Birthday Parties Archives - Small Things Are Big Things

May 2, 2013 by: Kara Noel Lawson

Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Party

Cora Jane picked a Rainbow Unicorn themed party.

Because of course she did.

(see last year’s Rainbow Puppy party here)

This theme was a lot of fun, and lo and behold, they actually make rainbow unicorn stuff!

The Birthday Outfit: Cora Jane’s outfit was completely handmade with a lot of love by our good friend Patti. Wow, are we blessed! Floor length rainbow tutu, beaded rainbow heart tee, rainbow headband, rainbow bracelets, AND cloud/rainbow wand.

Décor: Rainbow flowers from Sam’s Club, rainbow lanterns and poofs from Party City to hang in the trees, rainbow chevron fabric with colored glass lanterns for each table. I have no pix of the tables. They were adorable!!! I used a rainbow fabric strip bunting (my friend Kyla and I made together) behind the cake table and other random stuff from Cora Jane’s Rainbow Room too.

Menu: The boyz barbecued chicken and we had loads of fruit, chips, salsa, rainbow gold fish (Eli’s idea) and macaroni salad. Water and pink lemonade in rainbow unicorn cups with rainbow curly straws. (Easy and CHEAP… I used to do pizza or Subway with juice boxes, but doing chicken and having a drink dispenser really really cuts the cost… a lot!)

Cake: I got the cake and cupcakes at Sam’s Club then added the sparkle candles, rainbow unicorn toppers. and put them on the rainbow unicorn cake stand.

She loved them!

Entertainment: Unicorn stickers on a table with paper and crayons, bubbles, chalk, a mini bounce house my in-laws brought, and a piñata!

The piñata was decapitated after the 5ish kid. It looked pretty darn morbid hanging there while children picked up the candy that had poured out of his flying carcass.

Why do I love piñatas so much? I have no idea.

But I do.

The rainbow birthday hat was made by my friend Cheri at Sweet Lily Tutus!. Cora Jane LOVES it and it’s now a decoration in her rainbow room

Favors: The favors were adorable! But would you believe I don’t have any pictures!?!? Otter pops with a unicorn horn lollipop tied with curly ribbon. It was super super super cute (and inexpensive and fun).

Cora’s expression here kills me…

Reason #346 Aunties are better than mommies…

It was a good day.

And a sad day.

The first birthday party without my mom. The first birthday party Cora Jane didn’t get a custom Nannie-made-pillowcase. But we are blessed. We were surrounded by people who love us and who we love. My grandmom made Cora Jane a special rainbow pillowcase. She was overjoyed!

It was a good day.

October 27, 2012 by: Kara Noel Lawson

Angry Bird Birthday Party {Simple Tips}

Eli wanted an Angry Bird birthday party this year and it really turned out to be a fun (read simple) theme to put together!

I made some orange ruffle wreaths for the front doors and added angry bird flare. (wreath tutorial coming soon) The wreath on the left was filled with angry birds and the one on the right piggys, of course. I cut the images from the party supply packaging and used regular tape to attach to the wreaths. Easy and FREE! (Random wreath thought: Orange is super versatile for a wreath! I pin on bright color felt flowers for summer, primary colors for back to school, yellow/brown for fall and black for Halloween.)

As kiddos arrived they could play our Angry Bird backyard game. I found rubber balls at CVS on clearance for $.49 and used my mad art skillz to draw the characters. We borrowed some big blocks from my mom’s house and had a game. The balls doubled as party favors! (tip: I used a blanket for the balls for easy clean-up and we put a board on top of a wagon to build the piggy buildings) The game was a hit and the kiddos played throughout the party

Since we started doing small kid centered parties I was able to have fun with the tables settings. I used a rectangle of red construction paper on the front of the juice box and two black paper strips to make Angry Bird eyebrows. The pom pom chandelier from our Back to School Feast was perfect for the party! (Note to self: ALWAYS make the Back to School Feast colors coordinate with Eli’s bday theme!) I also made angry eyebrows for the fruit bowls running down the center of the table. EASY and fun!

I figured the boys (and a few girls) would eat their pizza then run around like crazies and graze on the fruit for the rest of the party.

They did. 6-year-old boys are rad.

Then we played pin the tail on the Angry Bird.

