Bubblegum and George: 5th Birthday Party. Part 1

I began writing about my daughters recent 5th birthday party. With all the details on the event it became quite an essay so I've decided to break it down into a few parts.

I'll start with the theme because well dreaming about how it would look, setting it up on the day and seeing it all come together was and is my favourite part of this and every project.

This was to be her first little friends party, so we set to work trying to come up with a theme.
She wanted to be a fairy of course, what little girl doesn't want to be a fairy princess, but she also wanted to invite boys to her party. So we were faced with the dilemma of working out a theme where she could dress up as the little fairy she wanted to be, and also keep the boys happy by making sure the party wasn't over the top pink and girly.

Fairy Princess Birthday Girl

I began researching 'fairy' party food, (in my day it was fairy bread and cheerios with sauce) in the hopes I would find some inspiration.

I came across some adorable Marshmallow Mushrooms, and I just had to use these for her party, not only are they super cute, they are ridiculously easy to make and the kids would LOVE them plus they'd be high impact for little $ and effort.

Super cute and super easy

Mushrooms = Forest. Fairies live in a forest! What else lives in forests?... Gnomes, Elves, Bunnies, Foxes, Butterflies and Bugs... all sorts of wonderful creatures that little boys would be more than happy to dress up as. Obviously it couldn't just be any old forest if it has Fairies and Gnomes living there, it had to be.... an Enchanted Forest! Yay we had our theme.

The Enchanted Forest table

Now that we had the theme, the fun part began as I started having restless nights dreaming about the way my... errr her party would look. Oh how I love this part.
I was up and down many a night, unable to sleep soundly until all my ideas were sketched out on paper and lists were made.
They included falling leaves and lollipop trees, tree slices and stumps, bunnies, (as you know I'm a bunny girl) butterflies and mushrooms, pink, green and a splash of red.

It was time for me to stop daydreaming because time was running out and the invitations needed to get out before I could do anything else.
Enter my sister... "Please please please can you do an invitation for my.... ahhhh your nieces birthday party, oh and I need them in two days, I'll email you with some of my ideas"
After a few revisions on my part (sorry sis you were very patient) this is what she came up with.

Pink, girly and Enchanted Foresty enough?!

Now to source everything I was after... this is tricky for me because when I get an image in my head, then that is exactly what I want. Quite often I'll go without something rather than compromise on something similar. (This is usually because I have expensive tastes and what I want is wayyyy out of my budget)

Some things had to be created, yup typical me likes to add more work to her plate in order to get that vision just right.

Like my leaf garlands, I had a vision of falling leaves that I just couldn't let go of.

Falling leaves and butterfly covered lanterns.

Over 200 hand cut leaves sewn together by one dedicated mummy. My friends thought I was crazy, and my husband sat patiently beside me as I cut them out each night.

My friends husband dragged some tree logs up from the back of their property so that my husband could cut up my tree slices and stumps I also just had to have. I have amazing friends with amazing partners. Thank you Jo and Craig.

See how important those tree slices and stumps were,
they made a feature of the 'WOW' food

Now that the leaf garlands and butterfly lanterns were made and the lollipop trees on their way I only had to make the food labels (enter my sister again, gosh she's a good Aunty) and Sorayas birthday sign. I was so happy with how Sorayas sign turned out that I'm trying to work out where I can hang it in her room.

I really wanted pink or white lids for the water. I couldn't find them when I wanted them
but of course the week after the party... no problem typical isn't it

I was thrilled with how her sign came out, I wanted it to look like large scrabble tiles

I'm a details girl, note the 5 in the bottom corner of each letter

With everything sourced and on its way or created all I had to do was start planning the rest of the party food, remember at this stage all I have in mind is the Marshmallow Mushrooms that started this whole thing.

The party food will be part 2 of Sorayas 5th Birthday Party.