Creative Party Blog

When creating a festive birthday atmosphere, it’s important to add personal touches. Do you have fabrics at home that you love? Do you have dishware that you love to use? Or do you have just the cutest chairs and/or tables in your home?

These vintage chairs were brought out for the kids to sit on while at an outdoor kids birthday party. When you have enough to provide adequate seating for the kids, please use these items. They really set the tone and make the party stand out. And if vintage is what you are going for….anything beaten up will look vintage even if it’s not truly vintage.

Don’t have these items yourself? Know someone who does have them? Don’t be afraid to ask to borrow items. I just loaned 3 table cloths to a friend who needed them for a party today. I loved it as I want the items to be used and enjoyed and in my closet, no one will enjoy them. So, crack out those special – vintage items or borrow them and you will not regret it!

Don’t want to pay $100 to $200 or even $300 for someone else to make your child’s birthday cake? Don’t feel comfortable doing cake cutouts and all kinds of fancy stuff? Or don’t have the time to do it yourself? No worries, a regular homemade 3 layer cake can be beautiful and can certainly do the job!!!

This one was beautiful. It was the centerpiece of a vintage inspired outdoor birthday party. Pink on a beautiful pink glass cake stand was perfect. I don’t know the name of the glass but I’m sure someone knows. And making it this way insures that it will taste good! And coming from a mom who has tasted a lot of birthday cakes. I certainly love the parties where the cake is good.

So, if you don’t have the money, time or don’t think you have the talent or tools to make a fancy cake, never fear. Just make a pretty cake. It’s all about blowing out the candles anyway. Did you know that?

Birthday Pinatas don’t have to be traditional! It is much easier to find a pinata that matches the theme of the party you are having. But if you can find a unique decoration like this one, go for it.

The mom of the birthday girl found this decoration that a local store was about to discard. She took it, filled the center hole with candy and put some plastic in front to secure the candy. This party was for 4 year olds so she knew that her pinata wouldn’t be torn up that much. Even if it was, it didn’t really matter.

So, when thinking of having a birthday party pinata, think outside of the box and don’t feel like you can only use a pre-made pinata. Or even have your kids make one…….who knows.

Many outdoor birthday parties will be at your home but probably more of the outdoor parties that we go to are on location somewhere. At a park, at a swimming pool or did I say at a park? If you are blessed to live in a city that is filled with parks, they are the perfect location to host a birthday party. And don’t forget how important it will be to mark a spot where the party will take place.

When you choose to have a party outside, decorations can be important to anchor where the “party” central is going to be. Another great way to designate the gathering spot is by throwing out a blanket or two. Blankets can add color as well as provide a space for the kids and moms for that fact to sit and enjoy.

I don’t know what it is but putting out a blanket provides a natural gathering spot. If you don’t own a “picnic” blanket, don’t worry. Use a colorful quilt or even a colorful sheet. I will say that a light sheet may be a bit pokey to use a term my daughter likes to use. Enjoy your party and be aware of the items you use to make your outdoor party cohesive.

Setting the mood of your birthday party is just as important as with an evening cocktail party. Besides everyone being incredibly visual, folks are also auditory. I know that I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know! But when you are planning a birthday party, especially for kids, you get all caught up in the minutia of the party and forget about some of the other important details.

Now that Ipods are so popular, providing your own music can not be easier. Really you can’t go wrong with background music. We’ve been to parties where the music is all kids oriented and others where the music is more along what the parents like. And to my surprise, the kids love much of the adult music as well. As long as it’s up beat, the kids will love it.

If anyone is interested in play lists, let me know and I’ll get my husband on it. He’s the one in charge of music in our house! Just let me know.

The thing you first learn in any Marketing class is to provide a customer a way to buy multiple ways. The same goes in a lot of other life lessons. And this is no exception.

When you set a birthday party at a location that is either a large park or at a condo complex or somewhere you need to guide your guests to where the actual party it, you need to think creatively. We attended a party over the weekend where the hostess put streamers on anything she could to attract attention to where the party was.

This outdoor party idea came from a party we attended where the address was the birthday girl’s townhouse but the party was actually held out on the boardwalk 100 feet away. The hostess provided us 2 ways to find the party.

The first was to put vintage lanterns in the trees from her front door to the party site. The second was to draw fun curly lines for the kids to follow on the ground. So, no matter if you looked up or down, you were guided along your way to the party.

