Today I wanted to share with you Penelope’s 3rd Birthday party! Now, normally we only do a big first birthday party at our house and then smaller family affairs after that but as I was planning Eloise’s first birthday party, seen here, I kept jotting down ideas for a smaller shindig for Penelope. I love throwing play date get-togethers so I thought an end of the summer play date-style birthday party would be a perfect reason to gather a few of my momma friends and their little ones before school started.
I decided that this party would have a Dress Up theme and I called it the ‘Just Stay Little Dress Up Party‘ as I completely fell in love with Sarah Jane’s Children at Play fabric (the Playhouse line especially since the colors–pink and aqua–were perfect for our party colors) and felt compelled to use it as the main decor for her party 🙂 Do you ever feel that way about a fabric? This line was just calling to be used as party decor…it is so perfect for a little girl’s birthday party.
Here is a peek at the two dresses (talked about here) in action…the main fabric is called ‘Just Stay Little‘, hello theme! I was able to get a few shots pre-party of the girls in their dresses but not so much during the festivities…yeah, that camera didn’t get clicked once darn it! Do you not just love Eloise singing in the microphone, that shot cracked me up! She is just singing ‘maaaaaaaaa-maaaaaaa!’
I so love that big bow on this tiny girl. Of course she needs momma’s phone in hand, what girl doesn’t need the Pandora Glee station to rock out to while they are waiting for guests to arrive…it’s a pre-party par-tay!
I made my girlies, along with all the little girl party guests, some hair candy as a little take home gift. Penelope wanted me to make her a big statement hair clippie and of course I had to oblige her 😉 Umm yeah, the pigtail look only lasts for a few minutes these days!
Whenever I throw a party for little ones I feel there needs to be some fun things for kids to do. Otherwise it’s not really a party for the wee ones, don’t you think? Since this was a Dress Up party, we had two bins of dress up clothes, jewelry and the like for them to enjoy. I also laid out boy and girl paper dolls for the kids to decorate with crayons, googly eyes and gluesticks. You could easily make your own out of card stock and a pair of scissors but I just bought mine at Michael’s to save time.
I made a whole bunch of different mustaches, lips, glasses, a few monocles and even a bowler hat and hot glued them onto dowels. Since most of our dress up clothing is for girls I thought the boys might like to “dress up” with these.
Here’s a peek at the buffet table. I decided to make all the food ‘mini’ to follow the ‘Just Stay Little‘ theme. Isn’t teeny tiny food just oh-so cute!
I cut out a few of the little dresses on the ‘Just Stay Little’ fabric and used clothespins to pin them up clothesline style behind the buffet table.
Since Penelope’s birthday party started late in the morning I didn’t want to do a big cake. I opted for little vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting baked in cute little cups from here.
I decorated each one with cupcake toppers I made cutting out more of the little dresses from the ‘Just Stay Little’ fabric.
Aqua and Pink party decor 🙂
I decorated mason jars with different pretty strips of fabric from Children at Play’s Playhouse line, one for each momma so that everyone knew which glass was theirs and there was no confusion…don’t you hate when that happens.
A few days before the party I realized I wanted a few smaller luncheon-sized cloth napkins for the party so the day before I finally got to making some…it’s always the way things work around here.
I used the Aqua and Pink Dot to Dot fabrics to pull the colors together. If you need an easy tutorial for making cloth napkins, see this post here.
I used the hair clips that I made for each little girl as decor for the buffet table, I love when an item can function in multiple ways. They served as the perfect pops of color for my food table. And then at the end of the party the little girls took them home….win/win!
Oh, the mini food…how I love it so.
I used a little girl cookie cutter (a gingerbread girl perhaps?) and made ‘mini’ little girl shaped cheeses. They were served with ‘mini’ Ritz crackers!
I also made ‘mini’ blueberry muffins and decorated them with a ‘mini’ fabric pennant.
A late breakfast/early lunch party always needs donuts, ‘mini’ donuts to the rescue! They were glazed and then sprinkled with the colors of Penelope’s party…gotta keep with the theme 🙂
For us mommas, I made ‘mini’ Tomato Basil and Mozzarella Kabobs. Two of the ingredients came straight out of our garden, Mmm good!
Here is a look at the drink station I had in the middle of the buffet table.
I served Sweet Tea and Citrus Water…perfect cold drinks for such a sunny summer day.
I just love Sweet Tea…I’ll share my recipe on the blog soon, it is absolutely devine and super easy to make!
The Citrus Water included slices of orange, lemon and lime…so refreshing!
For all the children, minus Eloise (sorry little one, when you are older!), I served Strawberry milk in milk bottles for that cute vintage-y feel. I also used my favorite aqua stripey straws from here.
Well another long post with lots of pictures! I hope you enjoyed a peek at Penelope’s 3rd birthday party. I had so much fun putting it together but what makes it even better is that Penelope really truly loved it. That just melts my heart. She really adored that this was her birthday and her friends were coming to celebrate her. She is such a sweet little thing, I just want to eat her up.
Many thanks to our wonderful friends who came to celebrate Penny’s 3rd birthday, we loved having you there to share in her big day!
XOXO,
This party was soooo cute! That fabric is sooo cute and I keep resisting it but you are wearing me down, my my!
I can’t believe you didn’t invite me to such an adorable party T__T I might have come, now you’ll never know! 😉
This party turned out beautiful! My compliments to your thoughtfulness – you are way more creative than I am!
Everything is soooo cute!!
We don’t have this habit of party decorating here in Italy, it strikes me how a baby party can be so perfectly created! 🙂
Cecilia
I am really impressed! Because we don’t have this habit of party decorating in Germany, too, especially not for little girls…or boys 😉
I can see why Penelope felt so special…everything was so perfectly planned and beautiful!! I love the mason jar beverage containers. Where did you find them?
