"Under the Sea" Mermaid 4th Birthay

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Pin It (I'm catching up on parties from this summer and spring! Enjoy!)

We all want to celebrate what our children love and what makes them special, but they often love popular cartoon characters, and the idea of a party filled with pre-packaged, commercial, plasticky decorations and favors can be unappealing. Camilla loves The Little Mermaid, and her mom wanted to honor that but in a less commercial way. We decided to take the party in a more general "mermaid" direction, with some fun nods to her favorite movie. We settled on a pinks and aquas for our color scheme, with seashells and watery details.

I used 36" balloons with tassel tails and small paper lanterns trailing ribbons to evoke jellyfish. Camilla's name was printed in pink glitter cardstock on a watery blue background, with a glittery pink "4" on a seashell announcing her birthday, and some glittery bubble accents.

Camilla's mom Kara kept the snacks simple and adorable. Clamshell cookies, starfish sandwiches, coral cupcakes, bubbly bite fruit kabobs, and crustacean crisps. 

We hung some more of the jellyfish lanterns in the trees, where the breeze really made them look lovely.

For games, we had a mermaid sack race, so the kids could "test out their sea legs." I cut simple mermaid fin shapes out of craft foam sheets and hot glued them to some thrifted pillowcases in our color scheme. I loved how they turned out!

The kids looked so adorable hopping through the grass. And the birthday girl won!

We followed that up with a treasure hunt, with a couple fun nods to The Little Mermaid. We did indeed hide dinglehoppers (plastic forks) and snarfblats (bubble pipes, in this case), and we threw in some candy items for good measure. The kids collected their treasures in beach pails.

After games, the kids happily grabbed their cupcakes and snacks and settled down for a round of "Happy Birthday" and some present opening. My peacock wicker chair seemed like a perfect seashell throne for the little birthday mermaid.

 Happy birthday to the sweetest, bubbliest little mermaid I know!

All photos by Stella Dolce Photography.

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Lexi's Rainbow My Little Pony Party

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Pin It What's more fun than rainbows? How about rainbows, unicorns, and magical ponies? For Lexi's 4th birthday, she wanted to celebrate all things My Little Pony. Her mom and I decided to use rainbow colors as a jumping-off point, with MLP-themed activities and treats for the kids.

I love this backdrop--it's just lengths of simple crepe paper streamers. I taped them down at the bottom because we were outside and I didn't want them blowing around into the food, but for an inside party, you could leave them loose. At the top of the "rainbow," I placed tissue paper pom pom clouds and rainbow colored honeycomb balls. 

One of my favorite parts of a party is coming up with a menu and thinking of themey names for the dessert. As the mom of two boys, My Little Pony was a whole new world for me. I watched a few episodes on Netflix with the boys in preparation for this party. We all really enjoyed it--it was like a whole new mythology to learn. I double-checked all names and activities with Lexi's mom, just to make sure I wasn't violating some My Little Pony code or anything. 

We had Apple Jack's farm fresh fruit, Fluttershy's bunny snacks (veggie cups), Rainbow Dash's Cloudsdale sandwiches (PB&J in cloud shapes!), Twilight Sparkle's Friendship is Magic cookies (sugar cookies iced with "cutie mark" designs), and Pinkie Pie's balloon cake pops. Lexi's mom scattered mini MLP figurines from "blind bags" around the table for extra decoration.

To quench the August thirst, we offered lemonade and water for the kids, some beer for any adults who wanted it. We dressed up the table with a rainbow tassel garland and some rainbow-colored poms hanging in the trees. Ice pops are a must for August outdoor birthdays. 

We kept the activities pretty simple, as it was a hot day, and the kids preferred to splash around in the pool for most of the party. I turned a slip-n-slide into a "Wonderbolt Academy Obstacle Course" with some pool noodles bent into rainbows. I tied strips of vinyl tablecloth to each archway for a little added fun. We had some pegasus wings up for grabs, and a decorate-your-own-unicorn-horn station--made with paper cones with ribbons woven through them, and some stick-on jewels to choose from.

