Party Favors

A “Kitschy Little Man” first birthday party for my son, Hudson.  

This party was all about my “berry sweet” daughter turning two.

A wild…sweet…fun baby’s first birthday party. Turned your regular pink and black Wild safari colors into a more fun colorful and bright idea for my daughter’s first birthday.

For this party we wanted the dessert table to be reminiscent of a bakery in Paris. We choose macaroons of course! as well as a cake in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, decadent cupcakes, and yummy macaroons. We even dressed the birthday girl in a darling tiered tutu dress topped with a ornate custom head piece. A ornate frame held a custom sign made for the birthday girl and was center stage for her beautiful dessert table.

Ruby in ONEderland

This was a baby shower for my sister .  It was a buffet luncheon at Troon Country Club, but we wanted it to feel fun and relaxed.  We had circus type of food… hamburgers, popcorn,  hot dogs, and funnel cakes.

Brody is now 4! You may remember this face from the Seusstastical Party on Project Nursery!

Nautical birthday party in blue, red, and white.

This party was thrown for my daughter’s 4th birthday.  She requested a Strawberry Shortcake party with an Alex’s Strawberry Lemonade Stand.  We used Strawberry Shortcake as an inspiration and incorporated other colors and a “Strawberry Taylor” which was a caricature created by my sister, Abbey, of Abbey Malcolm Letterpress + Design.   The birthday girl had only one activity on her list of activities for the party and that was a “keyata” or pinata with Miss Strawberry Shortcake herself on it.  That was easy enough with a quick trip to Party City.   It rained almost the entire party (until the end) but the parents and children didn’t mind at all, hey, water balloons and a pool = wet anyway and it definitely beats the heat!

A sweet first birthday party with a Monkey theme. All party goods by WH Hostess, party styling by P is for Party.

A monkey birthday party for a 1 year old boy. Held for his play group, this party focuses on how to create a stylish impression for mom’s and kids, all while keeping your decorations and food simple. All party goods and styling by whhostess.com.

A traditional bumble bee party, updated with a modern color palette of yellow, orange and green.

A Lady Bug Soiree by WH Hostess for a little girl in Deerfield, Illinois. For more information, visit www.the partydress.net.

You don’t get more wholesome then checked table cloths and blueberry pie. That was the idea behind this tractor themed baby shower for soon-to-be parents Lauren and Brett. Instead of letting the weather limit the party’s decor, host Laura took the picnic and made it come alive inside her home. With a little creativity and her handy paper cutting tool, Laura turned mason jars, mini pies and paper plates into a picnic style baby shower for baby boy Nixon. Laura offers some great party planning tips along with all the details on this vintage picnic baby shower. I decided to throw an indoor picnic and tractor themed baby shower for a long-time friend (it’s far too hot in our neck of the woods this time of the year to party outside). Although she is having a boy, I wanted to steer clear of colors and motifs that were too kitschy or overdone. And, since it was a no guys party, I tried to create an environment and food that was “girly” to some degree , yet maintained a masculine feel in honor of baby Nixon. The color pallet consisted of orange, kelly green, yellow and blue jean blue. Overall I wanted guests to feel like they were at a farm or barnyard picnic with their friends.

Vroom, Vroom! Are you ready for a fun ride? We just love a good party success story so when Project Nursery reader Sarah filled us in on the amazing car-inspired birthday party she dreamt up for her son Jack’s second birthday we were so excited to learn all the details. Deciding on a theme for the party was easy for Sarah since Jack is quite obsessed with cars at the moment, but making the feel a bit more classic-car and less “Cars” the movie was a little challenging. Sarah definitely pulled it off and the entire party from start to finish was so adorable and fun we just had to share it with all our Project Nursery readers. The kid-friendly food included car shaped PB&J finger sandwiches, carrot dippers with ranch dressing and honey wheat pretzels. Sarah also found some old-fashioned milk bottles and created straws with car-shaped cutouts for the kiddies. So cute! It is always a good idea to plan some sort of activity for the kids to do and Sarah came up with a great finger-painting art project. She says, “I made each child an art smock to wear using iron-on transfers. And I also printed off a personalized matte with each child’s name and cut out a window in the shape of a car. The kids got to work finger painting and their lovely creations got framed behind the matte.” Now that is a party favor parents can appreciate too! Thank you so much Sarah for sharing Jack’s party with us! What a terrific success, you should feel proud. For all the details and more photos of this adorable party visit Sarah’s Jack and Izzy.

