Party Planning 101

| This post was published in cooperation with Paperless Post |

It's no secret I love planning themed birthday parties for my kids. It's not something I ever thought I'd do, and much to my husbands dismay, it's something I seriously enjoy doing! It takes a lot of hands on work, and frugal penny pinching, but the creativity behind planning a party to fit each child's current fave fad, and doing it with them is a lot of fun. 

Whether your throwing an indoor or backyard bash, with a few balloons and streamers, or bringing in the circus tent, today I have for you some tricks of the trade to make it all come together! Hopefully these tips will help keep you on budget, remind you why your throwing this party, and minimize the stress that can come when creating an amazing celebration. 

1. To Theme or Not To Theme? If your first reaction is that a themed party is going to rob you of every penny you own, stop, this is a myth. If you can't afford the marching band, blow up castles, and real life puppy party favors, then like me the dollarstores will be your best friend! You can be as elaborate as you want by doing things yourself, or just picking a theme that the dollarstore carries (princess, sports, Hawaiian, a specific color scheme...). Key point to remember is: know your limit, play within it! 

2. Remember Who Your Celebrating! This party is not about you, put your party planning dreams as aspirations aside for a moment and ask your child what they want. You may be surprised with the idea they come up with and getting them involved adds a whole new level of excitement for their special day. Rylee has picked her last two parties, a princess theme and a royal tea party, and Zach went with Paw Patrol on his third birthday. If your kids aren't old enough to verbalize an idea, go with what they are currently loving or something that you see in them that you want to showcase.

3. It's NEVER Too Early To Plan. Birthdays sneak up on you, if you can plan ahead of time this will be your saving grace! Especially if your a DIY'er! This doesn't mean you have to pick a date, but simply pick your theme, get your pinterest idea board going, and get a head start on some of those time consuming crafts (like a homemade pinata, princess crowns, or party games). Having your idea in your head may save you money too, you never know when you might come across some amazing clearance sale that fits your theme perfectly... and it gives you time to comparison shop while your just going about your regular day to day shopping.

4. Timing is Everything. Choosing what time of day is crucial for a fun filled celebration. Think about your child's nap times, schedule around it, the worst thing you can do is not take their needs into consideration... this correlates with remembering who your celebrating! Birthday Party's are overwhelming to begin with for little people, they are the center of attention, and the last thing you want is them to be throwing the worst kind of temper tantrum because grandma so and so got them the wrong color thingamajig! These episodes can theoretically be avoided with keeping their regular feeding and sleeping schedules in place! 

5. Picking a Date. This is my least favourite thing to do, its hard to find a day that works for everyone. But before making your invitations set in stone be sure to check with those essential guests (whether its that favourite aunt, grandparent, or best friend), you want to do your best to pick a day and time that those important people can be there.

6. Invitations! This is one of my favorite things to do. I have made them myself, I've ordered cards online, and most recently I've teamed up with Paperless Post to create a more eco-friendly alternative to party invitations by going digital for Adelyne's upcoming second birthday! Going digital is definitely more cost effective and in this technology run day and age your going to get a quicker response from people whether they can make it or not. Paperless Post has so many options to choose from and are super easy to customize, it literally took me less than an hour to completely make their "Tropicale" invite fit our "Twotti Fruitti" theme. And bonus, if your not ready to jump full on into the digital world of invites, you still have the option of ordering them to hand out or stick in the mail. And I just have to say my inner party planning nerd LOVES the matching envelope liners... these little pineapples + palms kill me!

| I received free product as compensation for this review. In no way are my words altered, all opinions are 100% my own|

DIY : Allstar Baseball Party

Last weekend we threw an all star baseball party for Zachery's second birthday! It was a whole lot of fun and so fitting for our little sports lover.

If there are any other little baseball lovers out there with summer birthdays than this is the theme for you! We however just had to make the best of the indoors with our dreary January weather. Regardless of indoor/outdoor this theme was actually very simple to put together, which is handy if your life is like mine...FULL!

So first things first Rylee and I made a baseball piñata... think batting practice! This was a fun craft for her and me and it was cool to be able to teach her how to paper mache for the very first time! If you've never paper mache'd before, its super easy you just need to allow for drying time (however a blow dryer does wonders if your in a pinch). All you need is old newspaper or scrap paper (cut in 1 in. wide strips), a balloon, flour and water (mix smooth 1 to 1 ratio). Blow up your balloon, dip your strips in flour paste and apply to balloon overlapping a bit and leaving a hole at the top of balloon to add candy's. Let dry for 24hrs. I tied string around the balloon so that it could be hung later on and then put another layer on. Let dry 24 hrs. Pop balloon and pull it out. Insert Candy. Apply two layers over hole (allowing time to dry in between layers). Apply third layer with plain white paper strips. Paint white and allow to dry. Paint red stitches and allow to dry. And just like that your done!

In addition to the piñata we also played "Pin the Ball on the Bat". I just cut out some cardboard in the shape of a bat and printed out some baseballs and attached some scotch tape to the back to make them stick (obviously :P).

Next thing I made was the concession flag to hang over the snacks. I just used white cardstock for the flags. And I downloaded this baseball worthy font, and printed out the letters to trace onto red cardstock, cut them out and glue them to the white flags. A fun little thing we did for the kids was give them tickets that they could buy their own snacks from the concession. For additional decorations I used red sharpie to draw stitching on white balloons to make baseballs and hung them from the ceiling. I also used the kids baseball gloves as some added décor in the concession stand.

For food we went with the baseball classic, hot dogs, how can you not?! Then we had Baby Babe Ruth chocolate bars which I found at Walmart. We had snack size chips and popcorn (which could easily be substituted with Cracker Jacks...I wanted to but just didn't have time to make it). For drinks we had lemonade and last but not least the birthday cup"cake" was in the form of a baseball glove (with a HORRIBLE marshmallow baseball... definitely a Pinterest fail right there!).

**Some extra ideas for a summer party would be a slip 'n' slide for sliding practice, a board with cut outs for some good ol' pitching practice, and don't forget to pull out the BBQ for them hot dogs!