Winter Wonderland Birthday Party

My youngest turned two in early January, and although we live in a snow-free climate, I wanted to celebrate the season with an all-white Winter Wonderland Birthday Party.

We planned to host twenty children and their parents at Gorgeous Millie, which is home to our daughter's teacher-led playgroup.  It's a beautiful space filled with quality toys and sensory experiences for toddlers, and the staff undertakes most of the clean-up, making for a very low-stress party venue.  I vowed to keep this party simple, especially after the previous month's holiday tea effort.  So, I booked our favorite face painter and children's musician to entertain the young guests, and did nothing else until three days before the party.

And that's when my plan for simplicity failed miserably.  Panicky about my lack of advance planning, I turned to Pinterest for help.  After pinning no less than seventy beautiful, wonderland-y images, I got to work.  First, I attempted to make these darling snowman macarons.  I love French macarons and had wanted to learn how to make them myself --- what better reason than my daughter's birthday? So, I spent a small fortune on ingredients and started mixing and piping.  Turns out that patient piping is not my strong suit, and my decorating ability is even worse.  The result: utter pinstrosity.  They tasted really good -- the recipe is definitely worth repeating -- but they weren't exactly recognizable as snowmen and weren't presentable to the public:

Snowman Macarons, pre-filling

  
Next effort: the cute Snowman Milk Bottles featured all over the blogosphere (like here, here, and here).  I easily procured the bottles (store-brand light mocha frappuccinos) and craft supplies, managed to burn myself only twice while hot-gluing the buttons onto the glass, and got my husband to drive to another county to purchase powdered donut holes (which surprisingly are not sold anywhere in my rather large city).  Things were looking good, until I tried to insert the straws into the donut holes.  Not one of the online tutorials had bothered to mention how difficult this is!  The straws fill up with donut residue, and the donuts crumble.  My end result looked garish and gave the other parents a good laugh, but luckily, my primary audience of two-year-olds was easily charmed.  :)

Less than ten minutes before the party started, everything finally came together.  The Gorgeous Millie staff had decorated the space with an arctic animal playscape, large hanging snowflakes, and white balloons; the setting was ready.  

I covered the children's dining table with snowy white fleece, big glittery snowflakes, and winter animal figurines from Pottery Barn.

The food table featured all-white, kid-friendly foods.  Tall ornamented apothecary jars housed fresh popcorn, powdered donuts, and fluffy marshmallows.  Homemade cupcakes were adorned with edible silver snowflakes and white pearls.  Silver snowflakes topped vanilla and salted caramel cake balls.  Handmade snowflake sugar cookies took center stage. A snowman cheese ball provided a savory break from the sweets.   Mercury glass ice skates, polar bears, and owls completed the tablescape.

In addition to milk, coffee, bottled water, and prosecco, we offered a hot cocoa bar.  I made a slow cooker's worth of Ghiradelli hot chocolate, and guests chose from toppings including mini-marshmallows, caramel chips, white chocolate chips, whipped cream, and peppermint.  The hot cocoa was a hit, even on a warm Texas winter day.  

Unfortunately, we didn't get a good close-up of my favorite detail from the cocoa bar: these adorable printed wooden spoons from Garnish, which said "Happy Day":

via

Alecia, from Doodle Arts, arrived, and started transforming the children:

And Mr. Will, a staple in the life of every Austin child, mixed "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Frosty the Snowman"into his musical repertoire.  

Craft tables with easy make-your-own snowmen and snowglobe kits kept the little hands busy.

And favors were simple: Each family received a package of homemade snow-dough (non-toxic playdough) and a choice of one of these books:

We also donated 20 pairs of mittens and hats to a local children's charity; the number 20 seemed right as it represented not only the number of our party guests, but also #20actsofkindness just three weeks after Newtown.  

