Birthday Party!

We had great fun and also received tons of compliments for the farm theme birthday party that we hosted for our little lamb who turned two this Jan!  ~Thankyou!

As much as the guests enjoyed the party, I had fun planning it too. I was asked by many who attended the party, who saw the pictures and who heard about this, for details like planning, decorations, purchases, cake etc etc.

So, I thought writing a post would help all those who asked, those that want to ask but hesitate to, those that are planning to host a similar party and also for all those that are just browsing.

The Start:

What we had:

A big auditorium. One Excited toddler for her party. ~30 kids. ~50 Adults. Bounce House. Music.

What was added:

1. Welcome Board (with animal print balloons):

I do not have the animal print balloons in the picture, sorry. This is the Easel that we had at home. I used Neon Chalkmarkers and a chalkboard contact paper. to make the sign. The chalkmarkers are one of the best purchases I have made in the recent times. Since I love pens/arts, I am certain I will use this again pretty soon!
   
2. Snack Table(s):


List of snacks:
1. Corn feed-------- Luke's organic cheddar clouds
2. Fresh Catch------ Gold fish
3. Tractor Wheels-- Oreos
4. Farm Feed-------- Snappea crisps, potato chips
5. Hay Bales--------- Pretzel sticks wrapped with edible "Fruit by the foot"
6. Cow Tails--------- Cow tales caramel with vanilla chewy candy.
7. Animal Cookies - Mini bite size animal cookies. Custom order via Etsy.
8. Watering Hole --- Custom labelled(labels made in Powerpoint via a template found online) water bottles, Chocolate milk. Red Radio Flyer Wagon filled with Juice pouches for kids, lemonade + cola for adults.

3. Farm Photo Prop Setup:

This was for little kiddos but I saw some older 'kids' enjoy at the party too!
I had couple of small hay stacks but borrowed larger and better ones/scarecrow from my sister's halloween decorations. Covered up the huge carseat box we had with green plastic party cover from $ store. Purchased barn photo cutout and inflatable animals - horse & others.

4. Cake Table:

This was the most important (and also most expensive) table at the venue!
- Decor: I purchased this grass tissue party mat to give the entire table a nice farm makeover. Added a bunch of jumping chickens purchased at Dollar Store along with other farm animals to the table. Little S has a fantastic farm set that she received on her 1st birthday from one of our friends, so the barn/other toys from that set went up on the cake table. I purchased a red tri-fold poster board from office depot(only this place has it for 8$) and used xacto knife + white scotch tape to make it look like a barn. The rooster was a black printout, cut to shape. I had color triangles party banner in my supplies stash that I just swung over the trifold to give it a colorful look. I moved a couple of inflatable animals from the entrance photo prop area to this table. Look at that pig, looks so cute!!!
- Milestone Chalkboard: I missed creating this for Little S's 1st birthday, so this was the first thing I made, the weekend before the party day. Mom, Mr, and I were watching a movie and I made this to WOW them :-D. Anyway, I used a black poster board from $ store (I already had this in my craft supplies) and the chalk markers mentioned above in Welcome board design.
- Cake: I wanted a simple yet custom tiered cake that blended well with the theme. At a recent party, we were served butterscotch Indian style cake, which both the Mr. and I loved. So, we wanted to order the cake for this party from this particular  bakery. We also did not want fondant and preferred buttercream frosting over fondant for this party. I met with the baker and he seemed to understand what I wanted. I told him about the balloons on top of the cake, number 2 with pink fondant, fence, flowers, grass, colors etc etc and he made a cake just like the one I had envisioned in my head (actually better than how I had explained it to him). So, Kudos to Mr.Vignesh from Hotbreads. (A special note of applause and tons of thanks to my dear friends N & T, for bringing the cake !!!! It is a highly stressful and tough job to carry someone else's birthday cake from bakery to venue in its shape, and of course, I could only trust a few with this task ;-))
 - Candles: I found a sparkler number 2 candle at NothingBunt. So, that was definitely going to be there. I also had ordered farm animal candles that lit the chicken + cow candles for Little S to blow!
- Cupcakes: I wanted to serve cupcakes for the kids and NothingBundtCakes was my obvious choice(allergies/flavors/frosting wise). I chose red-velvet, marble and white chocolate with raspberry for their colors. I purchased these cupcake rings and picks and used them as toppers.
- Plates and Napkins: I wanted to use sustainable and compostible party ware, but I already had too many Costco disposable plates/spoons/forks(I know! Sorry earth :-(! I will not use plastic next time! ). So I used most of those to save costs for this party but also bought these extra birchwood forks. Just for the kids table, I purchased these theme plates/napkins.
- Balloons: Since Tape was not allowed in the high ceiling auditorium, I chose balloons as centerpieces/decor.  I discussed options and ordered 2 pillars and 6 centerpieces from sanjoseballoons (Lynnett @sanjoseballoons is great , she made me what I wanted and worked with me within my budget. In case you are looking for balloon decorations for your party you know where to go!).

