As you can see from the title of this blog and if you followed my Instagram stories last weekend you will know that Andy turned 26, but unfortunately this was during lockdown and it meant he was unable to celebrate in the ways he is usually accustomed to. Of course, there are awful things going on in the World right no so we in no way are against the lockdown. However, I wanted to try and cheer him up as for someone who usually is never at home due to gigs, festivals, parties and football I know lockdown has hit him hard.
Andy had said that he was really missing festivals and having few drinks with the lads. I then had the brainwave to do him a little virtual lockdown festival and I had to begin planning how on earth I could pull this off with limited resources and with him still being in the house 24/7.
Getting the lads together wasn't a problem thanks to Zoom and a text to one his friends to ask if anyone had a professional Zoom account. That friend also took care of the majority of the invites too so all I needed to do was make it a 'festival' from our end and ensure there was enough alcohol to go around.
Firstly, I looked at decorations and eBay is your best friend for this! They have a lot of sellers who have excess stock and who are still selling with extra disinfectant procedures in place to ensure everyone is kept safe from COVID-19. I ordered a 2 and a 6 balloon, along with a Happy Birthday balloon banner and 20 colourful balloons.
Unfortunately, the Happy Birthday banner didn't come in time for the party, but we just used that for his actual birthday so it didn't go to waste. The 2 and 6 were then stuck to the fence to act as number balloons, because in these strange times we can't get helium balloons. The colourful balloons were then used to be turned into a balloon banner and I just used wool to create this. I blew the balloons up in large and small sizes and laid out the large balloons opposite each other. I then used the smaller balloons to fill in the gaps which turned it into a banner.
To make the festival area, we just used our normal garden furniture and placed this in the corner of our garden. The laptop was put on the table and we used our inflatable tiki beer cooler (its a palm tree which is pretty cool) with lots of ice in to make a 'beer tent'. For music we just used spotify and the lads were talking for 99.9% of the evening anyways so I don't think anyone really cared for the music. If you want your lockdown festival to have more of a musical theme you could have headlining bands and fillers bands/ DJs playing music which you can all sing along to.
Of course, we dressed properly for our lockdown festival and I got this cure head gem from eBay for 99p. I used my normal make-up products but over did it on highlighter, glitter and eyeshadow to make the look more exaggerated. I then simply popped my beauty works extensions up into space buns and curled the ends for a cute yet funky festival look.
My sheer top is from Miss Pap and I simply paired this with a black lace bra (my boobs don't fit into ANY cute bralets so I have to improvise) and my lace denim shorts from Primark. My outfit used pieces from my wardrobe which I already had so luckily, I didn't need to get anything else that may not arrive in the post. For the perfect festival look you can just recycle things that you already have and Pinterest is perfect for lots of ideas. Summer dresses or shorts and a cute top are the perfect look. I went bare foot as it was at home, but you could pair this with cute ankle wellies or boots for a proper festival look.
For drinks, we are extremely fortunate that we already had spirits at homeland we made our own cocktails (recipe can be found in this post here). We are also really fortunate in Cheadle and Stockport that quite a few beer brands are delivering! Brewdog sent us a huge order and we also purchased from the Whitehart pub on the High Street for a few different beers. During our food shop as well, we did clear Morrisons out of their different beers which were on the shelves in preparation so we were fully stocked up for a true festival experience.
I must admit we had FAR too much alcohol, a lot of fun with our friends and we got to celebrate Andy's Birthday with our friends whilst remaining safe! I would definitely recommend doing something similar for a loved one as it really lifted his spirits and I think since having the taste of a mock festival/party we haven't felt as down about lockdown as we have in recent weeks. The next day it was hangover central, but we had such a fun time that we actually forgot we were in lockdown!!
I'd love to know how you are all celebrating your birthdays in lockdown and what things you re doing to lift your spirits during the trying times whilst COVID-19 has us all in lockdown?
I hope you've enjoyed seeing what we got up to and we will see you all in our next post.
Until Next Time
T
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