Birthdays

Have I mentioned I love birthdays?  I think I have.  A few times.  We've had some pretty big birthdays around here this year.  Emily turned 3 and we celebrated with a carnival party.  Heather turned 40 and we celebrated by going out of town for a long weekend.  Felicia turned 16 and we celebrated with an Alice in Wonderland tea party.  I had SO much fun with this theme!  Here were a few of the details:

Living Room garland

Alice has that wonderful dreamy, anything goes quality and I wanted the living room to feel smaller and cozier than it normally feels.  We have 8 foot ceilings and the room isn't that big to begin with.  I didn't want to load it up with balloons or other things that just felt cluttery, but I did want something to make you feel like you weren't in a living room.  This garland did the trick.  I used 18 fat quarters to make an insane amount of garland.  It was really easy to put together, and I found this wonderful idea and template over The Purl Bee.  I also made a few big paper flowers, and by "I," I mean my mom.  My mom is anti-Martha, so it was fun to give her this craft to make (because I love Martha).

Candy Garden Center Piece

A party for a bunch of teenage girls, with a whimsical outdoor theme - perfect for a candy garden.  I picked up candy for a month for this sucker.  I used styrofoam as a base inside the tin basket I already had on hand.  From there, I took lollipops, rock candy and gum drops on skewers and stuck them in the base.  From there I poured m&m's, fruit rings, sour candies and a few other goodies to fill up the base.  The girls loved it and most of it was gone by the end of the party and the rest went home with a few of them.

No Wonderland Tea Party would be complete without a few mysterious drinks:

I bought probably 10 different flavored sodas and filled them up in these jars and bottles.  I just scattered them around the table, and the girls made a game out of guessing what was in each bottle.  One of our guests was so smart, she even figured out that most of the drinks were Publix brand sodas.  

Here's a quick peek at the girls enjoying their feast:

We made lots of little food, which the girls totally got and made comment on.  I made these delicious pizza bites, and these cute little taco bowls and a few variations of sandwich pinwheels including turkey, ham and PB&J.I also had a lot of chips, dips, fruit skewers and by request - cheetos.  The table cloth was just 4 yards of fabric.  The polka-dots were just folded in half longway and laid on the table (no sewing!) and the pink runner down the middle was folded 3-ways down the length and laid on the table.  Over the table we hung a ton of white lights, small lanterns and bigger paper globes.  

Here's the happy and beautiful birthday girl:

And here is one final shot of the whole crew.  My bff was the photographer for the day and took a TON of great shots of the girls outdoors.  I loved these so much: