{My Parties} Brett's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles 2nd Birthday Party

All Aboard!

It's a Planes, Trains, and Automobile Party!

This party was so fun for an adorable little 2 year old sweetie, who loves trains! You may remember Brett from his first birthday last year, the Jungle Safari party. 

Well, now Brett is so big and just precious and party-mommy Jennifer thought that a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles party would be perfect for him!

She really wanted to do a non-traditional color palette for this theme and I loved that idea, so when I found this fabric by Robert Kaufman, "Ready, Set, Go!", I knew it was the perfect choice. He has three versions; a car, a train, and a plane! 

 I started off by contacting Amanda with Shindig Parties To Go. I literally could talk all day about how amazing Amanda is. She is incredibly talented, and incredibly gracious and sweet as well.
She took my fabric swatch and designed an entirely new printable collection based upon it! 

And, when I say "collection," I mean A HUGE COLLECTION. 

It is available in her shop right now! 

So, if you like this party, then go and get those printables! 

There are TONS of great pieces that you can use a variety of ways!

For the front door, I always like to make some sort of sign or wreath to greet guests. 

So, using the printable collection, I made this hanging piece out of orange craft foam. I used some cardboard pieces behind the main sign to make it pop out from the background. 

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I wanted the backdrop to be a literal sky. So, using this blue sky fabric from Hobby Lobby, I added some clouds made from cardboard and pillow batting--a super easy project for very little money. 

And, I strung the banner from the back of the airplane to suggest the airplanes that fly messages through the sky. 

I made this enormous cupcake stand out of hatboxes and small cardboard/chipboard pieces. I spray painted some parts and used Shindig's coordinating papers for the rest. 

The AMAZING cupcake toppers were done by Brittany at Edible Details. Her level of skill is BEYOND. Every one of them arrived without even one broken and they were truly a perfect touch for the party. 

She is so talented and I cannot believe how perfectly she nailed Amanda's designs. I honestly do not know how fondant designers do it!  Brittany is just incredible. 

Since this party was in the morning, Jennifer and I decided to do a mix of brunch-type foods and sweets. 

Of course, there had to be donettes, right?  Or, "car tires."

 And bagels, or "steering wheels."

 And, since Brett loves fruit, we did some "Stoplight Skewers" or grapes, pineapple, and strawberry. You could also do honeydew melon as well!

We also did some "cloud dip" which was marshmallow fluff and graham crackers.  

And Suckers By Steph did these adorable chocolate train pops for us, in the colors of the party. Stephanie is a DREAM to work with and her lollipops are always perfect and delicious. Thank you Stephanie, for doing these custom for me!

And, to bring in the trains, we did "Lumps of Coal," which were simply rice krispie treats with black food coloring. They were a fun touch, especially for kids! We joked that you would certainly be able to tell who had one, just by the color of their mouth!

 Here is party mommy Jennifer and Mr. Brett in his cute-as-a-button train conductor overalls!

 For favors, Jennifer liked the idea of train whistles and conductor hats, and those are always an easy find on Oriental Trading's website. 

I tied them with a favor card from Shindig and some cute ribbon to match the theme. 

 For the beverage station, or "Fueling Station," I used the train version of the fabric and some small lanterns that I found at Hobby Lobby. They have these in 6 colors! 

 Amanda did a whole bunch of road signs for me and I simply hot glued them to dowels that I painted black and then stuck them into foam covered in grass-print scrapbook paper. The artificial grass is from Hobby Lobby and they have it out right now for Easter! I have used mine at tons of parties! It comes in really handy for a variety of themes!

And the kids didn't get this joke, but we made the drink lime green and called it Antifreeze!

Hope you liked this new take on the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles theme. No John Candy or Steve Martin at this party though. Bummer. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Brett!

Vendors:

Chocolate Lollipops: Suckers by Steph

Printables and Paper Products: Amanda's Parties to Go

Fondant Toppers: Edible Details

Train Whistles and Conductor Hats: Oriental Trading

Fabrics: Carrie's Fabrics

Cupcakes: Mad Lily Cakery

Linking up to:

Bird's Party

                                                           

{My Parties} Leap Year Party Styled Shoot

I have always thought it would be really awesome to have a birthday on Leap Year! A birthday only every 4 years? Well, that appeals to some people's vanity! But, when you're a kid, it would probably be a bummer!

My oldest could have been a leap year baby. He was born in 2008, and he made it to March 13th, but it was definitely a possibility! And, here were are, 4 years later and it's another leap year!

So, with that in mind, I styled this Leap Year Party shoot for Baby Lifestyles February/March issue. 

I loved working with Lauren, the editor or Baby Lifestyles, she is super witty and fun and really understood my sense of humor, which I always appreciate. I was honored to put together this fun shoot, inspired by Leap Year babies, and what else? Frogs. 

Because I am a mom to boys, who love slimy and gross things, I thought a frog party would be right up their alley.  I asked the lovely Paulaat Frog Prince Paperie to help me with the printables. Who better, right? She was so gracious in modifying one of her existing collections to fit my party theme.

I started with a monochromatic green color palette. I used these oversized flowers as a backdrop because they reminded me of lilypads. In addition, I found these green votives that also had the same look.  For the front of the table, I simple used chipboard letters and some glittered scrapbook letters to spell the word “leap.”

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I love the idea of having all green food and drink and I knew boys would love that too. Since my son is  abig fan of pistachios, I knew I had to incoporate that somehow. So, pistachio pudding, or “Lilypad Pudding” was the perfect fit! I garnished the pudding with these small frog candy melts that I made using a mold from Wilton

Another addition to the dessert table was chocolate and mint marshmallows. I found this great  miniature dessert fork display at Hobby Lobby and knew it would be cute for kids. Kids love things that are individualized. It makes them feel special!  I wrapped each fork with a pipe cleaner to give  it an little extra color. Green olives would also be a cute touch on these little forks. I also added some Coconut M&Ms to the table, calling them “Frog Eggs.”

Paula made these great drink wraps for me, which I used with green sparkling juice. I added some glittery scrapbbook paper behind them to make them look extra special. 

To send the boys home with something fun, the favors were frog slap bracelets that I found at the dollar spot at Target. Boys love slap bracelets, so this was really serendpitous. I tied each one with a favor tag from Frog Prince Paperie.  

Hope this inspires you to have a party for the holiday that you can only celebrate once every four years!

Happy Leap Year!

Vendors:

Printables: Frog Prince Paperie
Small plastic cups and fork display: Hobby Lobby