As a mom who works outside of the home, I relish in every opportunity to focus my creative energy on home, especially when it comes to birthdays. I absolutely love birthdays, always have and always will. Birthdays to me are such a sweet time to surround yourself with friends and family and to reflect on a year full of memories.
Now that my kiddos are well into their toddler years–an extremely girly 3 year old and a dirt loving, shin guard wearing 4 year old. Birthdays are only getting more fun to plan! So, I thought it would be fun to talk about some easy and creative birthday ideas. This post will be a glitter covered girly post, and in a later post, I will focus my birthday attention on parties for boys.
Let’s dive into two party ideas that were just too much fun: a Paperdoll Party and a Woodland Fairy Party.
Party Inspiration
One of the best parts about planning a party is that I get to indulge my Pinterest addiction. I said it; yes, I am addicted to Pinterest. I just love the fact that I can get anything from a great recipe to ideas for toddler birthday activities. SO GOOD! While you are planning a party, go ahead and give yourself the luxury of ideating with Pinterest. On Pinterest, you can hold all of your ideas on a specific Board. You can click through to my Fairy Princess Party Board and while there, you should check out our Fort Worth Moms Blog Pinterest Page.
Party Decor
The main thing when it comes to party decor is to keep it fairly simple. You don’t have to cover every inch of your house with themed elements. I like to keep it to three primary areas of decoration:
No matter what kind of party you are throwing EVERYONE will congregate around the food. That is why I make sure the food area–usually my dining room–is decked in the party theme.
I ALWAYS use balloons for birthdays . . . until I meet a toddler who doesn’t love balloons, I will always have them. Sorry, parents! For the Paperdoll Party, I cut out simple paperdolls and had them everywhere with easy little paper dresses that could be changed. I also interspersed pictures of the birthday girl to make it more personal.
The bottom picture is the Woodland Fairy theme. All I did for that table was focus on colors of pink and red and popped the table with bright daffodils in jars surrounded by gummy worms (those were a party favorite).
2. Gift Area
If you are accepting gifts, make sure to have a space where the birthday gal can sit and where guests can drop the gifts. You don’t want people to be wandering around with a gift in hand. I like to have a small chair and a little table usually.
SIDENOTE: We’ve tried the “your gift is your presence” many times and sweet friends continue to bring gifts. I am guilty of that too! So, I gave up, and we have fun unwrapping and playing with sweet gifts from sweet friends.
3. Activity Area
For any planned activity I like to make sure I have something that draws the eye to the activity area. Sometimes that includes bunches of balloons, tissue poufs (LOVE these and they are SO easy to make), even fun chalk boards or signs saying what the activity is. Be creative and goodness gracious have fun decorating for your little darlins party!
Party Activity
For toddler birthdays, especially for toddler birthdays, it is important to have an action plan that includes times in which you would like everything to happen including singing of “Happy Birthday,” eating cake, opening gifts, and a fun activity. Toddlers and parents for that matter get antsy if there is not a good flow of activities. You don’t have to have a written plan . . . just a plan in your head with times so you can be sure your party has a good flow.
Below are a couple of too cute activities every girl will love:
1. Playing with Paperdolls. I covered my kitchen table in butcher paper and set out a blank paperdoll and a small package of crayons for each guest. The rest of the table had a bunch of paper dresses I cut out of scrapbook paper I got at Hobby Lobby. The sweet girlies just loved decorating their paperdolls and then taking them home to play with.
2. Make your own Fairy Wand. What is a fairy without a wand? I found the most adorable idea for fairy wands on Pinterest so I cut up strips of colorful fabric and painted dowel rods in a soft pink. The little fairies picked out all of the fabric they wanted on their wand and the moms tied the ribbon in a cute bow to create a fun wand for each flittery fairy.
Party People
A party is not a party if you don’t have a house full of sweet friends! I know that my friends who are reading this are going to laugh at my next birthday party suggestion . . . TAKE A GROUP PICTURE! They are only laughing because we always have a tripod ready for a group pic. I absolutely love the idea of being able to show my kiddos who was there to celebrate with them.
Here is a link to the tripod we use to take pics with our smartphone: Smartphone Tripod.
So, go and plan away; don’t forget to have fun!
What are some of your favorite birthday memories?