Butterfly Party - Food table!

The party is this Saturday - yay! Finally I get to put all the butterfly goodies, that are piling up in my sewing room, together and enjoy! With just a few days to go it's time to start getting serious about party food. As I mentioned before this party is just afternoon tea so no major operation has to happen to get everyone fed an entire meal but a selection of fun party food is a must I think.
There are party food favourites that can be tweaked a little to tie in with the butterfly theme. Starting with good old Fairy Bread. Make it as usual then using a butterfly shaped cookie cutter cut out a shape and add a must stick down the centre - easy!


And what about coloured popcorn? it's always a hit with kids so I just needed a fun butterfly way to serve it. With some basic clear plastic cups and a butterfly cupcake wrapper placed inside the kids have a little serve of fun popcorn that looks good too.


I'm also thinking I could make a bundle of THESE simple but cute butterfly cookies.


There are a few other sweet treats I will put together on Friday that will complete the afternoon tea menu.
For 'dressing' the table I have made a table skirt from the butterfly fabric the theme & colour choice.


Then the table top with have a selection of white platters (a little trick I have learnt along my party planning loving way is to use scrap booking paper in the colour/theme/pattern of your theme, between your platters and food. It gives the table a nice cohesive look & is super easy!). I also have a set of these cute butterfly dishes in white from Pink Frosting that will hold a selection of treats to munch.


Juice & water will be available for the kids to drink and I will get to use my new glass drink dispenser from Lily Chis Events (yay). All the food will have custom made labels thanks to Occasion By Design.


To make life easy for the end of the party I have gone for just serviettes for eating - it's all little finger food anyway and have also a bunch of the matching paper cups. I chose these ones as they match the theme and colours the best.

Then there is, of course, the cake! Yes, it will be a butterfly and yes, it was chosen by the birthday girl - I'll leave it a surprise for now but your clue is: It's from one of the Australian Women's Weekly kids cake books.....

Butterfly Party - Invitation: Part 2!

Step 1 of the invitations for Milla's Butterfly Party posted HERE was lots of fun and super easy so now to tell you about step 2 of the process... getting that photo and the party info to come together!!

I like the idea of having a little fun with the words on an invitation, it's a great way to get the guests in the mood for the day. So while blow drying my hair one morning (that's when I seem to come up with all my ideas) I played around with some butterfly words and the party details and came up with the following for the invitation....

My oh my,
we'd love you to flutter on by.
To celebrate with the little caterpillar,
who is now 4 year old butterfly Milla!

Join us for afternoon tea on
Saturday 3rd Dec at the butterfly nest
address
From 1:30 - 3:30 for fluttering butterfly fun!

I know, I know, total win with Milla rhyming with Caterpillar!!

So then off to Etsy I went on the hunt for someone, much better with graphic design than me, to turn all these bits into a pretty invite. I fell in love with THESE Butterfly Number invitations from Luna Petunia Designs and grabbed them right away. Denise, who is the clever one behind Luna Petunia Designs, was absolutely wonderful with the designing - I just emailed her the photo and the wording, told her our colour theme and away she went - I'm thrilled with the result and Milla thinks they are rather fabulous too - what do you think??

Butterfly Party Plans... the beginning!

Hooray for party planning - you all know I LOVE it!!
The birthday season for our family is rolling around again and with my kids getting a bit older I have been pushed out of the decision role for choosing a theme... This year Milla asked for a butterfly party for her 4th birthday (my little party planner informed me of this months ago) So here we go, this is the first of my butterfly party planning posts! Yay!
With the theme under control where to next? The colour scheme.
I find it really easy to find a theme then a colour combo to base everything from when planning. After a little hunting around for some fun butterfly fabric we (I say 'we' because I am determined to let Milla be in on all the planning and creating bits and pieces) settled on this ' Sacha in Pink' by Kumari Garden


Cute hey? a bunch of summery bright colours - red, pinks, orange, lime green, yellow - perfect for a November party!
I have bought a bunch of this fabric and some of it's coordinating fabrics and will turn it into a table cloth/runner, some bunting (of course) and other ides I have brewing away ;)

Speaking of ideas, these are just some of the inspiration I have found online while searching.... this is going to be fun!!


Any other butterfly ideas I should know about?? I'd love to see

Butterfly Party Pics!

Afternoon tea was a yummy selection of treats with labels from Occasion By Design.




How ca-ute is my glass drink dispenser from Shoppe With Lily! - LOVE it!





We had all kinds of butterflies fluttering for decoration including some very sweet paper ones from Coco & Chloe



Remember I told you I had made bunting for the party but it would be used in a more 'un-traditional' way??... Anyone for a game of Butterfly Badminton? With a bunting banner net, butterfly net bats and balloons for balls all the kids (big and small) had a play!



