Daisy Birthday Party (Real Party)

Birthday parties are a lot of fun.  I love planning the menu, making the decorations and the excitement that comes with the transformation of the party space.

We really enjoyed putting this party on.  It was a daisy themed first birthday party.

The colors were pink and white.  We carried this theme with pink gingham table cloths and pink and white daisies.  We added in some green highlights with patches of crepe paper grass and tiny white picket fences to round out the look.

I painted wooden number 1's and placed them within the centerpieces.  The decorations were simple, the colors were clean and none of it was fussy.

My favorite part of the decorations were the four foot tall daisies that lined the driveway.  I like to get arriving guests an idea of what to expect as they arrive.

Hope you enjoy these pictures.

Cardboard Cut Outs Detail

Last week I shared an overview of K's pirate party.   I want to try to highlight a few of the ideas for you.

First of all, lets start with the cardboard cutouts.  We were looking for some kind of decoration that would get us a lot of bang for our buck.  Something big and fun and - hey why not cut outs?

Real Pirate Party

This past Saturday we celebrated K's 3rd birthday with a Pirate Party!  The weather was lovely, a bunch of the guests came in costume and overall the party was a blast.  Below are some highlights of the party.  I will detail certain parts of the party later this week.

Sneak Peek #2

I have been re-miss this past week and have neglected all of my friends in the blogosphere.  Things have been a little hectic, but that's no excuse.  Can we still be friends? :)

K's Pirate Party is coming up this Saturday.  I wanted to give you one more sneak peek into some of the things we have planned.  Our house is just buzzing with excitement.  She definitely has my love for entertaining.

Enjoy!

Pirate Party Preview

Just a sneak peek at what we have in store for our upcoming Pirate Birthday Party.

Plenty of more swashbuckling action to come.

Hmm...what could we be doing with these???

Birthday Countdown Calendar

K is so excited about her birthday.  At almost 3 she lacks a concept of time.  I remembered how much she loved the Advent calendar we use at Christmas and thought a Birthday Countdown Calendar was in order.

I used one piece of canvas, different colored felt, Velcro & a little paint.

You can chose to paint the canvas if you want but I really didn't think it was necessary.

Decide how many days you want to countdown.  We chose 15 days and decided we would use felt balloons.  You could do stars, flowers, candles on a birthday cake - the possibilities are endless!

Decide on a shape and cut out the pieces from felt.

Assemble the pieces on your board.  I experimented with different layouts - in rows, in a bouquet, scattered around the page and decided I liked them in a row the best.

Once you have your shape laid out, attach Velcro to the back of the shape and the corresponding spot on the board.

Number your shapes and paint the title at the top and you are good to go!

Mickey Mouse Party

So as you know, we are in full throttle birthday planning mode for K's Pirate Party!  And it is coming at me hard and fast.  I am a little stressed about getting everything done but super excited for it to happen.  (I'm kind of giddy about getting to share it with all of you, but in due time my dears)

For K's second birthday we had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party. 

*Disclaimer - the party was by no means photographed for a blog tutorial so please forgive the pitiful pictures.  I will still attempt to provide as much detail as I can...*

First of all - Invitations.  Really, I don't have anything against store bought invites.  I have even been known to use them in the past, but I don't prefer them.  We actually went a really low maintenance route for K's invite.  I took an image of Mickey and the gang and photo shopped K into the picture and had them printed in a local photo lab (i.e. Wal-Mart).

Pirate Party Invitations

The foundation of a good party is the invitation.  The invitation sets the mood of the party long before the first guest arrives or the first bite of food is prepared.  Taking the extra time to create an invitation is certainly worth the effort.

For our pirate party it was a no-brainer - a message in a bottle.  I sourced the perfect bottle and found them to be over a dollar a piece.  So we improvised with plastic water bottles.  Thrifty and green!