Ultimately, our birthday girl had a blast, and we loved celebrating her joyful life.  :-)

Many thanks to these wonderful vendors:

Sugar Cookies: One Classy Cookie
Cake Balls: Austin Cake Ball
Edible Paper Snowflake Cupcake Toppers: Sweet DejaVu
Paper straws, printed spoons, and hot cocoa cups: Garnish


(Sharing with Between Naps on the Porch, Celebrations at Home, Savvy Southern Style, Tip Junkie and Homemaker on a Dime)

In the Land of Sweets: 2012 Mother-Daughter Holiday Tea Party

In December, we hosted our annual Mother-Daughter Holiday Tea Party.  As my daughters grow and become more involved in school and extra-curriculars, their social circles expand as well.  Our confirmed guest list thus included more than 90 friends who joined us for tea, sweets, and merriment. After the fun we had at our 2010 and 2011 tea parties, my three girls were so excited to help me plan our 2012 edition.

Animated by my daughters’ love of The Nutcracker Ballet, I chose a Sugar Plum Fairy theme in colors of purple and pink for the day.  This allowed both a fantastical exploration of The Land of Sweets, and an economical re-use of purple decor from previous parties like this one.

Of course, I was inspired by the beautiful party stylings of Kate Landers, Loralee Lewis, and Icing Designs, but I had to maintain a reality check: I was executing a party for dozens of real girls and their mothers and not styling a photo shoot for eight guests.  :)  Thus, compromises had to be made.  But ultimately, my months of planning, pinning, and preparation produced a memorable party that was aesthetically pleasing in-person, but more importantly, fabulously fun for my girls and their sweet friends.

Icing Designs created these gorgeous, hand-glittered invitations, which set the tone for the festivities:

Here's a close-up of the glittery Sugar Plum Fairy detail:

The day of the party, my older daughters were full of anticipation (their little sister napped):

(Yes, Middle Daughter wore two different dresses.  Why not? :)

Meanwhile, I created three tablescapes: Our large kitchen island hosted a savory vegetarian buffet: tea sandwiches, scones, souffles, quiche, cheese, vegetables, and fruit.  The dining room table, draped in purple velvet, became The Land of the Sweets, with cupcakes, cookies, truffles, petit fours, pastries, macarons, and cake balls.  And a third table, in glittery, snowy white fleece, showcased the purple and pink candy buffet, which is one of our tea party's annual traditions.  We also served four kinds of tea, hot cocoa, and wine for the mamas (which was increasingly consumed as the kiddos' sugar highs kicked in and the noise volume rose ;)

On the sweets table, there was no shortage of glitter, sugar, or fake snow:

Some of my favorite details included the beautiful chocolate-dipped oreos with lavender-colored white chocolate ballet shoes from Sweeties by Kim.  I order her oreos for every one of my children's parties; they've become "a must have" for us. Each cookie rested in a "candy cone" we made, thanks to some inspiration and a template.  

Kim also made the oreos with glittery pink snowflakes:

I also loved the yummy hazelnut truffle mice from Moonstruck Chocolate.  They were gorgeous, perched on sugary snow, and the children gobbled them up:

The fondant ballet tutu cupcake toppers from Sweet DejaVu were really lovely, too:

I never host a party without Austin Cake Balls.  These mouth-watering red velvet and vanilla bean cake balls featured four silver snowflake designs.

The candy buffet was a huge hit; I ordered almost everything from Candy Warehouse; Icing Designs made the hand-glittered glassine treat bags which read "Sugar Plum Sweets":

The girls also colored Nutcracker puppets, with the help of free online printables.

Eventually, the girls stopped eating and escaped outdoors to run around the backyard in their party dresses.  They played kickball, swung on the tree swing, and looked for any fairies still lingering from my daughters' woodland fairy birthday party last summer.  :)

At the end of the party, each girl left with a festively wrapped package, tied with a satin ribbon and adorned with a hand-glittered card from Icing Designs.  

Inside the packages were Nutcracker dolls and wooden ballerina ornaments for the littlest girls, and, for the six-and-up crowd, these Sugar Plum Fairy stocking stuffers from Philosophy:

Happy guests, happy daughters, happy mama, happy day.  And despite the remnants of fake snow I'm still finding four months later, it was a perfect way to celebrate the holiday season.  

(Sharing with Celebrations at Home, Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch, Taterots and Jello, I Heart Naptime, Serenity Now, Your Home Based Mom, Ladybird Lane, Savvy Southern Style, Seven Thirty Three, Fidlers Under One Roof, and Strut Your Stuff Saturdays at Six Sisters' Stuff)