Birthday | A Joyful Riot

We’re Giving Away 27 of Our Very Favorite Things!

September 29, 2015 ·

We’re so excited about this super fun giveaway we’ve put together. It’s our birthday so you guys deserve a gift,that’s how this works, right?? :)

We’ve gathered together 27 of our very favorite items and treats and we’re going to send them all to one lucky winner! This giveaway runs until Thursday night (Midnight PST Oct 1, 2015).

Just do as many of the following as you’d like and then leave a comment on this blog post saying which you did (ex: comment “instagram, facebook, pinterest” and you’ll be entered into the giveaway 3 times)

•Follow us on Instagram

•Like us on Facebook

•Follow us on Pinterest

•Subscribe to our newsletter (on the right of your screen >)

•Follow us on Twitter

•Follow us on Bloglovin’

That’s it! So again, you don’t have to do all of them but if you do you’ll get SIX entries!!

Just do one or all six of them and then leave what you did in the comment section of this blog post. You can also enter this giveaway just on our Instagram by following the steps on the giveaway post.

Ok, wanna know what some of our favorite things are/what you’ll be winning?! Here we go!

600 ml Camelbak Eddy waterbottle (literally Machelle’s favorite thing she’s EVER owned. Cannot say enough great things about this water bottle!)j
Lush bath bomb
Amethyst crystal rock
Floral sunglasses
Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque (AMAZING! for your breakouts and blackheads)
One fat quarter of our Vintage Light Pink Flower on Gold Dots fabric on organic cotton knit
Set of Meri Meri coral stripe plates with gold trim
Dark chocolate acai and blueberry balls
Jamberry nail wraps, half set (enough for two manis or one mani/pedi) in Tungsten Sparkle (dark glitter)
Party poppers
Jenn Seeley 4×6 art print (blue baby elephant)
Marshmallow hot chocolate
Set of pink polka dot paper straws
Cosmic brownies!
Tangerine EOS chapstick
Lavender essential oil
Mint chocolate chip ice cream gum
Coral tassel keychain
Twix
Gorgeous vintage handkerchief
Colored flame birthday candles
4 colored mini berry boxes (mint, green, light and dark pink)
Hot air balloon cupcake liners
Copper balloons
Almond Joys
Glitter elastic in black
Purple bakers twine

Good luck!!

11 Ways to Make Your Birthday the Best Day Ever!!

September 29, 2015 ·

While we firmly believe that you have control of making every day a good day, it is even more applicable on your day of birth. 99% of the time, the decisions you make result in a great birthday or a less-than-stellar one. What other day of the year do you have this much control over? To dictate what you eat and who you spend your time with? People generally listen to your wants and needs on your birthday!

Look, we don’t advocate selfishness…except maybe on your birthday. It is ok to go out of your way to do what you want and to say “it’s my birthday.” We all know people who say “ho hum” or “ehh it’s never better than any other day” but we think that IT SHOULD BE! This is the day everyone celebrates the fact that YOU are on earth!

But if you leave this day up to everybody else, expect to be disappointed.

We have always made a big deal of our birthday and guess what? They’re always awesome! We go out of our way to make sure people know our day is coming up and that we expect it to be special. But we don’t wake up with the expectation that they’re responsible for that. We follow a few guidelines to make sure our day is peaceful, fun and therefore awesome! So here are our tips so you can stop going to bed at the end of your birthday thinking, “that was kind of disappointing.”

DIY Confetti Blowers

September 28, 2015 ·

Every birthday needs confetti! That’s like a law right? Well it is in our house! I love all kinds of confetti poppers and they’re super easy to find and cheap to pick up so that’s always a fine way to go (plus you can dress those up super festive with these free popper wrappers!) but this year I decided to make the confetti a little more interactive and personal and whipped up these super simple (and even cheaper than poppers!) confetti blower horns!

I’ve seen confetti wands (which I love) but these are even better because you can use any paper that matches your event and we’ve included a free pack of four cute and party-perfect digital papers for you for free! Featuring bright colors, glitter, scallops and confetti, use these papers for anything from these poppers to gift wrap to invitations to party hats!

