My March Madness

It happens every year on March 17th...both of my sons' birthday (this year my oldest is turning 8 and my little guy will be 6). So why I didn't start planning their parties until the last week of February escapes me! Typically I start party planning right after Christmas so I won't be completely stressed out come March. However, the threat of madness somehow wasn't enough of a deterrent for me to start planning early - hence the reason I'm a little scary to be around right now.

My first big task was to convince my boys to have one big party versus individual parties like last year. It took about 1.2 seconds for that idea to get shot down. My oldest son had already decided to have a painting themed party and my youngest was dead set on having a cooking party. Score: Kids-1, Mom-0. Fortunately after a few hours of research, I was able to locate and book venues for both parties.

Next task - invitations. I believe that invitations set the tone for a party, so I always like to create something that will get the kids excited for the main event. I came across a ton of ideas on the Internet for invitations. With the little time I had I combined some of those ideas and came up with the following invitations.

For the painting party...a watercolor set. Here's the front of the invitation:

and here's the back with the details of the party...

For the cooking party...a recipe card.

I found the most adorable little oven mitts in the dollar section at Michael's craft store that served as envelopes for the invitations.

I finished off the invitation by putting each child's name on the pot holder...

I haven't planned any other details yet (food, cake, decorations, etc), so I should be good and crazy by the end of next week - pray for me!

A Tale of Two Birthdays - The Invitations

I have two wonderful little boys who were both born on St. Patrick's Day - two years apart. For the past few years they have been thrilled with having a joint birthday party, but that all changed about a month ago (*sigh*). I knew this was coming, I just didn't think it would happen so soon! So I've spent the last three weeks planning two separate parties for my newly emancipated birthday boys.

My oldest son is turning 7 and decided on a baseball-themed party since he is obsessed with the sport. I immediately knew that I wanted the invitations to have the same look as this invitation I made for a baby shower earlier this year. Here is the baseball jersey version...


Ironically I put myself in the exact same situation as I did with the baby shower invite by underestimating the amount of time needed to complete them - I guess I'll learn on the next go around. So, I again modified the original design for the sake of time. Here's the result...


My youngest son is turning 5 and chose a dinosaur theme for his party. He has never had the chance to experience his very own birthday party, so I'm going all out for this one. I came across a fantastic dinosaur party that was thrown by invitation designer Jill Smith. She created an amazing invitation that I attempted to recreate for my son's bash. Here's my version...


Both parties are happening next weekend, so look for more pics coming soon!