Party Planning: The Invitation

This is part of a series of posts about the planning and execution of my daughter’s third birthday party. You can read all of the posts in this series here.

I’ve wanted to create personalized invitations for Lyra’s previous birthdays, but ran out of budget, time, and courage. Years away from Photoshop and graphic design tools left me feeling intimidated to attempt the page layout on my own, and well-designed options online were too expensive to justify the cost. This year I was determined to not only design the invitation, but to take the portrait that would be the focus of the design.

I started by sourcing a few rainbow-colored clothing options. I lucked out by finding a rainbow striped dress along with a multi-colored polka dot dress during a trip to Costco. While I always have grand visions of a well styled and prop-perfect image, I happen to live in a little place called, Reality. The dresses were perfectly cute and well-themed for the photo shoot. Lyra loves both of them and would wear them daily, if I’d let her.

Below is the finished design with three image choices. As of this writing, we hadn’t yet decided which image to go with. I like them all for different reasons, but my favorite is the last one. Getting a great image was a challenge in itself. And while I didn’t knock it out if the park, I’m perfectly happy with good enough.

Party Planning: Activities with a Rainbow Theme

This is the first in a series of posts about the planning and execution of my daughter’s third birthday party. You can read all of the posts in this series here.

Keeping in mind that the birthday girl and the majority of her guests will be mere preschoolers, I have no intention of cramming in all or even half of these activities. And frankly Lyra would be completely thrilled with us renting a bouncer and doing nothing else. But I think that stronger memories are built on the small party games and interacting or competing with the other party guests. That’s not to disparage bounce houses. I would have killed for one when I was a kid, if they had been anything other than an untouchable luxury item.

Rainbow Piñata

Living in a border city has its advantages. One, is that almost every birthday party involves beating a papier mâché character with a stick until falls apart and spills out candy guts. Sounds pretty gruesome, but as a kid it’s good fun. Great fun for adults, too. Here’s a shot of my mom swinging away at a piñata at my dad’s 60th birthday party.

Pin Roy G Biv on the Rainbow

A take-off on Pin the Tail on the Donkey. We’ll take a cut-out drawing of the Roy G Biv character from this video and have the children attach theirs to a giant rainbow while blindfolded.

Drawing with Rainbow Crayons

I found this set of rainbow crayons for a good price and free shipping at Oriental Trading. I plan to set these out  along with some traditional crayons and a giant roll of paper and let the kids go to town. The finished collaborative drawing will make a neat keepsake. I’ll also put out some rainbow coloring pages. I particularly these from Secret Agent Josephine.

Rainbow Tissue Tie-Dye

This is a fun and somewhat messy craft, but far less messy than the alternative methods for tie dyeing clothes. You use pieces of bleeding tissue paper and a spray bottle to make colorful patterns on a white teeshirt. You can read full details on the Artful Parent blog. This would make a great take home craft following the party, especially for older kids.

Rainbow “Group” Photo

In the invitation to the party, the guests are being encouraged to dress in vibrant colors, a single color even better. My goal is to get a photo of each child against a white background, which I then plan to stitch together in Photoshop in color spectrum order. If it works out, the final image is going to be 100 kinds of awesome. If not, all of the bright colors will still make for a bright a cheery scene and plenty of great snapshots.

Guess How Many

A great excuse to pile hundreds of colorful gum balls, M&M’s, and skittles in glass jars. This will primarily be for the older kids and adults. They will each get a chance to guess how many of each candy are in the jars and the closest will win a prize. The colorful candy will also make great decoration.

Birthday Party Planning: Menu

This is the first in a series of posts about the planning and execution of my daughter’s third birthday party. You can read all of the posts in this series here.

Image courtesy of the amazing Whisk Kid

I want the food to be colorful and to reinforce the color spectrum party theme. In the past I’ve focused mostly on things for the adults to eat, because toddlers aren’t known for their voracious appetites. For her first birthdays I packed lunch bags with gourmet sandwiches and an orzo pasta salad. Last year I made homemade sliders on homemade buns. But this year, since Lyra will be turning three, and I expect to have more children at her party, I’m considering some more kid-friendly meal options.

I‘m planning to execute a combination of these ideas, not necessarily all of them.

Idea 1: Rainbow Jam Sandwich Bar

• fresh bread slices cut into crustless quarters or rounds
• peanut butter
• cream cheese
• a collection of jams (mostly homemade)
  • red—strawberry
  • orange—apricot
  • yellow—honey
  • green—(not sure—not many green fruits)
  • blue—blueberry
  • indigo—grape
  • violet—blackberry
• chilled milk in glass bottles
• paper straws
• chocolate syrup
• homemade chocolate chip cookies
• colored popcorn

Idea 2: Rainbow Fruit and Salad Bar

• a series of narrow platters spanning the width of
  the buffet table with cut up fruit in all shades
• a similar concept with vegetables, but cut up and put
  into small bowls
• a large garden salad
• homemade dressings
• diced grilled chicken
• slice grilled skirt steak
• homemade savory and sweet scones

Idea 3: Southern Barbecue Picnic

• most likely combined with idea 1, but for the moaning
  pleasure of the grownups
• slow cooker pulled pork
• homemade soft rolls
• homemade coleslaw
• mom’s homemade potato salad
• potato chips
• lemonade

Idea 4: Rainbow Dessert or Candy Bar

Like this, minus the Sesame Street characters.

Image from hostess With the Mostess

Idea 5: Rainbow Beverage Bar

Inexpensive and Easy: Magic Drinks from iVillage

Creative and Time Intensive: Sodas with Custom Labels from 100 Layer Cake

Gorgeous and Possibly Expensive: Old Fashioned Soda Bar from Jordan Ferney