Sweet Magnolia Way: party

Showing posts with label party. Show all posts

May 9, 2014

Hadley's Magical Unicorn Birthday Party

Hi! Every year in January, once the hoopla of the holidays has past, I ask the girls what kind of birthday parties they would like that year. My favorite part of this annual ritual is hearing their initial response and all of their crazy ideas. I also love that it gives me plenty of time to plan, research and buy things, and it gives all something to look forward throughout the long winter.

This year Hadley requested a unicorn party - you might remember her love of unicorns from this post so I wasn't surprised at all. Her sweet party went off without a hitch last weekend - we had great weather, friends and family here to celebrate with her and a big yummy chocolate cake! Below are lots (and lots) of photos from her big day!

I used a lot from Oh Joy's Target line again, but this time I mixed in a few others like the spring flower plates and added the party hats (unicorn horns) and noise makers.

The ceramic horse, which served as a centerpiece for the kids' table, was a Goodwill find that I transformed into a unicorn by adding a little paper horn (made with scrapbook paper and glue)!

Lunch was simple, hot dogs, mac and cheese, Asian chicken salad and P&J on mini bagels.

The biggest hit of the party, with the kids and adults alike, was the popcorn cones. They were exciting enough to keep to the kids occupied until everyone arrived and tasted pretty good too!!

To make them I just wrapped up and glued sheets of scrapbook paper into cone-like shapes and filled them with this good and good for you popcorn!!

After everyone was finished eating lunch we headed to the family room for a little Pin the Horn on the Unicorn - Hadley won!

Then, after a bit more playing and running around it was time for cake. Four layers of different chocolate varieties, vanilla icing and a unicorn. The unicorn was a plastic figurine that we found in Scott's childhood toy boxes when we visited his parents last summer. The girls have been playing with ever since and it was perfect for the top of the cake. I added some cotton candy clouds and made the little Hadley bunting and dots out of fondant.

The birthday girl!

A few details...lots of flowers....bubbles (wrapping removed and flower added!) and on the back of Hadley's chair I hung two of the party hats and added a tissue flower to each - something special for the birthday girl.

I bought a bunch of wood necklace sets from Michaels for the kiddos to make.

And we filled goodies bags with unicorn coloring sets, spiral lollipops and mini pinwheels.

It was a great day filled with the people I love - especially this brand new three year old!

Can't wait to start planning next year's parties!!

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April 14, 2014

A Dinosaur Garden Party for Layla

Hi there and happy Monday! I mentioned last week that my Layla recently turned five but neglected to share the fun pix of her dino-themed party. So today, I thought I would share a little bit of the fun with a few details with more to come later.

I had been anxiously awaiting the debut of the Oh Joy party line for Target and ended buying almost everything to use for Layla's party. The pretty colors and the feminine gold accents made the perfect pairing with all those dinosaurs!!

I love using fabric for tablecloths so I bought four yards of oxford blue shirting to use for the dining room table so all the bright colors of the cups, plates and napkins would really pop.

I like to keep all the lunch and drinks simple for parties so I have more time to focus on what's important - a certain five year old and her cute friends. So I usually (always) make the same sandwiches - mozzarella, basil, tomato with balsamic vinaigrette and turkey, arugula & pesto on ciabatta bread - crowd-pleasers and easy to make the morning of.

The cake this year was fun to decorate...Layla riding a triceratops (her fave). I made the Layla out of fondant that I mixed food coloring into - it matched her party outfit exactly (see here).

Once lunch was over the girls were each given a plastic pith helmet, bucket and sifter to use while searching for dinosaur fossils in the three sand boxes Scott made.

And after all that digging (those fossils were harder to find than I thought) partygoers got to watch Mt. St. Layla erupt....it was a good thing we made sure everyone stood back...Scott added a little too much baking soda (after his first attempt was a little lackluster) and ended up with a face full of vinegar and baking soda!!

We enjoyed cake on the deck and after the girls went and played some more. Later everyone got to adopt their own dinosaur at the end of the party.

It was a great day...a sunny day...the perfect birthday party for a very special girl!!

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May 16, 2013

Hadley's Farm Birthday Party Recap

Hello! This post is a bit late but they are too cute not to share! We had a lovely day and the weather was perfect that plus few of Layla and Hadley's friends and our families made it a wonderful birthday celebration!

Hadley loves animals and making animal sounds, so when we were deciding what kind of 2nd birthday party to have for her a farm party seemed like a fun idea. I made the invitations and most of the decorations and found lots of great barn-themed items at Michaels and Target - so the prep work was pretty easy!

All the party supplies.

I made the invitations by printing out a clip art barn I found online, cutting a "T" across the top and down the middle of the barn door and backed it with scrapbook paper I printed the party info on.

I keep the balloons simple. I made the white ones into cows using black tissue paper spots, the yellow ones turned into chicks with orange tissue beaks and googly eyes, pink ones into pigs with curly pipe cleaner tails.

I added a few roosters as well!

I had two photos of Hadley on her tractor blown up at Staples (engineer prints) and hung those on the wall. I used this fabric as a tablecloth on the kids table - love how it look with the vintage rooster and buttercups picked by Layla.

I loved these paper hot dog holders I found in the dollar section of Target, the watering can held wooden utensils.

The girls' Papa (my Dad) enjoying the beautiful weather!

I used a similar drink station at Layla's party but this time I added a garden shovel to scoop ice and a plate of sweet tea "fixings" to add little something extra!

On the menu: sliders, hot dogs, pasta salad and fruit. We used a few of Scott's childhood tractors as party decor and garden shovels and rakes were used as serving utensils.

Party girls eating lunch!

The girls decorated birdhouses with stickers.

Hadley requested a pig cake and I think this turned out pretty darn cute! I used two 9" cake pans and two 6" pans layered with pink cream cheese frosting (the cake was strawberry) marshmallow snout, eyes, ears and hooves dyed pink! Chocolate chip eyes and melted choclate for the mouth.