Four!

Well, we have just finished celebrating our four-years-of-this-parenting-lark anniversary, with a Pink Flamingo birthday party.  A wee while back I had anticipated having at least one final year of full-control-of-party-decision-making, but sometime during the past few weeks I realised that it would be a lot easier and much more fun to collaborate with my Miss.  

We sat down and made a list which consisted of the following: Pink, Chimpunk Cake, cucumber, raisins, jelly-beans and balloons.  There didn't leave me with a ton to work with so I had to throw in a couple of my own ideas...

Other than cucumber (we made do with beetroot - another fave) we did manage to tick all the boxes, and simultaneously decorate this party on the smallest of budgets (big fat zero).  I raided my craft room for any items of pink, and spent an evening making party things.  Like wall dots (technically Zan made these, but whatevs), a kinda weird Flamingo wall hanging thing, raisin box wrappers, and my personal favourite, handmade Pink Flamingo straws.  I hunted everywhere to buy the real deal, but everyone was out of stock.  So I used these pink paper straws I bought on sale from Pop Roc Parties, and cut out these Flamingos from some postcards I printed a few years ago, featuring a design from Creature Comforts blog.

Our party fare was a little bit random.  Vege stacks (these were far more popular than anticipated), pink marbled scones, pink trifle, raisins, and some funny looking lamington Flamingos that I hastily put together the night before.  Guests added their own pink dishes - pikelets with pink cream, cakepops, fruit salad and beetroot hummus.  We sipped on pink soda water which looked slightly better than it tasted, but no one seemed to mind.  And Eleanor got her Pink Chimpunk cake.  Relief.

The easiest of the easiest.  Some fabric from IKEA, kindly brought over in a suitcase by a bestie.  Some pre-used pink pom-poms, flowers and lanterns.  Bunting.  Easy.  We kept games simple and listened to The Chipmunks.  Yep.  Four year olds know where it's at.

I did take a moment or two to feel mighty proud of my four year old who was a super sweet host.  Yeah, mama-pride.  Gonna revel in it.

MMM party - favours & printables

With the help of some clever friends, a bit of Pinspiration and my extensive collection of vintage bits and pieces, I really didn't feel the slightest bit of stress over Eleanor's party (other than feeling a tiny bit stressed that I wasn't stressed).  Really.

Favours:

 Paper doll stickers and a candy necklace

 and handmade (by Alice, not me) flower cookies, packaged in polkadot bags

I kept the favours much more simple this year.  I loved going to all that effort last year, but I wasn't feeling it this time around.  

 Packaged in glassine bags from Pop Roc Parties, with a little floral bag of old-fashioned sweets to take home too...

I chose the theme several months ago, and ran through lots and lots of ideas for what I might do with it. In the end I referenced the books in these ways: red and yellow jellies (as MMM had at the birthday party she went to), blackberry tea-cups, an Eleanor-as-MMM illustration I created for the invites & printable hats (I never actually sent the invites :-/), and Eleanor's red and white striped dress - which was actually just a happy, thrifted accident.  Other than that, we did our best to stick to a similar era for most of the decorations, which were all from my collection.

Fruit cups, with a little surprise at the bottom

When planning the menu, I stuck to simple and rustic plates (bread & jam, cucumber & cream cheese sandwiches, fruit cups etc).  I created a little board on Pinterest to gather ideas, and sketched out how I thought it would all look set out.  I figured out what decorations/items I would make, and what I would buy, and then designed an invite.  And then I didn't think about it for weeks and weeks.

 Free printables :-)

On the day of the party it was raining so we couldn't do the egg and spoon & sack races I had planned, so I prepared a Pass The Parcel the night before, and when the 3 year olds started getting noisy and restless we played that. No prizes between the layers, and in the centre there was a spotty balloon for each of them.  What followed was six very happy children, who filled the room with balloons, noise and happiness.  Simple.

Some Pinspiration I used:  Toffee Apples with twigs as sticks, Posie Gets Cozy's gorgeous cake, washi tape flags, party hats.

Party sources...

I don't know why it was so free of stress (but I'm perfectly glad, of course).  Perhaps I was too tired, after a string of illnesses in our household, and amidst the busiest month of the year - so far.  I kept paring back my ideas.  Initially I'd booked the local Pioneer Village as the venue.  It would have been too cute for words, but the mere thought of it was making me want to wither up into a stress ball.  I found myself avoiding thinking about the party at all - an then it suddenly occurred to me that I could just cancel the booking and host it in our backyard.  When rainy weather loomed, I further relinquished my dreams of a perfectly scenic party, and instead dressed our dining area in vintage finery.  It was, as it turned out, just right.

Of course, it wouldn't have been quite so easy if it weren't for the fact that I have a very clever cake-making friend, living in close proximity.  I asked her if she would make a Posie Gets Cozy cake for Eleanor, and it was exactly perfect!  She also whipped up a lilac ombre ruffle cake for my mum, what a showstopper!  She made cookies for the milk bottles, and gorgeous flower ones for the favours (I'll show you soon), and provided a tray of cake pops, which are never unwelcome.  Srsly.  She did all that.

 Alice kindly decorated this cake just like Alicia which was very important to me.  I'm such a bloggy geek.

 So proud of her cake...

I was also super fortunate to have Pop Roc Parties join up as a sponsor, providing us with some gorgeous mini milk bottles, and some glassine favour bags.  These perfectly complemented the vintage items from my own collection, keeping things simple and sweet.  I have to say, milk at a birthday party - probably the best idea that somebody ever had...  The kids totally demolished their bottles of milk and no one asked for fizzy drinks.  I actually had some pink grapefruit/soda water mix available, but these guys were happy with milk.  

Items we used that can be found at Pop Roc Parties: Vintage milk bottles; Toadstool pegs; Glassine bags;  Bakers twine & Floral bags.

Milly-Molly-Mandy Party - Photo heavy

If childrens birthday parties aren't your thing, look away now - because I am about to post a lot of photos...  Yesterday afternoon we held a party for our three year old, with a Milly-Molly-Mandy theme.  For those who haven't yet met this sweet little book character, pop in to your local library, because these are stories that your little ones will love (if they are anything like me and my five siblings).  We stuck to the theme very loosely, but we tried to keep an old-fashioned, 'bookish' feel to the day, with some references to the story whenever we could.

I'll be back sometime in the next few days to cover all the details - favours, printables, inspiration, sources & and some ideas I came up with.  x

Joining up here.