5. The Extras:
--  There were solid color party hats decorated with farm animal stickers, photo props for adults, pinning the donkey game, inflatable alligator ring tossing game etc etc.
--Goody Bags:  I shopped for the bags as well as the contents on amazon as well. One item in the goody bag was unique for each kid-- it was either a book or farm set erasers or farm lacing craft(picked particularly for that kid) along with common items that included combination of these: frog pencil/eraser, animal visor, animal cookie, animal tattoos, cow tales, bird whistles, little ducklings etc.
-- We hired a performer from HappilyEverLaughter for face painting and Balloon twisting. Miss Moxie was able to engage the kids with paints, balloons and even did a little magic show at the end and got a birthday Present for Little S.
-- Photos were taken by a photographer booked via Eversnap (Go get that groupon while it lasts!). Considering the number of guests, kids and hassle for pictures, Mr. & I were glad we had a photographer doing all the clicks instead of us missing out on the fun or asking friends/family to take pics only to realize later that they were not like you expected them to turn out. Awkwardness and obligations avoided!

How did I do it?

-Time - Since I work full time, late nights was my only free time! We booked the venue 3-4 weeks in advance and I started ordered stuff from amazon 2 weeks prior to the party. My post dinner/post Little S's bedtime would be browsing amazon/etsy. This was 1 week prior to the party. The week of the party, late evenings/nights were dedicated to crafts -- chalkboard, party hats tri-fold barn, water bottles, goody bag assembly etc etc.
----- As you saw from all the links, pretty much everything was ordered via Amazon. Except for the cake/cupcakes that needed me to physically got to the store to place my custom order, 90% of all things decorative were purchased online or ordered via phone. So that saved tons of time.
----- I am a regular on etsy and pinterest, so I didn't really have to spend a lot of time researching for ideas or what to do's. I had some of my own ideas. That saved me a TON of time!
- My Mr. - He loves the fact that I love and enjoy my hobbies! He supports me without a question or remark! We discuss what we want to do ahead and I am lucky that we usually agree/like the same kind of things. He stays out of planning and execution until asked for -- you have to realize how important and what a great help that is!
- My Mom - In Life or work or arts or anything for that matter, my MOM is my biggest support and strength. Blessed to have my mom as My MOM! Not everyone is lucky in this regard! It so happened that it was her last week in the country until her next visit and she came over to spend time with Little S.  As usual, she took care of me, my Mr and Little S. She pampered us with lots of cooking, laughs, gossip :-D and much more. She helped me with the water bottle packaging, taking care of Little S when I had to prep the day before, on the day of the party and so on.  She made sure I had the company, time and energy to do what I wanted to do.

The End!


***Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Any questions or help with your party, send me a message/comment. Its one of my many hobbies, so If you are in the same city and in my goodlist ;-), you maybe lucky that I come and help you out, for a piece of cake!!

** We are fortunate to have a ton of friends and lots of family in the same city, but this party was mainly for little S and the kids she hangs out with. There was a limit to the number of people we could invite at the venue, so apologize to those family and friends that were not invited. We will have you over soon!