I made a Pin the Cutie Mark on the Pony game by painting a mark-less pony on a big sheet of drawing paper and taping it to a magnetic dry erase board. Then I used my button maker (which also makes magnets) to make some Cutie Mark magnets. The kiddos had fun trying to pin them.

Happy Birthday, Lexi! Thank you for letting me share your magical, colorful birthday with you!


Styling, decorations, activities, cake pops: Smarty Parties
Photography: Stella Dolce Photography
Cutie Mark Cookies: Lady Sprinkles Pin It

Little Golden Books Baby Shower, Girly Style

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Over the weekend, we had a baby shower for my oldest and dearest friend, Stephanie. Stephanie and I became instant best friends on the first day of fourth grade. We were both eight years old. We are now . . .significantly older than eight, and we have been thick as thieves ever since. I am beyond excited to welcome her baby girl into the world this October!

Our friend Sara graciously provided the location, her adorable house. Stephanie had mentioned liking the idea of a Little Golden Books theme for her shower, but with a girly twist for little Amaya (how cute is that name? Like I said, I am BEYOND excited).

We set up everything in Sara's bright and airy basement room, which opens out to her back patio and pool. The walls are a pale blue, which looked so pretty with the pinksplosion of decorations.

I covered a papier-mache letter A (from JoAnn) with pink tissue paper twists.

My mom and I made this bunting, which alternated aqua Little Golden Books fabric with pink Poky Little Puppy fabric.

You know I had to get all themey with the food.

I tried to include pages (mostly from The Poky Little Puppy) that referenced the desserts. I put them in "Little Golden" frames I found at Goodwill for 50-99 cents apiece. 

 And I labeled the food with little cards bordered with the Little Golden Books endpapers and written in the Lauren Script font.

"Chocolate Custard" cake pops. In little fence baskets. GET IT?

We kept the activities low-key. Stephanie is not a fan of traditional shower games (amen), so we had guests, at their leisure, sign a photo mat for Stephanie to frame with a picture of Miss Amaya when she arrives. We set out Sharpies in colors that coordinated with Amaya's nursery.

We also encouraged them to write down advice for the mom-to-be in a journal.

Favors were various strawberry print stationery items (memo pads and note cards) that we found at Michael's. 

The guest of honor and her hostesses.

We got a big group shot at the end of the shower with everyone holding one of the pennant buntings. 

Congratulations, Stephanie and Eddie! We all love you and can't wait to meet your little Amaya.

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Harry Potter Birthday Quest

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Pin It Lauren is perhaps the sweetest ten-year-old I've ever met. She wanted a Harry Potter birthday party, but she was very specific: she wanted a quest! I had so much fun developing a series of Potter-y problems for her and her friends to puzzle through. Here are a few pictures from last weekend's party.

We started off the party by visiting the "Transfiguration Booth," posing with our props for some talking portraits.

Then we enjoyed a wand-making craft, based on the clever tutorial I found here.

Note the floating candles!

Don't these look great? Chopsticks, beads and hot glue!

Everyone was sorted into houses.

 The girls all lined up at Platform 9 3/4 (or the entrance to Diagon Alley, or whatever magical brick portal you like), which was really a sheet that I sponge-painted with red "bricks" . . .

And then it was time for some questing! It would take too long to go into all the details here, but to give you some idea, there were tasks involving glow-in-the-dark ink, spells, potions, and flying keys. At each turn, the girls had to solve a riddle that led them to their next clue. I had worried some of the riddles were too complex, but these girls were some serious Harry Potter scholars and flew through each tasks like experts. The quest had 5-6 distinct parts, and I hope to go over them in more detail in later entries.

It's not a Harry Potter party without some wizardy treats! We had peach pasties (instead of pumpkin), chocolate frogs, Hagrid's rock cakes (donut holes), cauldron cakes with little golden snitch gumballs, sorting hat cookies, and Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans in boxes made by yours truly.

We also had some veggies from Hagrid's veggie patch, and of course, butterbeer!

After the quest, dinner, and sweets, the girls retreated to the "dormitory," or the basement rec room, where they hunkered down for a Harry Potter movie marathon. And what's a movie without some broomsticks full of popcorn?

And I retreated back to my Chicago hotel room to collapse in exhaustion. Thanks, Lauren and family, for a wonderful time!

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