party roundup

Some favorite parties from the past couple of weeks...

from top: ballerina inspired party at Miette via Nesting; fairy party from Simply Lovely (2 + 3); mouse birthday party (4 + 5) from the Princess and the Frog; 1930's New Depression party (6 +7) via Cup of Joe; rainbow birthday party via BloesemKids; pumpkin carving party (9, 10 + 11) via Eddie Ross.

Happy Halloween...have a great weekend. -s

schultüte!

I came across this post on a German tradition called Schultüte that I just adore! 

A Schultüte, or 'School Cone' is also known as a Zuckertüte or 'sugar bag.' When children in Germany set off for their first day in school upon entering first grade, their parents and/or grandparents present them with a big cardboard cone...prettily decorated and filled with toys, chocolate, candies, school supplies and various other goodies. It is given to children to make this anxiously awaited first day of school a little bit sweeter.

I think we need to adopt this tradition in America! What a fun way to celebrate the first day of school.

Information on Schultüte and bottom two pictures via Wikipedia

Top four pictures and inspiration from My Other Room 

more balloon love...

from top: creature comforts, black eiffel (2), simply lovely, frolic(2)

balloons!

I love this balloon image round-up from It's Lovely...

kid photos

For those of you who take fabulous pictures of your kids on a daily basis, you must share! How do you do it? What kind of camera do you use? My photos turn out just fine- and I actually think I'm doing pretty well until I see some like these. I snagged these from a friend's Facebook page. They're great- right? 

My problem is that I don't want to carry around a huge camera (been there, done that). Yes- the photos turn out with that depth-of-field I aim for, but I almost never have the camera with me (since it is such a huge pain to carry around). I have a simple, small, point & click that I love for daily use...but with my son's birthday coming up I am yearning for something more for my photos! 

high vs. low

I've come across two French-themed birthday parties this week...for a one year-old and the other for a two year-old. The one year-old party is a bit over the top and must have cost thousands and thousands of dollars. The other is still gorg (check out that cake!), but on a much more modest scale. Which do you like? Personally, a party on that level for a one year-old makes me gag (even if they do have the money!), but that's just me. I really adore the two year-old's party, however!

2 year-old party via Black Eiffel

1 year-old party via Whatever Dee Wants via B.lush

anna williams

Anna Williams' photographs are beyond beautiful. I love the compositions she's created on her website- the purple/yellow and blue wallpaper/blue plate are among my favorite. I'm studying the bottom two photographs for table spread styling ideas!

Brooke designed her website- great job, Brooke!

toast & tables

I'm sad to see that the Toast & Tables blog is now defunct. I hope its author will at least keep the archives up and running-- there is so much great table decor inspiration in one place! Above are some favorites.

a tutorial for the vines...

Here is a similar concept for the vine how-to for the Wild Things party. From Martha, of course.

back by popular demand... (a 'wild things' birthday party!)

Since the 'Cowboy Small' party I featured last month was such a hit, I've been begging "C"'s mom to share an earlier 'Where the Wild Things Are' party. 

In her words, "C's favorite book was Where the Wild Things Are and so we invited some of his 'wild' friends over to celebrate. We hung lots of green streamers and 'vines' to make a jungle. 

We played 'pin the tail on Max'. We also read the book to the kids and made a wild thing mask for each guest, so they had to hold up their masks and roar like the wild things do in the book..."They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws..."

We went outside for the pinata and the kids got way too much candy and then we went back inside for cake. We made a little sign for the cake that was held up by two of the Wild Things (a color copy just taped to the skewers) and attached it to the cake. C loved it! 

I think we might make this a tradition...basing our party ideas off of the kids' favorite books. We'll see how long we last before they demand Spiderman parties!"

From Sara: For those of you moms stressing out after seeing these great parties by C's mom, you should know that she's in the creative community and these things come easier to her then the 'average' mom!  

I asked her to give more detail about how to create the amazing ideas within the party. This is what she said:

"For the masks, I scanned the monsters to my computer and then enlarged and printed them on cardstock...cutting just the faces out and making holes for for the eyes. You could do this on a color copier, too.

For the favors I scanned the pictures and printed them on Avery label sheets, then attached them to plain gift bags.

The tissue paper 'vines' are a bit tricker. You cut the leaves and vines out as one big piece...like a silhouette...then when you unfold it, you have one long piece. The tissue paper is only so big, however, so you tape a few pieces together, end to end, to make a big long strand."  See the 'how to make a vine' tutorial in the previous post.

Thank you again for sharing, C's mom! These book parties are great inspiration to me. I hope you Party readers enjoyed as much as I did.