Tag: birthday party

A Birthday Party by the Book

This post is brought to you by Nestle Toll House Birthday Sugar Cookies. Bake some birthday love.

Brandon and I met in a bookstore. We both worked at Barbara’s Bookstore in Oak Park, an independent book shop that is now gone but was once amazing, and so clearly we have a shared love of books. We read to the kids like crazy, and Eleanor and August seem to share our enthusiasm too. There has been a whole lot of reading in the Balch house lately (we know how to party, whoooo!), so I thought it would be fun to come up with a bookish birthday party theme.

I chose a plant instead of flowers to keep it from feeling too fussy. I thought it fit the book/library feeling well, and it’s such a sweet little plant. I added a few dried billy balls in front, and a few more on the other side of the table with some crazy mushrooms on sticks. (Say what? I don’t know — I liked ’em.)

I had a couple of cute ideas for the book theme. Idea one: bake sugar cookies in the shape of books! (That would be rectangles, yes.) I sandwiched them together with white frosting for the pages, then added fruit leather binding. Bookies, if you will. Super cute idea! Note the lack of closeups on that one! (The kids were still very into eating them.)

Cute idea number two: Book garland. (This one was more successful.)

Cute idea number three: book risers. I took the dust jackets off of several hardcover books, and stacked them on the dessert table. I thought about recovering them with kraft paper or plain white, but I liked the look of the books as they were with their spines turned toward the back. I added in a couple of different-sized apothecary jars and a glass pedestal with a dome to vary the heights even further.

And of course, a birthday party needs a cake. This one was ready-made red velvet from the grocery store. I’d never tried it before (I’m not much of a cake fan), but we brought it over to my sister-in-law’s house to share with the family and it was delicious.

Wouldn’t this be a sweet kid’s birthday party? I think it works for all ages, really. I’m turning 32 this month, and I’d be pretty happy with a bookish birthday too.

September 4, 2012
Neon Tween Birthday Party Theme

This post is brought to you by Nestle Toll House Birthday Sugar Cookies.
Bake some birthday love.

I’ve been having some fun lately, coming up with and executing party ideas. First up: a birthday party featuring a whole lot of neon.

I think it would be perfect for older kids and trend-conscious tweens because it isn’t pastel or overly cutesy, but it’s still fun and colorful. Something like a rainbow party might feel too young because you know, they’re soooo grown up at that age (can you hear the eye roll?), but neon is just right. Plus what’s better for tweens than a sweets table that could be left setup for midnight birthday slumber party raids?

The paper chain was made from neon poster board, and I also punched shapes out of it to make large confetti for the table. The hot pink cake was from the local grocery store (I removed the plastic Dora the Explorer rings that were all over the top, then smoothed the icing and added some paper flags). The cookies were baked from ready-made dough and icing (I added bright pink food coloring), then I laid them out on a tray covered with neon pink polka dotted paper. The flowers and candy were all standard, easy to find stuff from the grocery store. I bought a roll of extra wide neon green ribbon from the craft store, and everything else was already on hand.

It’s an easy, inexpensive party to put together, and wow that neon gives some zing! It could be toned down too though. Andrea used neon brilliantly in this table setting.

What do you think? Would you use neon for a party?

August 22, 2012
Eleanor’s Third Birthday Party

My little ~~conductor~~ train engineer turned three at the end of April.

The big ~~conductor~~ train engineer turned 34, two days later.

The party invitations promised train whistles and caps for all, and we delivered. Bandanas, too.

My idea for the table was to create a forest in the center with train tracks all around, and little bits of scenery. The cats destroyed my maiden hair fern centerpiece almost immediately though, so I went to a big box store for more plants and found the selection lacking. I ended up with a rubber tree plant, and I used the moss I had leftover from making my terrarium to fill in as shrubbery.

We had the usual party decorations up too, and pretty packages all wrapped up for giving.

The Marimekko tablecloth on the table was the one I’d written about last year. I didn’t buy it at the time, but I thought of it when I was trying to find something that would suggest a landscape for the table, and I was able to find one on eBay. We had a birthday cupcake train, led by Thomas. The cupcakes were from a bakery, and Eleanor and I made the flatcars out of graham crackers, mini Oreos, frosting (from a tube, used like glue), and wafer cookies (as axels, for stability).

It was a good day, with no confusion or delay.

Happy birthday(s), my loves.

May 7, 2012