You can hand these poppers out to guests and everyone can blow confetti all over the place! It’s like party horns except no annoying noise (win!) and then confetti everywhere (another win!) and then everyone can keep a cute little paper horn and fill it with candy from the party or make mini party hats from. So many possibilities! Click through for instructions and the free printable. And feel free to follow me around with these all day tomorrow :D

Amaretto, Cherry & Pistachio Birthday Dessert (aka “Twin’s Delight”)

September 26, 2015 ·

This may be an unpopular opinion but I don’t really like cake. Listen. Cakes are cute, frosting is my secret boyfriend, and cake batter is easily the greatest flavor on planet earth. Sometimes I eat cake batter and think “my mouth could not possibly be big enough to fit as much of this in it as I feel like I need to right now.” But just a regular, spongey, baked cake is not something I ever really want to eat. I think maybe it’s the frosting to cake ratio. See, I like (sometimes love) cupcakes. And I think that’s because there is a decently high pile of frosting sitting on top of like 4 bites of cake.

So for our birthday the last 9 years, we haven’t had a traditional cake. When we turned 18 we got cake batter ice cream from Coldstone and Lofthouse soft sugar cookies and that was our cake and I still think it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. After that, we’ve kind of just had a random spattering of treats all throughout the day (mainly because we no longer live with a mother who makes sure to get us an official cake). At some point, whether its over pancakes or a milkshake, we get sung to so we’re not missing anything birthday-ish at all, we’re just not eating a sub-par dessert! Although we’d probably be better off if we did…might not justify as many other treats throughout the day…

Regardless, one of my all time favorite desserts of my whole life, and one that many member’s of our family have chosen as their “birthday cake”, is this pistachio pudding layer dessert my mom has made ever since I can remember. In my house we call it “David’s Delight”, I’m actually not sure if that’s because my dad loves it or my older brother loves it (they’re both named David). Well, actually, I do know they both love it (just not sure who it’s named after specifically) as does every other person in my family and every person at every work, church or friend function I’ve ever brought this treat to. It is a hit because IT IS HEAVEN IN YOUR MOUTH.

It may look like a typical potluck-y, old-person-layered-something, but it’s not. It spans the ages and the taste buds and it’s sinfully delightful. This is, truthfully, my favorite home made treat ever.

So in honor of our upcoming birthday (t minus 3 days) I decided to amp up the dessert a teeny bit with two of my other favorite flavors, cherry and amaretto, and rename it “Twin’s Delight”!

Pistachio [pudding] and amaretto are already similar in taste so they blend perfectly in this sweet concoction. The cherry is very subtle and can be left out altogether if you prefer. Or even amp it up more! (Just be sure to add as much powdered sugar as maraschino cherry juice to help the texture remain the same).

First Birthday “Time Capsule”

June 22, 2015 ·

This was probably my very favorite part of Stella’s party! Well it might’ve been sprinkle covered everything.. or the cookie buffet… or how excited and cutely the kids played the games…or Stella eating her cake…Ok! It was all my favorite! But really I think this one will definitely mean the most to both her and I in the long run.

It was so fun having friends and family guess about what future Stella will be like! I loved thinking about it myself and I can’t wait (ok no I can totally wait!) for Stella to laugh reading them when she’s a young adult.

I chose to have Stella open it on her 20th birthday because that’ll be her golden one so it just seemed kinda perfect! But any age would work. 18, 21, graduated college…whatever!

People had a lot of fun filling these out and it made the whole first birthday party thing even more special. Plus she’ll have these little visuals of what her party looked like and the theme since I made the cards match all the other graphics for the party.

I’m not sure if I’ll bury it somewhere or just bury it in storage..probably the latter so there’s no less risk of something happening to it or it getting lost.

Also how cute is that confetti-filled balloon wand?! Our friend Lisa made them and they looked so cute throughout the party!

We’re Giving Away 27 of Our Very Favorite Things!

11 Ways to Make Your Birthday the Best Day Ever!!

DIY Confetti Blowers

Amaretto, Cherry & Pistachio Birthday Dessert (aka “Twin’s Delight”)

First Birthday “Time Capsule”

Look Around

Recent Posts

Subscribe