Showing posts with label entertaining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entertaining. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Levi's Airplane 1st Birthday Party: Time flies!



This past weekend we celebrated Levi's first birthday.
(He actually turns one this Friday, but it worked better with our schedule)

It is so crazy he is one!
On one hand, it went so fast.
On the other, it's hard to imagine life before him!

It was great! Our tiny home was packed!
We had around 40 guests in our teeny tiny home.
It was very 'cozy'.
But it warmed my heart to see how many friends and family love our son so much.

So, a few months ago I decided on an Airplane Theme party.
"Time Flies....Levi is 1!"

I got to work looking around Pinterest and blogs for ideas.
And here is how it played out:

Colors
I decided on Red and Aqua. It seemed a lot of airplane things were in those colors, and those were the colors of his bedroom too.

And amazingly, Target had a whole Christmas selection of entertaining items in these colors that didnt look like Christmas at all! I scored all our paper goods and decorations for 50-70% off!

For invitations, I made boarding passes in Google Docs, then cut them and made little ticket holders out of scrapbook paper and ribbon.
Really easy, and cheap!

I made party hats for all the kids.
I bought plain party hats, then used wrapping paper that was in the same collection as the paper goods and "wrapped" the hats. I then punched out coordinating scrapbook paper and attached the child's first initial. I then took a bit of red garland and glued it to the top. Levi's had extra garland and a '1'.

Let's look at the decorations:

{I loved the balloons}
{The favors were airplane shaped cookies and glider planes for the kids.}
The chalkboard sign was made using cardboard, chalkboard contact paper and a chalk pen.
{Mr. Free made this adorable little plane for the kids to play with out of a box and some spray paint}
The Little Prince's throne

The Food
We decided to keep it simple.
We were having a large amount of guests and couldn't afford to feed a full meal.
We decided to just do cake and ice cream with a few snacks

We had "in flight snacks"
{pretzels, cheez its, cookies}
Birthday cake balls
"Jet Fuel" punch

And, aside from Levi, the stars of the show:
Levi's awesome birthday cake and smash cake
A good friend of mine makes custom cakes, and did a phenomenal job on Levi's cakes!
We were absolutely thrilled!
They were just as delicious as they were cute!

Now, party pics
A house full of people!
We bought an airplane book and had all our guests sign it for him.
We want to do that each year...buy a book that goes with the party theme and have guests sign it.


Opening presents
Poor buddy got so sleepy opening all his presents

Smash Cake Time
Mmmm
Pretty good...
This hat is slowing me down...
....and so are these hands!
All done...ready for a bath!

The party went so well.
All the kids seemed to have a great time.
It was so awesome to celebrate this amazing little boy and surviving our first year as a family of 3!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Children's Book Themed Baby Shower


My best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world had her sweet baby boy 6 weeks ago yesterday!
A group of us ladies at our church threw her a baby shower about two and a half months ago, and I realized I never shared it!

Ashley (the mama) is a 2nd grade teacher and loves children's books.
She and her husband were also waiting to find out the sex of their baby until birth...
so a Children's Book theme baby shower was perfect!

As part of the shower, we requested books instead of cards with personal notes written in them for Baby and boy did Baby get spoiled!

(Now that Baby is born....I guess we don't have to call him Baby!)

Anyhoo... our showers at church are kept pretty simple.
 I still think it turned out adorable.
Here's some pics

Our "theme" books were
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
One Fish, Two Fish
and 
Goodnight Moon

We used brown and primary colors.
We used disposable table cloths, and folded the colors to make runners for each book.

 The light snacks corresponded with the book titles

 And a dear friend and her sister made this gorgeous cake.
I hated to cut into it!
And I will tell you, it was just as delicious as it was adorable!
 The favors were pink and blue cupcakes! 
Yum!
 We had Star Crunches for Goodnight Moon.
(We wanted Moon Pies, but couldn't find em!)

Cookies for If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

And Swedish Fish for One Fish, Two Fish
 

Since we didn't know Baby was a "he"...we had the gift table divided with pink and blue and had people place their gifts on which table they thought Baby was!

And Mr. Emmett was spoiled rotten!
Our little church is incredibly generous!

So there it is!
Simple, on a budget, but adorable.
A great theme for a little boy or girl!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Pumpkin Carving Party!

Time for the recap.

Here was the food.

S'More cupcakes.
Candy corn and peanuts.
Frugal tip: I bought those plates last year at Target after Halloween for 75% off and stored them away. I got matching napkins and cups too. Think ahead a year and it'll save a ton of $$$!

We had chili and potato soup.
Homemade Caramel Apples.
Not pictured:
Mummy Pigs in a Blanket
Seasoned Popcorn
Spiced Cider

Some decor

Mini pumpkins mixed with gold glitter pine cones.
The mercury glass bowl and pine cones were 75% off last year at Target after the holidays.
I normally use these pieces for our New Years Eve Party.
However, I thought the glittered pine cones with the pumpkins were a fun spin on the infamous Martha Stewart Glitter Pumpkins.
Mason jars from around the house with a tealight.
A few glitter pine cones to make it sparkle.
So easy and it made for a pretty glow!
*Sigh*
I love my houndstooth rug!

Now the pumpkins!
I really shouldn't be friends with so many artists...
It makes my pumpkin look crummy. : (
That's mine.
I really don't know what I was going for with this.
Some Indie Bohemian design.
It instead looks like a flower exploding.
Mr. Free's.
A pumpkin carved on a pumpkin.
Carved are the words 'It's conceptual'.
Gosh I love that man.

Aren't they fantastic?!!!
The party was a blast and I think will be an annual tradition now.

Now...I'm planning my next party.
I'm thinking a Christmas Cookie Swap!

I love to entertain!