Mermaid Party Invitations

My daughter is turning 4 this month and we are celebrating this year with a mermaid party! She loves Ariel from The Little Mermaid and chose the theme herself. It was fun creating the invitation, and it's even more fun planning the party! I'll be sure to post the pictures after we have the party.  In the meantime, if you are thinking of having a mermaid party yourself, you can purchase this invitation in our shop or check out some of our ideas on our Pinterest board.

New Invitation Designs

It's a new year, so new invitation designs are in order! I added these printable invitations to the shop yesterday.

Nothing quite says "It's a party!" like confetti! This printable invitation is great for a child's birthday, but the wording can also be changed to make it perfect for a baby or bridal shower.

For all the sports enthusiasts or perhaps for the Superbowl coming up, this printable invitation is perfect for any sports-related event.  Note: We can change the balls to suit your party if needed!

The party printables such as banners, cupcake toppers, thank you tags, etc, will be in the shop soon.  If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email at carla@paperandpartylove.com.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Gabriel's Magic Party

You saw the magic wand invitations and the tutorial, now see the party!  The magic party for Gabriel was held last week. I've known Gabriel since he was born and it was great to help his mom create a party for him at home.  His kindergarten class has been learning about magic and he invited everyone to the party.  He was so excited in the days leading up to the party that he kept asking his mom "when is it?". All his waiting paid off and the day of his magic party finally arrived. From face painting, to "magic" food, to a magician that kept the kids laughing throughout, there was lots of fun to be had for the kids.

The food included things like Hocus Pocus Jello, a Magic Drink that changed colors when it was filled, magic popcorn with edible glitter for the magic effect and Disappearing Pizza, which really did disappear quickly!

And of course, we can't forget the cake.  It was in the shape of a top hat with rabbit ears sticking out of it.   Naturally, there were cupcakes also.

At the end of the party, the kids all received a goody bag filled with all kinds of magic treats.

Thanks to Sharon and Gabriel for letting me help out with their party.  Looking forward to brainstorming more ideas for next year!

Surf Pool Party

Those of you that know me know that I love summer and the beach. There's just something so relaxing about the sand, the sun and the sound of waves. With summer coming up soon, I wanted to have a printable collection that reminded me of summer and the beach.  So, I drew surfboards, used hibiscus flowers and chose sunny colors to remind me of one of my favorite places. 

This was a fun dessert table to create.  My favorite part of this table has to be the sandcastle cupcake stand that I made. I love different ways of displaying cupcakes. It's actually made out of cardboard boxes and covered with sand. I found a great tutorial for making this here. I used the straw flags on the cupcakes so that it would look like the sandcastle had flags blowing in the wind. The starfish and burlap add to the beach feeling, and the desserts are sitting on plates lined with brown sugar to look like sand.

This collection has everything you need to set the mood for your summer party...invitations, a welcome sign, banner, party circles, straw flags, food labels/tent cards, and favor tags. I styled it as a pool party, since not all of us are lucky enough to be close to the beach, but I can picture this table right on the beach too.  The colors look great against the sand.  

You can now get these items in the shop.  Look for a blue version of this coming soon! 

Scroll down to see the rest of the pictures...

New Printable Collection :: Red, White & Blue Party

Glee had an episode where the whole group sang a song while they were synchronized swimming. The girls wore these adorable red, white and blue swimsuits with white flowers in their hair. I loved the styling of that part so much, it inspired me to create this collection. I think it would be perfect for a 4th of July party, a nautical party, or a french-inspired party or baby shower.

I was lucky enough to have a great location to photograph it.  The location is in the south of France in a small town close to St. Tropez and was taken at a gorgeous private residence. Being in France also made it easy to get the beautiful desserts that are shown here. They sell a large selection of beautiful desserts in the regular supermarket. It was difficult to pick just a few!

If I had to describe this collection, I would say it is a little bit retro, a little bit French, and a little bit nautical.  It is now available in my Etsy shop. Here come all the pictures!

Indoor Camping Party Part 2

A few weeks ago, I showed you the invitation for my daughter's indoor camping party. Here they are again before they were sent out. The envelope was closed with a special "Camp Bella" sticker and we tied green twine around it. We added a name tag and delivered them personally to her friends. In the end, we had 13 kids who were invited and all accepted! 

It was great that we had the party indoors since we woke up that April morning to snow! Most of it had melted away by the time the guests arrived, but it was still very cold outside.

The guests were greeted with signs leading them to Camp Bella, where they were instructed to pick up a camper's kit filled with a package of S'mores and a hot chocolate cone. I used fabric that I had left over from curtains that I made and sewed a drawstring backpack for the kit. I then printed out a design on iron-on transfer paper to add the design to the backpack. The kids later used the backpack to hold the items that they found on their scavenger hunt (more on that later).

The "campground" was our living room which I emptied out and placed four tents that I made. I then cut out stars and taped them onto string which I hung from the ceiling over the tents.

