{Real Parties} Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Birthday

Hi everyone!  I'm back - not 100% but a lot better.  I ended up in the ER Saturday night with my high fever and a rash on my face as a result of the fever.  After IV's, blood tests, chest x-rays, and being given a muscle relaxer (why? you ask.  I'm so glad!  Apparently, everyone is in pain at the ER, so they just gave me some pain killers.  No idea - I wasn't in pain and the muscle relaxers made my arms and legs feel like jello.), I was informed I had a a fever and rash.  NO joke!  That was my diagnosis!  On another page, it stated virus.  Needless to say, I felt oh so relieved that I spent 3 1/2 hours of my life there on Saturday.  HAHA!

Okay, okay - enough about me - back to the party!

Tamara at The McDonald World hosted a Miss Spider's Sunny Patch party for her daughter's 2nd birthday.  She did a fantastic job with the decor and activites for the children.  My favorites are the Tree centerpiece and mini paper lantern bug friends.  She utilized free print outs from Nick Jr. for some of the activites and decor (I like free!)  Great job Tamara and thank you for sharing the party with us!  Don't forget to visit her blog, too!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miss Spider Sunny Patch Party

For Lauren's 2nd birthday, I decided to go with a Miss Spider theme...little did I know (after I had my heart set on this idea) that it would be near impossible to find anything Miss Spider out there. This is such a cute show and so perfect for this age, that I feel like they are really missing the boat by not marketing it anymore. If it were not for the Nick Jr. printables and some creative work on my part and the bakery's part, this party would not have been very successful. At least decor wise! Lauren had over about 3 of her friends and they all have siblings that are Sarah's age so it made for a nice sized party. Her are the photos and the specifics!

Theme: Miss Spider Sunny Patch
Food: Palio's Pizza & Salad
Drinks for kids: Apple juice, lemonade, milk
Cake: The Cakery (Southlake) The bottom part was white cake with white butter cream and the Miss Spider was chocolate cake with white butter cream! Heavenly!
Colors: Played off of the lime green and yellow colors mostly, but it was a very colorful party
Decor: I made my own buggy friends out of small colored paper lanterns, craft poms poms, pipe cleaners and felt. I found one place online that had one package of Miss Spider "blow-outs" and they had the cute bug antenna "party hats". My husband made the Hollow Tree tree trunk out of construction paper. The rest was really balloons and crepe paper
Flowers: Yellow tulips and multi-colored gerber daisies
Games: Bean bag toss, bowling, parachute, Velcro ball & catch game and lots of printables to color and play with from Nick Jr. I also had a Miss Spider video playing to keep them entertained while at the party table.

The Invite

The "party room"

The place settings

The wonderful cake

Her cute cupcakes left over from what she took to "school"

Drink boxes to match decor

The goodie bags: I could not find 10 of the same Miss Spider book at any bookstore, so I did a mixture of books to accommodate the different ages and genders. Also add some little slinky's and glow in the dark bracelets in lime green. The girls got a sunflower in their bag!

My homemade bugs and colored lanterns

Buggy facts I printed off of Nick Jr.

The printables to color and a "I promise to be good to bugs" certificate

All sitting down for pizza!

Me with my sweets!

It is n

{Real Parties} Gender Reveal Party

This gender reveal party was originally hosted by Brittany at Grey Grey Designs.  Thank you Brittany for sharing your party with us!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love this idea!  When I was pregnant with my daughter I was firm that I did not want to know what I was having.  I wanted it to be a surprise.  Well ... at one of my ultrasounds, she was being uncooperative moving all around and I was able to figure it myself.  From that second forward, all my thoughts were pink and out went the bee-themed nursery I had been planning.

Brittany did a great job with this party and with only 2 weeks to plan it.  All the bee details are just bee-utiful!  Okay, I know ... but I had to do it!  I would love to throw this kind of party!  Enjoy everyone, post a comment, and then head over to Brittany's blog!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What's It Gonna Bee?

This weekend, I did my very first gender reveal party for some of our dearest friends, Tommy and Lauren. Gender reveal parties are the new trend in baby parties, so I couldn't wait to get a jumpstart on this one. I had been tossing ideas around with them for a few months, but I actually planned this party in about 2 weeks, since we weren't positive when the actual ultrasound appointment would be.

Obviously, I thought that yellow would be a perfect color for the theme, but then I came up with the idea of making it bumblebees, and calling it "What's It Gonna Bee?" I handpainted that sign on butcher paper, which is one of my favorite "big impact" ideas for a party tablescape. It really puts the focus on the theme of the party.

I decided on a candy/dessert buffet, since this was an afternoon event. Plus, then we could do a really fun theme colored display of foods. Some of the foods that I used were licorice, black and yellow jellybeans, moon pies, oreos in yellow and black, black raspberry now-n-laters, custom wrapped hershey miniatures, cupcakes, and bee pops.

I also did Martha Stewart's tissue flowers over the table for big impact. It's hard to tell in these pictures, but there were actually two large ones and two small ones. The fabric for the table is from JoAnn, which we only recently got in Memphis, and it is LOVE. SO much better than Hancock. I wanted something modern and graphic and I thought it was perfect!

I lucked out big time on these bee pops. I sent my husband out to Wayne's Wholesale Candy company one day on a mission for yellow and black candy and he calls me and says..."you're never going to believe this, but they have bee pops!" I said..."snatch them up NOW!" This is simply a piece of styrofoam covered in scrapbook paper.

All the tags for the food items are also made from scrapbook paper. For the "reveal" part of the party, I decided to have them cut into a cake and the inside would be blue or pink. This was the first time I have ever attempted to tackle fondant for a cake, and  I wasn't thrilled with the results, but it turned out cute. I also did little stripes of black on some of the cupcakes to inject a little contrast. The top cake is supposed to be a beehive cupcake, if you can't tell from the picture.

The small bumblebee votives and napkins are from Hobby Lobby. They have a ton of cute bee stuff right now!

The moment of truth....

It's a BOY!!!!

Hey Tommy, how do you really feel?

A totally fun party for two awesome friends!  We can't wait for him to BEE here!