Thank you to Maraka for sharing this sweet celebration for her daughter.
She writes, “Our daughter Charlotte recently turned 2, and living in London during one of the coldest winters I have known we went for a simple afternoon tea in her honour.”
I can’t help but hum Will.I.Am’s ‘It’s a New Day’ today…as I’m glued to the inauguration activities.
I thought it was apropos to share this Aussie party (where it is warm and cheery) with a kite theme. Thank you to for passing it along!
From , “I have the philosophy that you don’t need to spend loads of money on entertainers, a few traditional games keeps the children amused for hours. Travis’ kite flying party is a perfect example, it was the most amazing yet inexpensive party and the children LOVED flying their kites- so simple! The kite also became their take home gift.
I picked a park with large open space and not too many trees to disrupt the kite flying. I set up a large area in which the children received a kite flying kit and were able to decorate their kites with glitter and paint. This activity was organized first so it had time to dry. Then after having lunch which consisted of a lunch box- apple, bottle of juice, simple sandwich wrapped in red-striped lunch bag and rice crackers- they played a few traditional games.
The ‘sack race’ was made buying inexpensive material and copying the size of a pillow case- perfect size for the children. An exciting way to give the child their treat bag was to play ‘treasure hunt’. Kraft boxes with the same striped bags were used as they found the treats and toys for their bags to take home and enjoy after the party.
By this stage the decorated kites had dried and the children spent the rest of the afternoon flying their kites in the park. The children had such a great time that two of them brought their kites for ‘show and tell’ at preschool the following day!”
Thanks so much for sharing another amazing party with us ! It looks like everyone had a blast.
matryoshka doll birthday party
Thank you to Maraka for making sure I saw this one…
A super cute pirate party from Anna for her son’s 4th birthday…check out that pirate ship!
She says, “My husband sketched out the invitation with landmarks from our town. He had also been building a pirate ship playhouse for the children, even though it wasn’t finished, we thought it would be fun for the boys. The party was supposed to be outside, but rain changed our plans. The treasure hunt was moved indoors…all the children found small treasure chests in the big one, that were filled with pirate goodies. When the children first arrived at the party we put mustaches on them and offered a scarf. The boys looked adorable! The apples were supposed to be bobbing in the water (to look like little boats). My mom made the children’s costumes, she thought Grace would enjoy having one, too, and we made the cake. It really wasn’t an elaborate affair, but I love having homegrown parties and Harris had a grand time.”
Thank you for sharing, Anna! For more pictures, head over to her blog here.
this birthday party for Max, son of Jaime Rugh.
Can I list the ways I love it? For starters, that amazing mad-hat-of a chandelier-thing is amazingly cool. The colors are fab. Jaime- please do tell us more- your adoring fans want to know!
Thank you to Chelsea, for passing this beauty along!
A large tree fell on our house at 4:30 this morning…with substantial damage…so I think I will be taking a week off from the blog to deal with it! Hope you’ll meet me back here next week. Until then, an image of my son with Santa Claus. He looks about as scared of him as I was when I heard the loud thud!
I am finally breathing a sigh of relief. For some, the party season is just beginning. For me, it feels just about over. November was a whirlwind of festivities, ending with my son’s first birthday party. I had so much fun planning and throwing his party, but I must admit I am happy to be done for now!
Above are some snapshots from the big day. The photo garland was my favorite thing…a compilation of pictures from the year past-chronological from top to bottom. The color palette was inspired by the invitation, which also dictated my choice for his birthday party outfit (sweater by Gap). The favors were large balloons, with a rainbow drumstick attached…chosen because it is my son’s favorite instrument from music class. I made my first ever cake from scratch (and my last ever cake from scratch), which was fine, but definitely not worth the effort. My mother-in-law helped with the non-sweet food, and my husband helped set up.
We spent quality time with good friends and good food, and were able to reflect on the year with our wonderful, exhausting, too-amazing-for-words son. We felt especially grateful this Thanksgiving season for the little +1 at our table!
