I couldn't resist the Halloween birthday party. Last year I wanted to make sure that her 1st birthday was a seperate occasion from Halloween. First birthdays are big deal, and being a Nov. 1st baby will mean she will have a lot of celebrations that bleed into each other. Last year was one thing - but this year I just wanted to have FUN.
Personally, I love Halloween. I love the decorations. I love dressing up. I could not wait and started collecting decorations months before. Being a paper addict, I tapped Jess at Polka dots and Pirates to do the invites, banners and cupcake toppers again this year. Jess is amazingly talented and if you can plan far enough in advance - try and get on her 2010 wait list. Yes, she has a wait list - she is THAT good.
The stamps are from the Martha Stewart line at Michaels and the skull stickers are from my happy place, The Paper Source.
As always, I went a little overboard with the decorations. Using the "candy theme" that was popular this past year, and inspirations from various magazines and blogs, I chose basic Halloween colors and the Candy Corn as my main starting points.
I like using cupcake toppers on more than just cupcakes. I use them all over as various decorations. Instead of renting the cupcake stands, I bought black cardboard ones from the Halloween section at Michael's. Since this was a 2 year old girls party, and I was trying to keep the macabre out of it, I added bows the skeleton's heads. I also did the same with Miss Party Bones in the corner...
Cupcakes came from Cupcake Love in Solana Beach. I'm such a sucker for cupcakes.. I always go a little overboard with them!
I made some foaming lemonade concoction for the kids that I found online (it didn't really work out all that well!) but instead of boring cups, I served it to the kids in "adult" plastic martini glasses. Since they are used to only Mommies and Daddies getting the fancy glasses, they were very excited about them.
For activities, I rented a bounce-house, had a decorate your own pumpkin craft, read a halloween story, and we played musical chairs to the monster mash. Hint for musical chairs - kids don't want to be out, so I offered a lollipop to each child as they were out, which then prompted the older kids to try and get out since all they wanted a sucker!
Book is "Shake dem Halloween Bones!"
the birthday girl, herself!
Lucas Kai-walker.. ;-)
It really was a wonderful day. 2 things I did differently this time is that I had someone else take pictures (one less thing to worry about during the party!) and I hired one of my babysitters to help. She was great at helping to organize things and also clean up. At the end of the party, all the trash was thrown out, dishes washed, kitchen wiped down.. and my sanity still in-tact!
*Thank you Patty from Petula Pea Photography for some amazing shots!!