diy-baby-shower After I saw how cute Kim’s lollipop party post was, I thought I would share some of my DIY/creative ideas from my own baby shower. It is hard to believe that my shower was almost a year ago! For all you first time moms…the first year really flies by so take it ALL in! Of course my inner designer came barreling through when it came to my baby shower. Obsessed? No, just excited! I got to choose a color scheme that coordinated with the colors of my little dudes nursery: Chocolate, Lime, and Aqua. We were having trouble finding the perfect do-dads and what-nots to coordinate, so I took on the challenge of creating the perfect accompaniments. I first designed a logo for the shower…. I found a piece of clipart that I liked and changed the coloring to match my scheme. I added this “logo” to all of the pieces shown to coordinate with one another. Invitations – I printed the wording onto large aqua circle stickers and then applied them to pre-cut chocolate paper squares and finished them off with matching ribbon Favors – Instead of spending a bunch of money on an item that may get tossed away or at best thrown into a junk drawer, I went back to the basics. Good ole’ HERSHEY BARS! Only these Hershey bars were dressed in to-cute-to-open homemade wrappers. All it took was some scrapbook paper and some stickers that I printed at home with my “logo” and voila! Centerpieces – Ok here is where the fun starts…. Empty quart paint cans from Home Depot, wrapped in fun, pretty paper (hot glue worked the best) Then we took floral foam and added it to the cans, filled the cans with crinkle cut paper from Michaels Craft Store and added Twinkle Candy. The final touch was the wooden craft dowel in the center of the arrangement that had the logo printed onto stickers and then backed with chocolate colored paper. Super cute, super inexpensive! Décor – If you have been to a few baby showers you may have seen this idea once or twice but here one of my BFF’s bumped it up a notch. She hung a clothes line across my patio, purchased color coordinated onesies and socks, hung them from the clothesline with clothespins and alternated the items with crafty little starts cut from paper that matched to the whole party! Did you have or give a fabulous baby shower that you want to share? Send us your tips and photos for a chance to be featured!

We are all about the projects that come along with baby. And baby’s first birthday is a big one! It’s about baby, friends, family and most importantly the parents! After all, we’re the one’s who survived the first year. So why not keep it intimate and keep it in your backyard. There’s nothing sweeter than a backyard birthday bash and here’s some some sweet birthday decor to inspire… Classy and Modern: Among the all Elmo, Sesame Street, and Barbie themes, there’s nothing better than two simple colors to theme your child’s party. Go Crazy, Go Carnival: Caterers set the theme with traditional carnival foods and carts. Keep it bright and festive without the scary clowns. Sweet and Lovely: Light and airy decor set the tone for this whimsical fairy theme. A friend once gave me a tip and suggested that I catered my son’s first party. She couldn’t have been more right. I love to cook but cooking and hosting a party with babies crawling and toddlers running around the house is hardly like one of your pre-baby cocktail soirees. So one piece of advice I would like to pass along to others is to order your party favors pre-packaged and in advance! I spent a silly amount of time and money putting together themed favors. I even ordered items that were not baby safe but looked so online. To avoid making the same mistake, visit our friends at Goody!Goody! for unique, hassle-free party favors on the go. Goody! Goody! currently offers 8 themes (from Hannah Montana to Thomas the Tank) and sells favors individually from $3.25 or boxed sets of 10. With advance notice owner Megan will even customize your favors to your party’s theme. Mention Project Nursery (Code: PN at check out) and receive free customized CD’s with your order! Now you’ll have more time to decide whether to serve cake or cupcakes!?!

First Birthday parties can take on a life of their own. I don’t know what’s more fun, the excitement of marking baby’s first year or the thrill of having a party where adults are in on the action. North Carolina mother Keila dreamed up a party filled with robots and colorful candy treats for her son Aiden’s first birthday. Here are all the details on this out of this world party.