This past weekend, we hosted a little get together with friends to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It was super sweet + super simple, and I love how it all turned out!

Because we hosted it after the actual holiday, the decor was all 50-60% off. Even the flowers were on sale. These particular flowers were from a local grocery store, but I do want to find another source for flowers grown locally.

I picked up these two wooden boxes last year. They look rustic but they have a plastic liner for flowers. At Christmas, I did two red floral arrangements using pine needles and pine cones for filler. I took these boxes out again for Valentine’s and stuffed them with pink + white flowers and a bit of eucalyptus which smelled so lovely!

For the guests, I put together a savoy and a sweet board. I was surprised at how many heart shaped things I found! Crackers, cookies and sour gummies!

We also did chocolate covered strawberries and apple roses. One year, my sister-in-law introduced me to these delicious apple roses. Ever since, I make them for the holidays. They are so easy + yummy and when I was trying to think what to have for the party, hubs suggested them. Roses + Valentine’s? Perfect!

It wasn’t just a party for the adults. Em’s friends came over to celebrate, too! We set up a craft table with Valentine’s stickers, note cards, glitter glue and all sorts of pink + red crafty things. The kids had so much fun creating!

For favors, there was a Valentine’s basket set out with pink “Love Me” scented glitter bath bombs for the guests to take upon their departure.

I had fun putting together this little party and celebrating with friends. I hope your heart holiday was a lovely one, too!

So much to catch up on! Em turned six last month. Surprise, it was a pony party! So we’ve got a pony party, our travels to Denver, Massachusetts, Dubai, Azerbaijan, and a Disney cruise to fill you in on. Plus, lots of letterpress including her invitations + paper goods for her party and lots and lots of custom home illustrated moving announcements.

The illustrations were really fun to work on. Kelp, seashells and bubbles! Oh my! Plus we hid a few mermaid specific illustrations. We chose a very soothing color palette reminiscent of sea glass and threw in a pop of vibrant orchid for the text.

How wonderful are these vintage stamps? Perfect for her underwater theme.

Like previous years, we handed out wish cards for our family to write their wishes for Em. This year, she really enjoyed reading them after the party.

And finally, the mermaid merci cards that we sent out post party to thank everyone for their thoughtful gifts and for celebrating with us.

And there you have it! Em’s mermaid invitations for her fifth birthday party.

And a mermaid party during April was a fun challenge. Public pools open at the end of May. We found an indoor pool option but I wasn’t sure we were prepared to chaperone twenty plus five-year-olds. Then, we discovered The Fish Gallery – a tropical fish store that also installs professional tanks. They have a party room and a gorgeous showroom. It was perfect.

The kids got to watch + participate in feeding the fish in the grand showroom tanks.

They toured the facility and got to touch starfish and little fish in the touch tanks. It was all wonderfully informative and the kids had such a fun time!

Afterwards, it was hand washing time. Then, lunch and birthday cake! 

Like previous years, the sandwiches and fruit came from a local grocery store as did the flowers. Continuing with the color scheme, we made a mint colored drink using lemonade and blue kool aid mix.

We got a small, inexpensive custom birthday cake from Whole Foods. It had layers of chocolate ganache on the inside. Mummm!

The cupcakes came from Hey Cupcake! and were part of The Fish Gallery’s party package. There were suppose to be all white. But, hey, kids love sprinkles! We letterpress printed mermaid + ocean characters and made cupcake toppers with them.

For party favors, we decided on these sweet mermaid and starfish cookies. They were incredibly good!

I found starfish + seahorse glasses at Homegoods. They were perfect to house the anchor forks and paper straws.

So that’s it! Em’s mermaid birthday bash. Thanks to everyone that was able to join us and celebrate her fifth birthday!

We look forward to sharing her birthday invitations with you, lovely readers. Be on the lookout!

This weekend, Em turned five! She wanted a mermaid theme, so we had a little undersea celebration. I’m looking forward to sharing her party + paper details with you!

Oh, happiest of birthdays to you – our sweet, silly, brave, bright, beautiful little girl!

Cookie favors from Truly Scrumptious Cookies.

Em takes dancing. She loves it and has made a few friends in dance class. And, it just so happens that many of her school friends also take dance classes. So, we decided to throw a ballet birthday party for Em!

Her ballet birthday was held at Ballet Austin. The set up was wonderful! In one, window-filled room there was food + cake.

Sandwiches, cupcakes and a small cake all came from a local grocery store. The flowers did too. I bought several types of flowers and arranged them the day before the party.

For the table decor, I painted some of the drink bottles we already had on hand. We placed a few small floral arrangements in them.

