I love party planning, maybe one day I’ll make a profession of it. I’ve enjoyed it more so now having my own child. My son’s birthday is a little over a month a way so the planning process has begun. Yes I’m sure some of you are saying “It’s a month away that’s more than enough time, why are you starting so early?”
Well it’s really never to early to start party planning, and here is why:
Theme: Start out by coming up with the theme for your child’s party, if they are old enough they can choose. We started this process a few weeks ago and my son chose Jurassic World (I have no idea why I won’t let him see the movie he is too young).
This was last years theme Lego Movie, which by the way not one ounce of party stuff for this had to make all my own.
Cost: If you start planning in advance you can buy bits and pieces for the party a little at a time so you do not have to stress over throwing down a big chunk of change all at once.
Venues: Depending on were you choose to have the party some venues require reservations several weeks in advance especially during busy months like during summer.
Rentals: This also applies to rentals, like bounce houses or people you hire to come to your home. We have done a bounce house rental for the past 3 years at our home because that is what my son has always asked for. I learned the hard way the first year if you do not book the one you want far enough in advance you won’t get it. Yes, we are doing one again this year and yes it’s already booked.
Party Favors/Décor: If you are like me I really like making a lot of the party décor myself, I find the party stores have less and less that really stand out. So if you are planning some do it yourself items for the big party again you need to give yourself plenty of time to work on them. This will also help so you are not spending hours and hours a day working on them. The worst thing is to be up all night the day before stressed trying to finish.
Food/Cake: Order these at least 2 weeks before your party to ensure they are able to accommodate what you are requesting. Depending on the caterer they may only needs to few days notice but the more notice the better so you are their priority.
Invitations: You will need to give 2 weeks notice when sending invites (yea I know who does this right everyone sends texts or Facebook) I still like sending a mailed invitations its more personal plus I usually send an additional Facebook invite. Two weeks is a good timeframe because it gives your attendees enough notice to plan for it. Any sooner they might forget and any later they may already have plans.
Those are just a few of my tips for having successful birthday party or any party for that matter. It’s all about the planning and doing it in advance so you minimize your stress along with any disappointments of getting the perfect items for your party.
More post to come as I start to create Jurassic World for my sons birthday, my husband has no idea what he is in for, hehe.
Sincerely,
It was recently my Dad’s 60th birthday party so we decided to throw him a Western Themed birthday bash. Here is how the party turned out and the fun ideas and décor we came up with. I even found my husband has a very creative side when given a theme he likes. I have to give my husband major props for a few things, he did such a fantastic job and it helps that my husband is from a small town and is still a cowboy at heart.
I found this cute Cowboy subway art sign through a fellow blogger on Pinterest, and other cute free printables for a the party. You can find them here. http://marigoldmom.com/?p=4904#comment-122815
I made this cute birthday banner using none other than my silhouette of coarse. I found this great Western font on a website I love to use to find free font dafont.com. I really enjoy making my own birthday banners versus a store bought one, I think they turn out so much better.
My Dad was adamant about not have “60” themed birthday decorations, so I improvised instead of the black depressing decorations you find at the party store I decided to buy these paper mache numbers and spray paint them blue. I had planned to modge podge some cute western looking cardstock on them but ran out of time.
These were my favorite DIY project of the party, I have been wanting to make these forever and this finally pushed me to do it. They are tiki lanterns made using old whiskey bottles. Thankfully my husband loves whiskey and I have been hanging onto these bottle for a while now. Here is the tutorial how to make these if you want to do them yourself, granted in the tutorial they used wine bottles and hung them from the fence I only used the part to make the wick. They turned out great and look fantastic lit. http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/diy-ways-to-make-your-backyard-awesome-this-summer#.eqynYRnq5
This is my husband’s creativity, I wanted a photo booth backdrop for the party. He pulled out his old rope and halters, and a pallet we had around. Turned out cute with our fun photo props.
I bought some western signs at zurchers with different sayings, but had no idea how I was going to get it to stay hanging with the wind blowing. My husband came to the rescue again, and found a piece of wood to staple it to and some wire to hang the sign from the post. Then he went and found this deer head he had in his shop and mounted it with the sign, it turned out amazing!
The party turned out great we had everyone dress in their western wear, and had western (BBQ) themed food.
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