The biggest thing to remember when directing traffic is to think about where people might park, which direction they might come from and bright colors. At a park, your guests will come from many directions and it may be prudent to provide multiple party directions. If the park has “entry” points, I really like the chalk idea. Have fun with yet one more creative outlet.

When it comes to outdoor Birthday Party Games, the old faithful seem to win out over all others. Pretty much any game that can be played inside can be played outside. But not vise versa….. We’ve been to several birthday parties and the best games and activities are the ones I played when I was little! And I’m not even going to begin to tell you how long ago that was.

Having a water hose attached to pretty much anything can provide a long span of fun for almost any kid. Especially if it’s hot outside. If you plan to do this, it’s always helpful to give the parents a heads up to bring a bathing suit. But even if they forget, up to a certain age, the kids can just strip down to their skibbies. Why not?

I’ve seen all variations of pin the tail on the ??? You fill in the blank. In our outdoor bug party, they pinned the spots on the lady bug. I had at a winter party, pin the parts on a snowman. Use your imagination here but these can be fun for many ages. I will admit that kids that are about 5 or 6 and up have more fun with this game. The little ones don’t seem to get as much out of it and lose interest pretty quickly.

For older kids, sometimes all you need to do is to carry along a bag full of sports equipment. At this party, they had 3 hula hoops set out. This is a skill that ages 5 or 6 and older have got down but much younger they don’t. And throwing a ball back and forth takes too much effort on a parents part. But for older kids, it’s a great time filler. Our super hero party that we’ve highlighted, had an obstacle course outside. I’ve seen duck duck goose done effectively. Face painting. Don’t let the outdoor party part of it throw you. Let your imagination go free and enjoy being outdoor for your kids’ birthday party!

A Super Hero Birthday Party lends itself perfectly for an outdoor party. This party could be held at home or at a park. Very easy to set up once you know what you are doing. Remember these guys are super heroes so make everything BIG!

We’ve outlined all the detail for this very creative outdoor party under the Super Hero category. This particular party was held at the birthday boy’s home. With all the activities outside and the food inside but with how friendly parks are these days, it could all easily be held outside.

Super Hero Birthday Party Details

There are lots of themes that will work for an outdoor birthday party. This particular party was a bug party. Everything revolved around creepy crawly bugs, spiders, butterflies and lady bugs.

To see the full party, click on this link to our Outdoor Bug Birthday Party. Here you’ll see games that were played, activities well suited for outdoors, favors and the perfect setting for an outdoor birthday party……a city park!

Looking for a creative idea to use for your kids Halloween Birthday Party? Here is a great idea for saying Happy Birthday. See a link to the full directions below.

Resources: Heavy Stock Scrap Booking Paper and glue stick found at craft stores like Michaels. Card shops carry velum for letters that can be cut down.

Directions for Project: Halloween Birthday Party Lantern Idea Directions

To See Template:
Click below link through 2 screens.

Ghost Template for Lantern Idea

Image taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

For my daughter’s Halloween Birthday Party, I had an idea to use our mantel during the party. Her party was in December and the mantel had holiday decorations all over it. I simply removed those and transformed it into a ghostly “Happy Birthday Anne” sign made out of individual lanterns.

Key ideas of note: I used felt pads under the candles to insure that they wouldn’t stain the mantel but in hindsight, I would use the candles that float in glass jars and place a glass jar with water inside each ghost lantern. To make it interesting, I used 3 different ghost templates and you can see a link to those below.

Materials:
Cut 12″X12″ Heavy Scrapbooking Paper in two – Each lantern used a 6″X12″ piece. You’ll need one each of these per letter. Mine had 17 or 9 sheets of 12″X12″ Paper.
Cut heavy velum paper in 2 3/4″X5 1/2″ pieces. Again, 1 for each letter or lantern you will have.
Ghost Templates
Tape (painters tape works best if the color works), Scissors, Glue, Black pen for letters.

To Make:
Cut lantern body in 6″X12″ pieces.
Fold lantern body into 4 parts. Start half-wise and crease in fold and then fold half-wise again.
Determine with pane of the lantern will have the ghost cut out and make that the same for each lantern.
Trace the ghosts from our template and cut the one/ones you want onto the same pane for each lantern.
Glue with a paper glue or glue stick the cut velum behind your cut out ghost.
Trace or free hand the letters you want to show through.
Gently tape from the inside of the lantern to create a rectangle shape.