Next to the tents was the food table. We had typical camping food like hot dogs, chips, trail mix and fruit kabobs. And of course, there was cake!

The scavenger hunt was so much fun. The kids were put in teams of two and had fun figuring out the clues together. The clues were all different. Some were pictures of places around the house, a couple were clues with a code that they had to decipher, and some were straightforward clues such as "Look under the entrance table". The kids found things like flashlights, plastic bugs, bug catchers, pencils, and a camping survival kit with hand sanitizer and bandaids. The team that found everything first and got all of the clues right won some glow-in-the-dark bracelets.

After the scavenger hunt, the kids ate and then settled down and watched a movie.

After the movie, the kids moved to our dining room which was the Camp Bella craft area.  We made rain sticks and glow in the dark jars.

At the end, we went out on our balcony and made s'mores on a small portable camping grill we had.  The kids enjoyed roasting the marshmallows. Many of them didn't know what s'mores were and they loved it. I reminded them that they had a s'mores kit in their packs that they could make with their parents at home.

Three of the girls were invited to spend the night. They all wanted to sleep in the same tent instead of each one having their own. So, we brought out our four person pop-up tent and they all slept in there for the night.

It was such a fun party and the kids had so much fun. My daughter said the best part was the scavenger hunt and having her friends spend the night.  I'm so happy she had a great time.  After all, that's why I make such an effort for her.  Love you Bella!

Cars Party

A while back, a friend of mine asked me to help her with a birthday party for her two little boys who were turning three and four.  She decided, or rather the boys decided, on the Cars theme.  Since it was a joint party and parents were invited, the guest list was for over 60 people.  Thankfully, my friend was able to secure a great venue at a school where there would be plenty of space.

The party was downstairs at this school so we had traffic cones topped with flags directing people down the stairs from the entrance.  We were lucky that the venue had a red wall.  It fit perfectly with the theme of red, black and white! Once the partygoers came downstairs, they found the tables set up and plenty of food waiting for them.

Naturally, we had to have a sign for Flo's V8 Cafe where the food was! We also used checkered flags to label the sandwiches.

Here are the cake and cupcakes.  We placed many of the cupcakes on a racetrack the boys had and decorated it with their Cars figures.

We made a few cars from cardboard boxes that the kids loved playing in.  I got this idea from here and it just looked like so much fun. It wasn't that difficult to make them either.  Don't the birthday boys look adorable in their jumpsuits?

We tied red and black balloons to the red and black favor bags and placed them inside of tires to use as decoration.  The favor bags had a sticker with a thank you message from the boys. As the partygoers left they got to pick a balloon from the tire.  

The kids had so much fun.  The eating area was next to a gym which was set up with balance beams, swings, and basketball.  They had plenty of space to run around and when they got tired,  there was an area where they could refuel by watching Mater's Tall Tales on video.

It was a great party!  Many thanks to my friend Emma for letting me help with the decorations for her boys party.  

Cupcake Themed First Birthday Party

Is there a theme going on around here?  Like I said yesterday, cupcakes everywhere! This party has plenty of cupcakes and they were sooo good, if I do say so myself (since I baked them) :-).  I am getting ready to work on my daughter's 8th birthday party, who I can't believe is turning eight already, and came across these pictures from her sister's 1st birthday party last September. I've always enjoyed having parties and preparing for them. I love all of the little details. But this party is the one that really started it all for me.  I was, and still am, so inspired by all of the creativity out there on the web. It gets me very excited and I want to be a part of it. I discovered party printables when I was preparing for this party and hope to open my own etsy shop soon. I want to help people make their parties and events pretty. So, if you have an event coming up, I would be more than happy to help.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed setting up the party. Come back for more parties in the next few days.

This was the invitation.  I found the paper when browsing in a paper store and knew that I wanted to have that as my baby's first birthday invitation.  The paper came blank and I printed the details on it and added some glitter to the top.  The pink and white polka dot bow came with the pack and there was a slit cut into the paper to tie it to.

The welcome sign was placed at the entranceway and next to it I placed a cardholder with pictures from our baby's first year. It's fun to see the changes throughout the year.  I can hardly believe she was ever so small.

The banner was hung at the doorway to our dining room where the food table was set up. As always when I have a party, there was plenty of food to enjoy.  I am always worried that there won't be enough to eat.

Instead of a cake, I decided to have cupcakes and made my own cupcake stand to display them. It was very easy.  I simply wrapped cardboard boxes that I had in my recycling bin in wrapping paper and decorated it with ribbon.  I found the cute signs and cupcake toppers on this etsy shop, printed them out, and voila!...a pretty display.  The large cupcake at the top was for the birthday girl to enjoy.  She carefully ripped it to shreds while tasting little bits of it. It was so fun to watch!

And speaking of the birthday girl, here she is.  She had a homemade tutu and enjoyed her party very much!

Vendor Credits:
Cupcake Invitation Paper - Stevie Streck Designs, Inc.
Party Printables - Party So Perfect