The vintage cupcake toppers we ordered never arrived. So, we improvised. We made these toppers using scraps from her invitations and glitter paper.

A real ballerina in a beautiful tutu brought the girls into a dance studio for a forty-five minute dance class.

After the class, the girls returned for refreshments and cake!

For the favors, we embellished hair bows with ballet buttons. Each girl received a bow and a bracelet inside a pretty gold polka dot bag.

So that’s it! Em’s ballet birthday party to celebrate turning four. A big thank you to all that were able to join us.

This year, we decided to throw a ballerina birthday bash for our little girl since she adores dancing.

We try to use her invitations as an opportunity to experiment with something new. Last year, we did a five color print job. This year, we lined the envelopes with custom letterpress printed paper.

We chose a soft pink Italian paper for her paper pieces and printed with black ink.

The silhouette is really Emily! I made it using an actual photo of her in fourth position. Fourth position for her fourth birthday. I love little details like this. So, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Again, like previous years, we had wish cards for guests to write their wishes for Emily. It was fun to read them together after the party.

Lastly, the thank you cards featured her silhouette to continue the theme.

So, here they are. Em’s letterpress printed invitations + paper pieces for her ballerina birthday bash!

Our little Em turned four. This weekend we celebrated with a ballerina birthday bash. Can’t wait to share her invites + party with you!

Since the space was already so lovely, we kept decorations very simple + minimal. I ordered 3 huge balloons from here. The white vases were a mix of from Ikea and Goodwill. Like previous years, I just picked up flowers the day before the party at a local grocery store and put them together. To follow the rainbow theme, I made sure to get flowers in all of these colors – pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. The glittery little fairies are from The Disney Store.

The birthday cake came from Whole Foods. It had layers of chocolate ganache on the inside and we asked for the outside to be completely white. At home, I decorated it with multicolored sprinkles I found in the Easter aisle at Target. These are the twisted candles we used. For the cake topper, I made her name out of the heaviest gold wire I could find from the craft store.

Just like the previous two years, we picked up tasty macarons from a local bakery called La Pâtisserie.

In addition to the macarons + cake, we picked up a fruit tray and a couple of sandwich trays from a local grocery store. We wanted to keep the food simple and easy.

We offered water and lemonade to the guests. For the lemonade, we used organic lemonade we picked up from Central Market and infused it with strawberries and lemon slices. This is the drink dispenser we used. It holds 3 gallons and we had to refill it during the party.

The glass bottles are actually Starbucks coffee drink bottles. We’ve used them the last two years so peeling off all those labels was an excellent investment time-wise! I ordered the striped paper straws from two different Etsy shops – here and here.

The party space, Gorgeous Millie, provided lots of dress up clothes options including hats, princess dresses and a few colorful fairy wings. We also brought additional tutus + white fairy wings for the children.

Em’s custom party hat came from the same Etsy seller we used last year.

Instead of buying a piñata, I tried my hand at making one using these instructions + these instructions. I wish I would have taken more time on it and added more layers. This is where I bought the crepe paper. I also added iridescent mylar sheets that I picked up in the gift wrapping aisle at a party store. If you’re going to make one, I highly recommend getting these fringe scissors. I added a removable bottom which I fastened out of cardboard since I filled the piñata with heavy party favors instead of confetti. I poked holes through the cardboard bottom and strung through pull stings made from iridescent curling ribbon. One strand of ribbon was tied securely and was the one that opened up the piñata.

The favors all came from Party City with the exception of the poppers that I bought online which turned out to be duds and rainbow circle stickers I found at Target. The kids gathered all of their goodies in super cute gold polka dot muslin bags I found on Etsy.

And, there you have it! The makings of Em’s third birthday party.

Em loves Tinkerbell and all of her friends. So, we decided on a loose fairy/pixie theme for her party this year.

And, after noticing that the Disney fairies combined make up the colors of the rainbow, I knew we had found our color palette for her party.

We rented out a space for her party and invited all of Em’s classmates and a few friends from her dancing class. The place we chose is actually a space for co-op playgroups. It turned out to be a great choice. Not only was the facility gorgeous, it was fully set up for kids under the age of four.

There were different areas for the kids to do all sorts of things like play dress up which they loved!

As promised, there were fairy wings for all of the children to put on.

And there were magical things like a pull string pinata…

that unloaded lots of sparkly treats for the kids…

including pirate ships + gold doubloons.

Her pixie party was a big success and so much fun to plan! A hearty thank you to everyone who came to her party + celebrated with us. We’re so lucky to have you in our lives!

I plan to do a follow up post featuring links on where we got everything to make her pixie party come together. If there is anything you are curious about, please leave a comment!