Pretty Party Pics

So, sorry to disappoint, but there are no people in these pics today.  Those will come in a future post.  But I was pretty pleased with myself again this year (if I may say so myself!) putting Sammi's 6th birthday party together.  As with last year, I started pulling ideas and bits and pieces together several months in advance, once I decided on a theme.  Samantha, still at this age, really couldn't care less about what the theme is.  Last year I knew that she was really into Olivia, and at that point in time, Olivia party stuff wasn't yet on the market (although the Party Store now has a section of it this year), so I made it.  This year she wasn't necessarily into anything in particular, so I took it upon myself to decide on a color theme, based on the colors in her room - turquoise, orange and pink floral.   

I had fun doing it, and am already looking forward to coming up with something for next year. 

Practical tip:  many thanks to April's (?) Parent's Magazing for showing me how to make these super-easy tissue paper flowers (I used crepe).  I made a garland out of some larger ones, then made small ones to attach to the goody "bags."  And thank you to Target and Michael's for these inexpensive and easy guest gifts.  Inside the metal pail was an orange pencil, a fat orange or turquoise floral pen, gummy fruit snacks, some fruit-flavored powder candy, and a pink or tuquoise butterfly-shaped lollipop.  Each one cost less than $3 to make. 

Enough of the heat of years past - I booked the park's pavilion for the morning so we could enjoy the shade and keep the food fresh.  But thanks to the previous night's storms, it was probably the most beautiful, dry, chilly (!), gorgeous morning ever.  The strong breeze brought the flower garland (below) down, but I just taped them to the posts.  All the flowers in the picture below were painted by me over the last few months.  The ones on the garland have both acrylic paint and glued-on bits of orange or turquoise string, craft paper, and construction paper.  Multi-media at its best.  :-)  The flowers stuck to the tablecloth were from a pack of blank flower stickers from Michael's, painted by me with acrylics.  If you've never used acrylic paint before, it's the best.  Easy to clean, dries quickly, gives you a nice, solid coverage on almost any surface, including cloth.  Oh, and you can buy it in about a million different colors at the craft store for @.89 each.

This photo was taken before I put all the food out, and was just trying to keep the tablecloth from blowing away.  Food wasn't terribly creative anyway.  Tortilla (gluten-free), potato and rice-cracker (also gluten-free) chips, salsa, goldfish, fruit salad, pizza... 

The first year we had the party at the playground, the Papa John's pizza place I ordered from told me they wouldn't deliver to a park.  I managed to convince them that they had to, and now, every time I call them and give them my cell number, they have the playground's address in their system associated with it.  No problems since!

I am so going to book the pavilion again next year.  There was another birthday party going on at the picnic tables below.  The mother of the birthday boy there told me I'd beaten her to it this year.  Whew!

While we ordered a regular cake from the supermarket, my mother made her totally delicious cupcakes, using orange and turquoise frosting.  They were beautiful!!!  And I made the cupcake toppers using packs of little orange and blue flowers from the dollar bins at Michael's, and gluing colored toothpicks to them. 

I will have more pics soon, I promise!