A Peek at the Fun: Got a friend or family member turning 40? Are you looking to throw a great bash? These 40th birthday party ideas are a blast! Ideas for decorations, favors, food and more.
Once in a while, your best friend turns 40. (OK, maybe not once in a while, maybe once in a lifetime.) And when you’re a person that loves to throw parties and you love to blog about parties and your friend loves cute parties too, you know you’ve got to throw a fun 40th birthday party for that friend.
This is Amber talking and I have to admit though, there’s pressure when you want to throw a really cool party for your friend and you are doing it alone when you are used to tag-teaming parties with her. But I LOVE how this party for Danetta turned out and I hope you have a friend turning 40 soon too so that you can throw this party. It was a BLAST! Here’s our 40th Birthday Party-40 is a Blast!
Traditionally when someone is “old” we celebrate with black to symbolize that the birthday girl or boy is old or over the hill.
I thought it would be fun to take that black theme and add bright and fun colors to it. No one has to mourn being 40 because 40 is a BLAST! Right? So I threw in a bunch of bright colors with the black and made it super fun and cheerful.
40th Birthday Party Ideas:
(One note-throughout this I’ve included affiliate links straight to Amazon so that you can shop easily. At the bottom of the post I have a whole supply list with affiliate links.)
And as long as I was running with the 40 is a Blast theme for this fun 40th birthday party, I decided it would be great to make this a full-blown birthday party-just like you would with a kid’s party-and just have a ton of fun. Adults need to have fun too right?
The birthday girl had decided she wanted the party to involve the whole group (we invited couples) going to a local spot called Blaster Tag (hence the BLAST theme). It’s like a laser tag arena. Two teams battle it out with Nerf Guns for an hour-similar to laser tag, just with Nerf Guns. We split up, boys vs. girls and battled for that hour (wish I could say that the women dominated, but…). It was seriously a blast. If you don’t have a place like Blaster Tag in your area, you could also do Laser Tag.
Then we headed back to home for dinner and the rest of the party. This is where the cute parts got to come into play. Want to take a peek?
40th Birthday Party Invitations:
Every great party has to start out with an invitation right? You’ve got to let the guests know they are invited.
Here’s one you can use if you would like for your own 40th birthday party. Just open in an editing program like PicMonkey and add your own text to the bottom. If you aren’t familiar with how to do this, we’ve got a tutorial here. It’s super easy!
Right-click and save this to your computer and then open it and start adding text!
40th Birthday Party Decorations:
Now let’s break down the party decoration and all of the fun pieces that made this party great!
It all started with a cute backdrop for the whole spread. To make this I grabbed two pieces of black foam core board and taped them together in the back.
Then I grabbed the B, L, A, S, and T wooden letters at the craft store along with bright colored card stock. This let those letters pop out from the board a little, but you could also just cut them out from card stock and not use the wood, like I did with the other letters.
I then cut all of the letters and numbers out with my cutting machine and added them to the backdrop with a glue stick. For the BLAST letters, I simply traced the wooden letter onto the card stock and then used scissors to cut around it and glued the card stock on with a glue stick. These letters I glued to the backdrop with hot glue. If you don’t have a cutting machine you can purchase letters like this at the craft store and use them.
For decorations, I made this cute bunting. To make this grab scrapbook paper and print out the letters (below) and cut little flags and string them up.
Here are the letters for you to use:
I also hung up some fun signs around her house and had balloons in all the party colors. Here’s some signs if you would like to use them:
40th Birthday Celebration Ideas:
Now remember that I was running with the “kid party” have a blast kind of theme, so I did all of the traditional party stuff, including party hats. (Which I was pleased to see everyone wore through the whole party.) I added cute tags to the front. I printed them on sticker paper. You could also print on normal paper and then glue or tape them on.
These tags were also used on cute suckers for the party as well. How fun are these? It’s like a cute decoration and party favor all in one!
We want to make sure you can use these tags for your 40th birthday party too! Here’s a PDF with them on it that you can print:
For food, I ordered catering from a local restaurant, but I had to add some fun with the utensils and paperware. I used a different color for each utensil-fork, knife, spoon and a cute straw, then wrapped it in a black napkin and tied it with orange ribbon.
I also got pink and orange plates and pink and purple cups to add color to the table.
I grabbed a cake from Dairy Queen and I had them write 40 is a Blast on the cake (in multi-color which stressed them out!).
One more fun way to add color to the table was to have a big candy dish full of gumballs. And I have to admit, I love chewing these. For the 10 seconds that they are all sugary.
40th Birthday Party Favors:
Now, you never get to a kid’s party these days without going home with party favors right? So we had to have favors for this 40th birthday party too! And how cute are these bags with the fun tags?
Here are the party favor tags for you to use:
40 is a Blast Party Favor Tags
I did some fun and goofy things in the favor bags to be like a kid’s party. You’ve got to have party blowers right? Also, bubbles, glow sticks and suckers. And a cute little container of gumballs (see that up close below).
Gumballs in fun tubes are so cute! Right?!
We’ve got the cute 40 tags for you too!
40th Birthday Party Games:
And finally, the entertainment for the party! At a party like this, you’ve got to have games!
Kind of goofy for an adult birthday party, but fun!
But yes-we played Pin the Tail on the Donkey at the party! And you know what? Everyone had fun! The winner got a gift card to a favorite soda place.
We also had a piñata filled with candy (see it in the back corner here):
And we played a trivia game based on the birthday girl. I came up with some favorites questions. People had to write down their answers, then the birthday girl answered them and if they had the correct answer they got a point. This was a HUGE hit!
Here are some ideas of favorites to ask about:
- Favorite TV Show
- Favorite Store
- Favorite Dessert
- Favorite Ice Cream Flavor
- Favorite Hobby
- Favorite Soda
- Favorite Movie
- Favorite Restaurant
Really, you can ask anything, but those were some good ones we did.
So it turns out that turning 40 IS a blast when you have a fun 40th birthday party like this! At least I think so-I guess you’d have to ask the birthday girl.
I really hope that you get to throw this party because it really was so much fun!
Have a blast with these 40th birthday party ideas!
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