There are a lot of popular food trends that I feel sometimes get overhyped and overrated, but Trader Joe’s is definitely not one of them. I am a Trader Joe’s girl through and through. On a college-student budget, I can get everything I need for a week’s worth of groceries for about $30 — and still have an extra $10 to spare for my favorite giant lilies with a smell that fills up my whole apartment or the dark chocolate peanut butter cups that I could finish in one sitting. But one girl, @sarinaisamazing on TikTok, took the love for Trader Joe’s to the next level.
Sarina celebrated her 29th birthday with a “TJs and PJs” party, where she and her closest friends dressed in pajamas and had their favorite Trader Joe’s food and drinks. The series of photos of the party that she posted in a TikTok video has since gone viral, with over 321,000 views and 37,000 likes.
Each guest brought their preferred Trader Joe’s product, with the menu including the mac and cheese bites, sesame chopped salad, cookies and cream pretzels, pesto garlic pizza, cheesecake bites, jalapeno dip, asiago dip, the famous pork soup dumplings, and the iconic Mandarin orange chicken. That sounds like a pretty good lineup to me.
But anyone can buy food from Trader Joe’s for a party — in fact, I’ve done it before because it’s often the cheapest way to feed a lot of people. The more impressive part is the DIY work that Sarina did to make her 29th birthday really Trader Joe’s themed. First, she hand-painted a huge sign made of cardboard in the font and style of the Trader Joe’s pricing boards and labels, reading “Okay, fine. She’s 29. TJ’s and PJ’s.” Sarina also used what looks like a Cricut to create custom table cards and stickers, and printed out stickers of the Trader Joe’s logo to put on flower jars. Plus, she made her own heart-shaped birthday cake.
And speaking of flowers, Sarina created an adorable little bouquet-making activity. She bought a bunch of different types of flowers — carnations, mums, garden roses, baby’s breath, and eucalyptus — that are famously cheap at Trader Joe’s, and put them in cute little tin jars with the Trader Joe’s label. This way, each guest could pick their desired flowers and make their very own custom bouquet to take home, wrapping their flowers up in a roll of cut-up Trader Joe’s brown bags that Sarina cut up.
The take home for the guests did not stop there. Sarina prepared adult goodie bags for all of her friends in the form of the coveted Trader Joe’s mini tote. Inside each bag was a bunch of Sarina’s favorite little things: a can of Poppi, a small bag of Nerd clusters, the Trader Joe’s lavender hand sanitizer spray, a face mask, and a personalized key chain that Sarina handmade. Sarina, if you’re reading this, I’d love an invite to your 30th birthday party.