Jamila’s 7th Birthday Party (Horse theme)

Description

A birthday celebration for my seven-year-old daughter, Jamila. I have been inspired by so many virtual images and ideas, but decided to recreate that all by myself. So everything, except the cake was homemade and handmade by me.

Design Inspiration

I asked my daughter to pick a theme and she chose horses. I didn't want the theme to be too overwhelming, therefore we incorporated the horses in a subtle way. I browsed the the web a LOT and modified the things I liked to work for us.

Decorating Style

In general, my decorating style is minimalistic. However, for this party I went outside my comfort zone and included a lot of details and girly decor pieces. So for this party, the decorating style is very much feminine. 

Project Details

Some, but certainly not all, of my inspiration came from TomKatstudio, Pennpaperflowers, PrudentBaby, EatDrinkChic, Howdoesshe, Etsy and so on. I wish I remembered all the places that gave me ideas, but the list would have been too long. :-) 

For the decor, the main banner, bunting and mini cake bunting were made at home. I did use the TomKatStudio template for the "Happy Birthday" banner, so design of that is their credit. :-) For the background, I sew streamers as inspired by Shelley of HDS. We bought two different sets of horses; flat ones with silhouettes and 3-D ones of wood. Flat ones were painted black and hung in front of the windows with light coming through the cuts. Free standing horses were painted with chalk paint and black, we then wrote "Happy Birthday Jamila"  with chalk on them. Desert table included cupcakes with toppers made by me (design of which belongs to TomKatStudio), sugar cookies with edible images, chocolate dipped Oreos with edible images matching our homemade invitations. Inspired by Bakerella, I made cake pops in brown and pink to match our colors, as well. Right outside the front door, we set up hay bales with stick horses for each child guest. Another party favor was homemade sugar cookies in horse shapes. In front of the front door, we set up a frame with an instruction to grab a sheriff name badge for each child guest. We also had a full menu and food labels in somewhat of a "witty" naming to go with the theme. :-) i.e. Rodeo Rice, Wild West Fried Chicken, and so on. For the drinks, we offered pink Kool-Aid, chocolate milk and water. We printed and covered our paper cups in party matching design (courtesy of EatDrinkChic, but modified the colors to match better). 

Favorite Items

My favorite items are the painted horses, sugar cookies with edible images. 

Advice

Be willing to do the research and brainstorm  a lot. Also, don't be intimidated by new things. You will save a lot of money, if you do things yourself, rather than custom ordering everything. Not counting all the browsing and brainstorming, it took me (with the help from my husband) about 5-6 days to put this all together. I worked anywhere from as little as 2 hours to as much as 6-7 hours on those 5-6 days. :-)

 

Hope this helps,

Sal