Resources:
Ghost Templates
Craft Stores or Scrapbooking stores will have the 12X12 Scrapbooking paper.
Some craft or scrapbooking stores as well as stationery shops will have sheets of velum.
Use a permanent black market for lettering.
Painters Tape found at home depot or local hardware stores and often in many colors.

Light your lanterns right before the party and you will love them. Be sure they aren’t in an area that can be bumped. Even using a candle inside a glass jar, it can get hot and the velum and paper is extremely flammable. Loved this Halloween Birthday Party idea!

Photos taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

O.K. I know that the chicken costume has nothing to do with the scheduling of a Halloween Birthday Party but I could just not resist. This was a costume that I made for my daughter following the Martha Stewart Chicken Costume guidelines. It turned out sooooo cute. People were looking for us on the street to see the costume.

Anyway, back to what you need to know in scheduling a Halloween Birthday Party. I don’t like too much idle time. And with 26 Kindergarteners, I certainly didn’t want any idle time. I had a good idea of what could and would happen to my house! So, I put together a packed schedule to keep my sanity in check.

4:00 Upon Arrival: All Kids had a craft awaiting them.
4:30 Magic Show
5:10 Trick or Treating
5:30 Sandwiches, Cake & Ice Cream
6:00 Parent Pickup

I’ll be posting about each of these topics if I haven’t already. I’m all about the details.

A great way to add color to a birthday cake without looking to generic is to chose a pattern that has large blocks of color. Here this mom was using color to connect the elements of the party and used balloons as the image on the cake. They were big enough and totally colorful enough to have the cake stand out.

Other ideas for using blocks of color on a cake would be to use circles of varying sizes. My daughter is in kindergarten this year and they are studying geometric shapes. That could make a fun cake. Then you could always do a striped cake with the stripes in a pattern of colors or random colors. Even the stripes could be of varying patterns.

If you are having a hard time envisioning it, I’m going to share a secret of mine. Go to the wallpaper store or a high end fabric shop and find a fabric that matches the colors you are using and has the shapes you like. And then use that fabric as inspiration for your cake. There are some really beautiful fabrics out there right now. This should not be a tough one to find. Maybe a tough one to chose from as you’ll like too many of them.

Good luck creating your cake and have a color happy party!

Photo taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

There are many ways to organize birthday party favors and their presentation. If you have several small items, putting them in a bag, box or some other container is necessary. It you have a larger item it may not be necessary to put it inside anything but you should think about it’s presentation.

In the vein of a bag or box, it’s very easy to tie these in to a color theme party. Simply use a solid color bag or box and add a colorful fabric ribbon that matches the party theme. This party was for a little girl who was having a party and invited boys and girls. The boy favors had a blue ribbon and the girl favors had a pink or yellow colored ribbon.

Favor bags can be quite simple and yet can still make a splash with color.

Using solid color party supplies is yet another excellent way to make an impact at your party. And often having those solid colors makes a bold impact.

At this party, we used solid plates, bowls, cups and utensils all in colors of the party. Then we added whimsy with the napkins and party hats. The addition of whimsy is not necessary but can be something as subtle as napkins or you can have everything at the party be solid with just one item having a design on it.

We are in Portland, OR and we use The Lippman Company for our solid plates and other supplies. The biggest reason is that if we over buy, they will take back anything that hasn’t been opened! I’ve seen solid supplies at Target. Many of the new party superstores overlook the importance of solid party supplies and thus I hardly ever shop them. If you want to buy them online, I found a company that has a nice selection of solid supplies. I’ve never purchased from them so I can’t give a recommendation but wanted to share the find. That company is Birthday Express.

Now go out and be creative using solid color supplies!

Photo taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography.

I have to be honest……I personally have not been very good about having the colorful “Happy Birthday” banner at my kids birthday parties. I’ve had a few things that have had Happy Birthday on them but to tell you the truth, my kids are still young and can’t read. So, if I personally had a banner it would be for the parents and not the kids. But then how many things do we do in our parties that are for the parents and not kids…..more than we want to admit.

Soooooo, I present the colorful Happy Birthday Banner. I love this one. It’s not something you see everywhere and it is truly vibrant with colors. I’m sure my friend who had this one purchased it and after doing a quick search myself there are all kinds of banners out there that you can purchase that are quite colorful and unique.

Don’t find what you are looking for? Make it. All this one would require is some felt, a string, scissors and glue. Cut out small shapes for the background. Even cut one a bit bigger to make the colors 3 dimensional. Then cut out your letters from a stencil and glue it all together and onto a string of your choice.