Oh yeah, the rad thing about the kid only party… you can do kid games and the kids are totally into it!!! Eli loved explaining the rules of the game.

Piñata, of course. (I love piñatas!!!)

We finished the day with cake.

It was an awesome day and I’m so so so happy we are starting the kid party thing. It was fun and relaxing and all about the birthday boy.

Party at a glance for an Angry Bird Birthday Party of your own:

Décor: Wall décor package, happy 6th birthday banner, lime table cloths, red and lime scrap fabric runners, tissue pom pom chandelier, orange ruffle wreaths and Angry Bird eyebrows on everything. (Party City or made by me.)

The menu: Pizza, pringles, veggie chips, watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes and juice boxes with angry bird eyebrows. (Pizza from Little Cesar’s and everything else Sam’s Club)

Dessert: Mini cake and cupcakes with Angry Bird rings on top. (Angry Bird candles from Party City and cake/cupcakes with rings from Sam’s Club.)

Favors: Bouncy balls with Angry Bird faces drawn on and Piggy cups with “Angry Bird eggs” bagged up inside, aka peanut M&M’s. (Balls from CVS and Angry Bird cups from Party City M&Ms from Sam’s)

October 23, 2012 by: Kara Noel Lawson

The kid party guest list

I’ve just finished two back to back kiddo birthday parties. We love having people over and I love planning parties, but there is always the question of the guest list. You know what I’m talking about. There’s the family, friends, your kids friends, school friends, church friends, people you want to be your friends… the list can really go on and on and on. And you never want to accidently hurt anyone’s feelings.

We’ve always done a bigger party – inviting all our family, all our friends and all their kids. Honestly, I’ve never really thought about doing it differently until this last year when we were invited to two different parties. For one party the mom handed me the invite and said, “it’s for you and Cora Jane,” and the other one said “drop off or one parent” at the bottom of the invite. The parties were great and very kid centered. I really enjoyed the one with Cora Jane because the awesome host, Jaime, got to do all sorts of girly things for the butterfly theme and I got one on one time with my girl.

This year, I was planning Eli’s 6th birthday, because of all our moving (church and geographical) our friend list had grown and our family list has always been big. I was inspired by the year’s party invites and decided to take the plunge into the Kid Only thing.

6 would be the year.

Yep.

I will have the guts to pick and choose.

Nope.

Nope, I don’t.

Let’s have Eli choose.

Yeah, it’s always the best idea to put all the burden on your child.

We asked Eli who he wanted to invite and it actually worked out great. He rattled off the names of the friends he plays with most, and we were done. Whew. Then there was the family. We have a very small family but our regular “family attenders” are at least 12 and that ups the guest list quite a bit.

Family dinner!

Yep a family dinner.

6 would be the year we start family birthday dinners.

Yep, I will have the guts to tell the grandparents and aunties they aren’t invited to his bday.

This actually went very well. I think they were all a little bummed, but we chose a central location for an easier drive and everyone got to have focused time on Eli instead of just hanging out at a big party with 30+ kids (yes, that’s how big the family parties are). It turned out great!

And we all know family gives the best gifts. (Thank you Yaya and Papu for padding the college fund!)

Case and point…

(This was also the first year we officially did gifts. But that’s a whole other post…)

Because switching to the don’t bring your family thing could be a little touchy, here’s how I worded the invite for the kiddo party (see “details” section):

Your kiddo is invited to Eli’s 6^th Angry Bird Birthday!
Date: Sunday, September 16^thTime: 1:30pm (pizza lunch!)
Where: Our lovely home
Gifts: No gifts needed – Please don’t feel like you have to bring a gift. We love celebrating Eli with time and attention most. REALLY!! But if you like, Eli loves legos, star wars and pirate stuff. And needs jeans & shorts size 8 regular… hand-me-downs would be great.
Details: Now that Eli is the ripe age of 6 we are starting the smaller party thing so we can have kid centered activities. Fun! You can drop off if you like, or one parent can stay with the kiddo invited to the party. Food and cake for all! Don’t fret if you need a Lawson fix for the whole family… we are having Tessa’s big 1 year party on 9/29. Let me know if you have any questions.
RSVP by Friday so I can have all the goodies ready.
So thankful for you friends

I tried to make it approachable for questions so people would feel comfortable telling me if their spouse couldn’t watch siblings not invited or if they had an out of town guest that needed to come. Of course acceptations would be ok! (Am I the only one who takes an hour to write a simple invitation?) I really didn’t want to offend anyone.

