up and does what she can.

I love her jazzy spirit so when I heard it was her 90th Birthday, I wanted to celebrate her in a special way. It's not every day that someone I love turns 90!

We couldn't fly down so instead we put together a Birthday-in-a-Box...and I spent a good deal of last Saturday and Sunday making these two party hats.

I LOVE party hats and, since I never had a girl to make birthday hats for, I decided to whip one up for Ruth and her little sister.

Her little sister would be Jim's Mom. She's 12 year's younger than Ruth and they've been living together for the past 10 years or so. Jim's Mom was the youngest of 10 children and 7 of her siblings were girls...

I had SO much fun making a mess and making these two hats.

I just rolled cardstock into a cone...trimmed around the bottom and cut off the point to make the size I wanted...and then embellished 'til my embellisher was sore.

I couldn't figure out how to do the hat topper...I wanted the fringe to kind of explode out of the top of the hat...So I sandwiched some tissue paper together, included some old mylar balloons that I cut up to add the shimmer...

I have trouble throwing away those mylar balloons (ok, I have trouble throwing most things away) so I was thrilled when I finally had a use for them.

I cut the strips and rolled and stapled...

Et Voila! The hat topper was born.

Thank goodness it worked because I didn't have a plan B.

The rest was just plain fun.

Jim's brother picked up a cake from a local bakery and we sent along all the party horns, extra hats, signs, flower leis, party sunglasses...you get the idea...so that when she opened the box, it was instant party.

They called last night and said the box was a big hit!

I can't wait to see a picture or two of Ruth in that hat...and the two of them together too. I promise to share them when I get them.

There's just something about people in party hats that makes me smile...or maybe it's the smiles of the people wearing the party hats that's infectious.

Well, whatever it is...I just hope to make more of them.

Happy Happy 90th Birthday Aunt Ruth!

I hope when I'm 90, I'm still doing the Annual Turkey Trot, Amble, Walk or Crawl.

And I'll try to do it in snazzy pants.