Last night was fun. A dinner for 10 women, all of whom I enjoy being around. I tried to time things so that I actually got to spend some time with my guests. Everything I fixed required different timing (basil and goat cheese chicken, haricots verts, roasted potatoes, rice), however, so while I did get to chat some- I spent more time in the kitchen then I would have liked. The potatoes took wayyyy longer then they were supposed to, but it all turned out fine in the end. We ate like Europeans and dined at 9, but no one seemed to have a problem with it. The top two photos are the only ones I managed…of the drinks set-up, and some of the apps (ricotta and goat cheese spread with sun-dried tomato salsa).
Right now I’m in the midst of setting up for our playgroup. We’ll be celebrating November birthdays. My friend is bringing the cupcakes, and I’m in charge of drinks and snacks. I’ve included a couple of snapshots I’ve taken while trying to figure out the setup. This is good practice for my son’s birthday at the end of the month. I got some big red balloons blown up at Party City this morning, and filled little party cups with baby snacks (mini vanilla wafers, goldfish, cheerios). I also saw my chance to use a favorite vintage dish of mine– the children’s silhouette bowl, above. I’ve filled it with graham crackers.
Tonight I’ve got another dinner with some great ladies- my ‘book’ club, though we seemed to have dropped the book-reading part, and simply focus on drinking wine. Our carbon monoxide detector is currently going off and won’t stop (though there’s definitely no carbon monoxide in the house), so I’m off to deal with that!
back by popular demand… (a ‘wild things’ birthday party!)
Since the ‘Cowboy Small‘ party I featured last month was such a hit, I’ve been begging “C”‘s mom to share an earlier ‘‘ party.
In her words, “C’s favorite book was and so we invited some of his ‘wild’ friends over to celebrate. We hung lots of green streamers and ‘vines’ to make a jungle.
We played ‘pin the tail on Max’. We also read the book to the kids and made a wild thing mask for each guest, so they had to hold up their masks and roar like the wild things do in the book…”They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws…”
We went outside for the pinata and the kids got way too much candy and then we went back inside for cake. We made a little sign for the cake that was held up by two of the Wild Things (a color copy just taped to the skewers) and attached it to the cake. C loved it!
I think we might make this a tradition…basing our party ideas off of the kids’ favorite books. We’ll see how long we last before they demand Spiderman parties!”
From Sara: For those of you moms stressing out after seeing these great parties by C’s mom, you should know that she’s in the creative community and these things come easier to her then the ‘average’ mom!
I asked her to give more detail about how to create the amazing ideas within the party. This is what she said:
“For the masks, I scanned the monsters to my computer and then enlarged and printed them on cardstock…cutting just the faces out and making holes for for the eyes. You could do this on a color copier, too.
For the favors I scanned the pictures and printed them on Avery label sheets, then attached them to plain gift bags.
The tissue paper ‘vines’ are a bit tricker. You cut the leaves and vines out as one big piece…like a silhouette…then when you unfold it, you have one long piece. The tissue paper is only so big, however, so you tape a few pieces together, end to end, to make a big long strand.” See the ‘how to make a vine’ tutorial in the previous post.
Thank you again for sharing, C’s mom! These book parties are great inspiration to me. I hope you Party readers enjoyed as much as I did.
Even though we’re headed into the fall season, this bright spring-ish wedding from Snippet & Ink caught my eye. I love the pops of green combined with the eyelet lace details. I think this could easily be translated to a number of different party concepts- a fun birthday party, a baby shower (sex unknown), etcetera.
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A large tree fell on our house at 4:30 this morning…with substantial damage…so I think I will be taking a week off from the blog to deal with it! Hope you’ll meet me back here next week. Until then, an image of my son with Santa Claus. He looks about as scared of him as I was when I heard the loud thud!
Last night was fun. A dinner for 10 women, all of whom I enjoy being around. I tried to time things so that I actually got to spend some time with my guests. Everything I fixed required different timing (basil and goat cheese chicken, haricots verts, roasted potatoes, rice), however, so while I did get to chat some- I spent more time in the kitchen then I would have liked. The potatoes took wayyyy longer then they were supposed to, but it all turned out fine in the end. We ate like Europeans and dined at 9, but no one seemed to have a problem with it. The top two photos are the only ones I managed…of the drinks set-up, and some of the apps (ricotta and goat cheese spread with sun-dried tomato salsa).