We had a few laughs with a butterfly Pinata too (that's me in the white shirt freaking out about getting hit with the bat!)


Happy Birthday was sung to the birthday girl before she blew out the candle on her butterfly cake and she tells me that she had 'the best party ever!'


Happy Birthday Miss Milla, we love you LOTS!

Butterfly Party - Paper Butterfly Garlands!

Butterflies are floating through my mind permanently at the moment with Milla's butterfly themed 4th birthday next month so I have started to make some decorations - Yay!

I bought this gorgeous Martha Stewart butterfly craft punch on eBay


and some scrap booking paper in the colour palette of the party


then, with Milla's help we 'punched' butterflies until we ran out of the paper.


I mixed them with THESE cuties I bought from One Crafty Mumma & have started to make paper butterfly garlands.
They are so simple to make - just run a little cotton through your sewing machine first (so you have something to tie them to where they'll hang from with) then feed the butterflies through like you would fabric. I did them in no order or pattern and did some doubled up so I can then fold the wings away from each other to make them look as though they are flapping.


Excuse the terrible dark sewing room photo but I'm rather pleased so far, what do you think? I have more to make and plan to hang them everywhere on the party day to mimic butterflies fluttering around our yard.

Butterfly Party - Invitation: Part 1!

Now before we go too much further into party plans for Milla's 4th Butterfly Birthday we need to think about invitations of course.

I wanted something fun & simple but something that passes on the butterfly feel to guests and most importantly an invitation that Milla can help me create - thinking caps were on!! Then I saw a THIS via Pinterest (seriously, I LOVE Pinterest) and just knew we would be able to do our version of the fun photo then turn it into an invitation somehow.

So with 2 packs of sidewalk chalk (the thick stuff not the regular thin chalk that breaks every time you try to use it) and a patch of concrete, Milla and I got to drawing HUGE butterfly wings together. We didn't worry too much about making them perfect we just had fun and made them a good size so once Milla was lying down between them they looked in proportion.


Then with me standing on a chair so I could get all of the newly coloured wings and Milla in the photo I just snapped away while Milla had a giggle - so much fun!! These are just some of the pics I managed to get... And of course Harris wanted a turn too.


I think this is the one that we'll go with for the invitation... I'll show you it once it's all finished ;)

Butterfly Party - Number Wreath!

If you have been a long time reader here you'll know I like a good wreath or similar hanging on the front door to welcome guests. Remember my Rainbow Ribbon Wreath, Thong Wreath from Australia Day, Halloween Wreath and the Soccer flag I made for Harris' last b'day?... For Milla's Butterfly Party in a few weeks I wanted something fun, butterfly-ish but also really like the idea of the Number Wreaths I've seen around - so with my hot glue gun at the ready I got crafting.


Onto an old cardboard box I free hand drew the number 4. I then cut it out and used it as my template to cut out another four the same and hot glued them all together just to make it nice and strong.



Then did the same again onto scrapbooking paper in a colour to match the party and glued it to the top of the number (if you were keen you could go around and put paper on all the sides too but I figure no one will see there so I didn't bother)


Once that was all dry I took my three sizes of butterfly cut outs I had left over from the other little projects from this party and folded them all in half down the body so the wings look like they are fluttering. Starting with the largest size paper butterflies I hot glue gunned just the body (let the wings stand) sporadically all over the number.


Next I took my middle sized paper butterflies and glued away.


Then lastly filled in all the little gaps with my tiny paper butterflies.



With a ribbon attached to the back it's all ready to hang - Yay!

Butterfly Party - Butterfly Straws!

I know straws aren't *needed* for a party but almost all kids like a fun straw to sip their drink from and these are such a cute and super easy way to continue a theme for a party into the table ware I had to have a play and thought you might like to know how to do it.

YOU'LL NEED:
* Straws - plastic, paper, stainless steel, striped, spotty, white, coloured - whatever you have or can get your hands on or suits your theme is perfect.
* Scissors
* Paper shape - in my case butterflies but you could do cars, hearts, rainbow, a letter or number... anything to match your theme.
NOTE: I bought my shapes from HERE all pre cut and in the colours I wanted to make life super easy. But if you want you can buy a craft punch the shape you want and some scrap booking paper in the colours/patterns you need and make the shapes yourself.


Step 1.
Take your shape and fold in half.


Step 2.
With your scissors snip two little slits across the fold into the shape. They should be approx half an inch apart depending on your shape size.


Step 3.
Unfold shape and insert your straw though the two slits so the shape is held in place on the straw.

Back:


Front:


Told you is was easy!!



And cute too!!