Now that everything is said and done, I can say the kid party/family dinner thing was AWESOME! I got to spend time on fun kid details (post coming this week) and the family got quality play time with Eli. Oh and did I mention this was way friendlier on the budget!?!? Yep!! Now the official “thing” in our family is big all-in-family-friend parties till 5-years-old then kid specific parties/family dinners starting at 6-years-old. I’d love to know what you do, or if you have better wording for a kiddo only party invitation!

July 24, 2012 by: Kara Noel Lawson

Rainbow Puppy Birthday Party

I have a little girl.

She dances to the beat of her own little drum.

A drum that’s orange, covered in rainbow sparkles with puppies, and flamingos jumping out.

She picks out her own clothes.

She’s scared to get her ears pierced.

She might really think she’s Rapunzel.

She likes what she likes.

From the depth of her pretty little brain she came up with a rainbow puppy party.

Here’s how it went…

We remembered to do a family picture before the party, in hopes of getting a good shot before the party sugar set in…

Um… that went well.

I made Cora Jane’s skirt out of Dollar Tree tee shirts. (It came out really cute and I hope to share how it’s done soon!)

Favors: All from Oriental Trading company. Rainbow stamps, tattoos and candy bundled up in rainbow bandanas. They added so much color outside.

I cut each large bandana into 4 squares for the bundles. And I couldn’t believe Oriental Trading Company had rainbow colored “dog bones” (I think they are meant to be skeleton bones for Halloween) and bright paw print stamps. Total score. Double sided stamps and rainbow tattoos finished off the favors. Total cost was about $1.25!

Menu: Pizza, a rainbow of fruit and veggies, chips and every color of Gatorade.

Big Mama pizzas from our favorite, Rosa’s Pizza. Each pizza has 45 slices. The fruit was set out in rainbow order – red apples, watermelon, strawberries, sliced oranges, carrots, yellow tomatoes, yellow raspberries, bananas, snap peas, cucumbers, blueberries and purple grapes. (This was the first party we ran kinda low on the main dish. It was pretty rad to NOT have leftovers, but we should have gotten another smaller pizza to add to the bunch.)

Décor: Rainbow and puppies. (hehehehe)

I covered our unfinished counters with bright table clothes and used the leftover bandanas as runners. I used paper plates to camouflage the unfinished backsplash (pictured above with the fruit). We didn’t fool anyone, but it looked festive. I made a rainbow-puppy-paw-print fabric strip banner for behind the cake and my talented friend Jill created a rainbow puppy graphic for me to print, and I hung it up all over the place. We found some great rainbow flower windmill things at the Dollar Tree and placed them around the yard. But my favorite favorite favorite part were rainbow the colored lanterns we hung in our kick a$& tree. I LOVE THEM! I’ve kept them up and every time I look in my yard they make me smile. I think I’ll go look at them now… (sigh)… happy heart.

Cake: I love custom cakes but there is just something special (to me) about making my kiddo’s birthday cakes. That being said, when you can get a cake for $10 at Sam’s Club and 30 cupcakes for $13… I let “the club” do the baking and background frosting and I just spice it up a bit! (I do this for almost all our parties.) For Cora Jane’s cake I added a rainbow banner, a puppy candle (had to get a dozen at Oriental Trading and only used one, so if you want some just shoot me an email and I’ll bless you with some happy puppy mail!), the rainbow dog bones (from the favors), and rainbow sour belts. Each cupcake got a rainbow puppy, a rainbow, and dog bones of their own. It was cute.

Cora Jane loved it…

Then we beat the heck out of a rainbow. I’m not sure why, but I’m a huge fan of pinatas. I feel like a party without a pinata is just hanging out… I’m strange.

Group shots are another of my party MUSTS…

Cora Jane wants a rainbow puppy room. Because, of course she does.

But that’s awesome because I can use the banner and extra bandanas as room décor. I also found this awesome rainbow fabric for curtains. She hated it. Oh wait… the opposite of that…

House stuff is slowly moving along now and I can’t wait to share pix!

Happy Day Friends!