For my first born Ridha Zaynab’s second birthday party, I couldn’t help but put her favorite bedtime story into a beautiful theme for her party. Ridha has been obsessed with reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, every night. Every. Night. For the past year, we have religiously read this story, so much that I have every word memorized, as does she. So naturally, when I was pondering over the theme of her birthday, I kept coming back to this story. And luckily, with the help of craft stores and etsy, and just a little imagination, I was able to bring some fairytale magic into my daughter’s birthday.
The color scheme for the party was a pale blue and lavender, which was inspired by the birthday girl’s dress which I had bought at Macy’s in December, because there’s such a wide variety of holiday dresses readily available. Ridha’s dress was an ivory frock, with beautiful embroidered blue and lavender flowers and tulle at the bottom. I ordered a beautiful customized floral pin with the same colors on Etsy to match her dress.
After the color scheme and fairytale theme were decided, it was pretty much a few trips to Michaels and Hobby Lobby for the finishing touches of decor. I was able to find a little bird house in the shape of a home to mimic the story of the three bears home. And the miniature bears, chair and table set I found in the dollhouse section of Hobby Lobby. I really like to label the food, just for people who like to know. So I found mini ‘R’ lettered place holders, which are great for food labels. The final photo pictures a sign board that I found at Hobby Lobby, which I used to hang up the schedule for the party as well as an excerpt from the story, to give guests a clue of the theme. Most people got it!
For the cake, I did keep it pretty simple with a red velvet one tier cake, in the same pale blue and lavender colors with rainbow sprinkles along the edges. We also had beautiful bear themed cake pops as well as cupcakes and chocolate strawberries. All the desserts were done by Sweet Accents by Farva located in Pennington, NJ. Everything was delicious and very reasonably priced.
For the party favors, I decided to give a tiny jar of honey along with a small plush teddy bear. It really was the cutest thing, unfortunately I never photographed the final product. I ordered the jars of honey through Beau-coup, and personalized the labels to say the date of the party. The teddy bears I ordered in bulk from Factory Direct Craft, for a very good price. So in total, each favor cost me about $7.00 each.
They say if the food is good at a party, then nothing else really matters. And they are right! The food really was amazing at this party, because A. It was a small amount of people, just 50 people. Food always tastes better when it is cooked in less quantity. And B. it was fresh, middle eastern food. We catered from Sahara Restaurant in New Brunswick, NJ. The menu consisted of mixed grilled meats, rice pilaf, falafels and all the cold appetizers like baba ganoush, hummus and sheperd salad. It’s always a good idea to keep to-go boxes from the dollar store, because if you end up having leftover food, best to just give it away to guests at the end of the night.
The key to planning a party is just that, planning it. I love to make a master list of everything I need in my Notes app, that way I can always add to it on my macbook laptop and access it through my iphone. Listing out the number of guests, items needed to purchase, menu, etc. helps me to keep track of everything as well as easily calculate my spending so I stay somewhat close to my budget.
It was a very enjoyable evening, with close family and friends and of course celebrating my daughter entering her terrible 2’s was just the cherry on top of the cake. I still can’t believe I’ve been at this mom thing for two years and counting, but loving every minute.
Sweet Dreamer 