Or, don’t want to cut and glue. Paint one on some butcher paper. There are tons of paper places around now where you can buy butcher paper in all kinds of colors. Paint a Birthday message on it or let one of your children lose with the project. Just make sure it’s not the birthday girl/boy. Depends on how controlling you want to be in the way that it looks!

I do agree that once the kids start reading (kindergarten) would be a great time to start having a banner welcoming the birthday kid or even adult for that matter!

I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again. Balloons are the best way to add a punch of color to a birthday party.

To this party, the hostess actually had sort of a balloon theme. You’ll see when we write about the cake they had, you will see balloons on the cake and may have even been on the invitation.

But just look at these colors. Don’t they make you smile??? Another big key to having balloons is that they give height to your decorations. Most of the time we have birthday parties at places where the ceiling height is so high, the kids feel wee little. When you add balloons to the decor, they bring the scale back down to the kids level and can really set a “room.”

Colorful balloons. Go crazy. Pay to have someone else blow them up for you or rent a tank for a fraction of the cost from a local party supply store and blow them up yourself!

Don’t want to have a theme like Barney or something of the link? Well, don’t. Successful birthday parties can be planned with something as simple as having a color infused birthday party.

When looking to do a “color” or simple birthday party, simply use a palate of colors throughout all the details of the party. Take a primary palate or maybe a soft color palate. Maybe all pink and red……or Pink and Green. There are endless combinations that could be used.

Another great thing about colors is that it makes for very nice party pics.

What contains the color? Start with your invitations, continue with the party decorations and if you can’t include the colors in the favors at least wrap them in paper that’s made of the colors of the party. Pretty simple? Not always. When you don’t pick out a specific theme and go for a “color” theme it actually gives you more options and thus more decisions to make. So, if you have a hard time making decisions on the details maybe you would be better suited to pick a specific theme.

Color effects your most important sense….your sight. The sky is the limit for planning your colorful birthday party!

To open presents or not to open presents……that is the question. And if you open them……when do you do it?

Honestly, this is a tough one. But here goes and these are just my personal thoughts based on going to many many birthday parties and hosting them myself.

For kids younger than Kindergarten age, I’m not sure that it’s necessary. For those kids it can take a really long time even if there are only a few. Most of the time, the kids don’t even know what present they brought and so it’s just not as effective. For those age kids, they can get a bit overwhelmed with even 2 presents but the first one may be something they want to sit down and play with right then. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be much nicer to have the luxury of saying…..”no problem…..we’ll just open the rest of these later.” Plus, if you are trying to have a relatively short birthday party this can lengthen if unnecessarily. BUT, if there is a child who really wants to see your child open his or her present, by all means at the end of the party, pull that one out and open it up right then and there.

Now, for kids Kindergarten and older. Most parents have learned at this point that having a smaller party is better. I’m not one of those but my husband is pushing me towards it! So, let’s start with the small parties. I for sure think you need to open the presents at this age as the kids who come to the party are just as excited about this as your child will be and it can be built into the schedule of the party. If the party is a longer one, let that be an activity during a lul in the scheduled events. While pizza is cooking is the perfect time!

If you are nuts like I am and have a huge party, I couldn’t bear the thought of my daughter opening all her presents during the party. We had 26 kids to come. There were a few who asked when we were opening the presents and for those that were really interested in seeing her open the presents, we did it after most of the kids had gone home and they could sit down in a small group and enjoy it more.

The biggest thing to remember is to assign someone else besides yourself to be in charge of writing down who each present is from. I know Miss Manners says that if you open a present while the giver is sitting there with you, there is no need to send a thank you note. But I just think it’s nicer for the kids to start off early letting their friends know how much they appreciate them. So, no matter if you open the presents during the party or not, it’s good to have a record of who gave what. And it needs to be someone else who is in charge of the list since you will be busy doing other things!

When you are hosting a birthday party in your home for your kids, it’s always important to provide a festive atmosphere. That doesn’t mean that you have to have the entire house decorated to the hilt. It simply means that there should be a spot carved out that you turn into “party central.”

At this almost sleepover, the hostess made the kitchen the focus of the party. They ate there as well as worked on their craft. As you can see here the area is very inviting to the kids and it really didn’t take a whole lot to create it.

Simply put down a festive table cloth. Add some balloons or big impactful centerpiece and a sign saying “Happy Birthday” and you are set.

Atmosphere……….atmosphere……atmosphere……..even kids are very visual!