SUCH a beautiful party! I know my 2 1/2, almost three year old would have loved it! Great job momma!
-Marissa
Mommaake.com
Oh my heck that has got to be the cutest birthday party ever!
Such a cute party! It makes me wish my daughter had a summertime birthday instead of winter. I would live to find out where I could purchase those Ball tea jars you used for your tea and citrus water. I’m from Indiana where the Ball company was HQ’ed for so many years. 🙂
Wow! You really go all out! But I can see where one idea would lead to another. 🙂
Just gotta ask, tho, since nobody else did (maybe I missed something?)…. what’s the cage for? Just for pretty?
Awesome! And Happy Birthday, Penelope!
How absolutely wonderful! I must know where you got the Ball beverage dispensers as well 🙂
OMG! Mags..you are a freaking genius! This is awesome! yOu know how much I AM OBSESSED with this fabric line! Love what you did with it! I swear I am flying down next year with Laura (first commenter) to crash your kidlets bday parties. Us Canadians are gonna come whoop it up 😛
wow, brilliant work!!! i wish my mum had done stuff like that for me…. 🙂
hugs,
mickymunchkin
Everything is sooooo cute!!!
The party was super cute! I’m in love with this fabric 🙂 Where did you get your drink dispensers??????
Happy birthday Penelope! Love the little dresses on your girls, the color theme, and the mini food. PS I think you need to do a post about your garden. 🙂
what a sweet party! I love all the touches you added, the mini food, cute straws, and lovely dresses for your girls!
You are so seriously talented. What a beautiful party.
OMG worlds cutest party ever! Love how it turned out and I bet you got such cute pictures of all the kids! : )
Natalie
http://www.projectdowhatyoulove.wordpress.com
What a fun party!!! I love that you use glass mugs and cloth napkins…saves from throwing so much away! I have to ask where you got your Ball containers for the tea and water. I have one but my lid is different. I love yours so much more then the one I have which is glass and a wire holds it on.
this is one of the most adorable parties I have seen in a while. I bet they just had a blast! I love all of the details. The little cheese cutouts and the little pennants on the muffins are so cute!
Please tell me where you got those ball drink dispeners? Those are really amazing. I cant resist a ball jar.
What a darling party, Maggie!! Love every detail!
Thank you everyone! I’m so glad you are all enjoying the party pictures 🙂 For those of you who asked, I am trying to look up where I bought my Ball Jar drink dispensers, my computer hard drive has been giving me the ‘maxed out’ pop up screen for the last few months so wouldn’t you know that I just took to deleting my emails a few weeks ago and of course deleted all billing/shipping notices since I thought they were not needed! I will try to back track to see if I can get the store name for y’all!
Absolutely darling! Love the details and the color scheme!!
I love, love, love the colors and all the decorations!
http://www.bahousewifery.blogspot.com
I absolutely may have to copy this idea for my little girl! It is so unique and beautiful! I know this was a lot of work! I love it!
I absolutely adore this party … the colors, the details, the adorable decor. One of the sweetest parties for little girls I’ve ever seen!
Darling job, I love it! FYI–it’s been pinned, and on my Facebook page. 🙂
You are so organized and creative. I never seem to leave quite enough time to pull all the details together. You are an inspiration. Thanks Mamma for sharing.
Oh here is a link to those Ball juice jars.
http://www.victoriantradingco.com/store/catalogimages/13m/i11015.html
This is such a wonderful party! Such a great idea! If I have a daughter one day I would love to do a party like this! 🙂 Martine
Congratulations, your blog is beautiful, a lot of really nice ideas, visit my too.
http://tearpiaocupacional.blogspot.com/
Sooooooo happy to be here!!! That photos make my day (my night actually). Your kids are so lucky to have such a great mum!!! I wish all the best for Penelepe!!!
Even though I don’t have a daughter, you inspired me to organise a reunion party, for all my school girlfriends, themed as yours!!!!
Thanks for the photos, the inspiration, for everything!!!!
Adorable! I wish I had the time to do cute things like this! Great blog 🙂
Such a sweet little party, perfect for little girls. I find so many crafts online but so many are really poorly executed. I love you love your attention to detail
gorgeous turn out! you’ve given me great ideas for my daughters 3rd birthday… she turns 2 in a few days so i have lots of time to really plan for a crazy good time.
thanks!
Such a cute party theme! It is great inspiration for a future birthday party for my daughter. It is right up my alley. You should check out the chef-themed party I through for my daughter’s second birthday — http://www.inviteanddelight.blogspot.com. I did the same thing with designing the party colors around the fabric I found for the aprons!!
Eek! This is just the sweetest party I’ve ever seen!! We’re throwing our daughter’s a joint birthday party next weekend (Olivia the Pig themed) but I would love to do a ‘Just Stay Little’ theme for next year. So sweet. I love the dresses, too!
xo,
Heather
I LOVE your party!! It’s just lovely, awesome ideas and photos! I would love a party like that, um, ahem, I mean my daughter would love a party like that!
LOL! And thank you!! 🙂
My almost 3 year old is dying for a “dress up” party for both her little girl and little boy friends to enjoy. I keep finding myself coming back to your time and time again. I’m in love with all of it. Big question I have…what did your invitation look like? I’m really struggling with how to convey my dd wants her friends to come in their dress up clothes.
I love that fabric line too! It just precious. This is such a darling party theme. I love all the little sweet touches you put into it. Beautiful job with decorations 🙂
Just came across this post as I plan my little girls 1st birthday part. So cute and so many fun ideas. Thank you!
Julia Kristina