Gabe's 2nd Birthday Party Plans!

You know that old saying about the cobbler's son having no shoes? Well, for awhile there, it was looking like the party planner's son would have no party. Well not really no party. Just one that wouldn't be insane. And by insane, I mean one with elaborate etsy decorations and $3 each decorated sugar cookies and all of the other elements that the internet tells us we must have (and that I really do love). Now listen, I try not to get caught up in all of the must-haves-because-everyone-else-does because I am most definitely on a serious budget. And it's that mediocre budget that kind of put the damper on my party planning excitement. Like the most perfect of all time midnight blue macarons that I found online but could never justify buying.  So it'll be craft closet-raiding and homemade baking. I know, things could be worse ;)

But the party is an opportunity to show people (potential clients) what I can do, so I have to go as all out as I possibly can without going insane and spending our monthly grocery budget on this thing. So I bucked up and told myself to get creative. So hopefully that's what I've been doing. Gabe turns 2 on the 18th so I've got less than 2 weeks to make the magic happen.

In the meantime, I wanted to share the custom made invitations I had made. Pretty sure you all know my great affection for paper products so doing anything less than pretty paper invitations is not gonna happen. I had a very specific idea in my head of what I wanted the invite to look like so it's no surprise that I couldn't find anything pre-made. I found Amanda of Paper Cut Couture on Etsy and chose her based on loving her style and her pricing. Plus, she was nice enough to work out a deal with me for featuring her on the old blog here. 

We went back and forth, with her changing everything up based on my every whim, even drawing out Gabe's silhouette based on a picture. She never once sounded annoyed, or even short, in her emails when I asked for the 345th change. She helped me pick the perfect pearlescent paper to have them printed on too.  She was simply fantastic and I really hope to use her again and recommend her to my Bottle Pop clients. Oh and the theme? It's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It's the perfect theme for my sweet little dude, who I can only imagine will request something involving cars next year.

Here's some instagrams of stuff I've been working on...

L to R Hand-Cut Banners,Constellation Embroidery

 One pound of blue glitter. POUND., Color Scheme: Navy, Sunflower, Mint and Gold,Favor Bags,

Favor Bags and Invitation Admiring/Critiquing

Oh, do you guys (with kids) watch Sprout? It gets less play time in our house during the summer but there was no way I was missing sending in a birthday card to the Sunny Side Up Show for Gabe's birthday. Remember when Gabe got to meet his girls Kelly and Chica? Well they show the birthday cards on the air and sing the birthday song every day. I'm hoping the amount of glitter I used doesn't make them hate me and take it out on Gabe by not showing it. John actually kept bugging me to get the card done and when I realized I almost passed the deadline, I hurried up last night to get this thing finished, hence the shitty pics. It's far less gaudy than the usual shit-show people send in but I wasn't wasting printer ink on more than one page of Thomas the Tank Engine pics. Meanwhile, Gabe's favorite Thomas character? Freakin Bertie the Bus. A freakin bus.

He will totally appreciate this one day, right? RIGHT?!?!?