We started out by printing the invitation with a parchment style background.  The wording is as follows:

Ahoy me hearties we're having a party

Ye be invited to celebrate the 3rd birthday of Captain K

Chart yer course for our house

Date______________   Time_______________

X marks the spot

Ye landlubbers (big & small) are encouraged to come dressed in yer pirate best

Yo Ho Let's Go!  Pillage an' plunder await.

Arrrrr....you coming to the party?  Let us know by ________

Once we printed the invitations we crumpled up the paper repeatedly and burned the edges to give it an old, weathered look.

We painted the tops of the water bottles gold, put sand in the bottom and added small sea shells.  The invitations were rolled up tightly and tied with red raffia ribbon before being placed inside the bottled.

Simple, inexpensive and very fitting for the theme.

Pirate Party Post #1

Over the next month I will be posting several pirate party ideas. My little girl, K's third birthday is coming up. I know, I know a pirate party for a little girl? This is how the conversation went -

Me - your birthday is coming up. What kind of party do you want? A princess party?

K - no, a pirate party.

Me - pirates?

K - yeah pirates, you know mommy, like captain hook and swords.

Me - I know what pirates are, but how do you? Are you sure you don't want a princess party?

And so it goes that we are having a pirate party. So far it has been an absolute blast to plan! Like I said, this will be the first of many more pirate party posts. Say that three times fast will ya?

So for today's first post I am going to show you the weathered bottles we have made.  This is a great way to recycle empty spaghetti sauce jars or other glass jars.  All you need is a glass jar, some regular masking tape and either brown shoe polish, brown paint or a distressing ink pad.

This one is being made with an empty wine bottle.

Tear the masking tape into small pieces.  Don't cut the tape, you will want the irregularity of the torn edge.  Layer the tape all over the bottle until you cover the entire thing.

This is a great activity to let the kids help with.  I lined up several pieces of torn tape for K and she went to town covering the bottle.

Once the bottle is covered, take your medium of choice - we used brown paint because that is what we had on hand, and blot it on your bottle.  Don't paint it on there, you want it to be uneven to give the bottle a worn look.  I found that with brown paint it works best to crumple up a paper towel and use that to blot the paint on the tape.

Cover the entire bottle and let it dry.

We have also made this project with a Coke bottle, spaghetti sauce jar and a pizza sauce jar.

Happy crafting ye landlubbers!

Up-cycle Silverware Holder

I think this is a great little party & picnic trick that can be customized for any event.  Take a cardboard drink holder from your favorite restaurant.  (6-pack holders work as well)

Spray paint the holder or cover it in scrapbook paper to match your theme. 

We painted this one gold to go along with a Pirate Party I am in the depths of planning.

Below is a Mickey themed carrier that was covered in scrapbook paper for last year's birthday party.

Then put your silverware and napkins in the holes and voila - a silverware holder that is portable and inexpensive.

Hot Pink & Zebra Stripe Party

I planned this entire party around one bolt of zebra fabric that I bought on a whim from a clearance fabric table.  Hot pink & zebra - what's not to love?

This party was for my mother-in-law's 60th birthday party.  I filled the space with lots of tissue paper pom poms and lanterns in hot pink or white.

I then created two large pom poms to be used as the centerpiece on top of a bunched piece of the zebra print fabric.  This gave the party a fun, flirty atmosphere.

The guests were to arrive during evening hours so we planned a menu of classy, but substantial appetizers.

The menu included:

• Smoked Salmon with a (purchased) Dill and Dijon sauce
• Homemade meatballs
• Spinach and Ham/Cheese quiche
• Ham Rolls
• Cheese Slaw
• Cream Cheese & Red Pepper Jelly dip
• Bloody Mary Shrimp Cocktail
• Caprese Salad

It was an easy menu to prepare with a lot of work to be done in advance.  If you are interested in any of the recipes used for the party menu, leave a comment and I will accommodate requests.

We set up small side tables around the house draped in black fabric with vases of pink water crystals and pink Gerber daisies tied with zebra print ribbon.  The candles are battery operated due to little hands running around the house! :)