Planning a Party {Child Party Decorations}

When deciding on a theme for my son's 2nd birthday party I came to the conclusion that I couldn't fight a Sesame Street party. His love for the show at the time I started planning was amazing. He'd wake up demanding Sesame Street or Elmo. It was amazing how fast he caught on to the whole thing! Next thing I know he could tell you the name of every character on the show. Then he started actually LEARNING from the show! At 18-20 months he could tell you what bug you were looking at. He said "Grasshopper!" when he spotted one in our front yard. And let me tell you... that was the cutest word he'd said thus far.

So I started planning my Sesame Street party. I looked around at different ideas on websites and Etsy and decided what I wanted to do. I wanted the decor to highlight my son's two favorite characters, Elmo and Cookie Monster. So I started with reds and blues for the color palate. Than I decided to throw in some yellows as well to round out the primary colors. Perfect for a two year old, right?

I found an adorable balloon wreath tutorial over on How Does She. The wreath was super simple to make and I can now reuse it every year for the kids parties. I can even change out the balloons for different colors if needed. And I love the sign that Adrienne made to fill the hole in the middle of the wreath. It left such a personalized feel to the end product.

I saw some cute Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes all over the internet so I decided to ask my friend over at Le Petit Kupkak if she could recreate them for me. And she did an amazing job! Not only did the cupcakes taste amazing, they were so fun too.

Cupcakes are just perfect for kids parties. No need for plates and forks and they're somewhat mess-free. Unless your kid is like mine and likes to eat their cupcake with no hands. Ya know, just goes right in head first? At least it gave us some fun pictures!

In keeping with the Cookie Monster theme I made 120 chocolate  chip cookies to give away as favors to all of the guests (including the adults!). I really wanted to put some sort of note on the cookies so I started looking into favor tag designs. I wanted something very simple and basic and finally decided on a simple picture of Cookie Monster and Elmo with a nice Thank You on the back of the tags as a way of showing our thanks for those who came to the party. I used a 1/8" punch to make the hole for the ribbon.

From the reactions we received from our guests they were very happy to get some yummy chocolate chip cookies! I was really worried that we were going to get "stuck" with a few bags that we'd have to consume within the next few days. Luckily it didn't come down to that as every bag but one was taken and happily eaten by someone other than me.  I already had to worry about the two extra cupcakes that kept calling my name from the fridge...

I purchased a Happy Birthday banner for my son's birthday last year and bought one that I could use up until he was 5 years old (it had interchangeable numbers). So I didn't stress too much about a Happy Birthday sign. Until my friend asked to borrow it for her son's birthday and I couldn't find the banner! I found the numbers... but no banner. So I started to search for a cute looking banner for the occasion. I figured why not go with the Cookie and Elmo theme and make the banner match the favor tags. 

I didn't want a long, continuous banner so I saw this idea from an Etsy vendor and decided to try it out. I had Adrienne print out the 3.5" circles and I just used my trusty standard hole puncher and put two holes on either side of the circles. I then put some ribbon through the holes and staggered the rows to achieve the look I wanted. 

Adrienne even threw in some extra 5" circles of Elmo and Cookie Monster so I took full advantage and used them for other decorations around the house. I used some paper streamers to decorate some of the walls and used the Cookie and Elmo cut outs to go in the middle of each draped loop. This  completed the look and theme of the whole party. I didn't even think of it before hand but will now use it whenever I use the paper streamers! I was also able to make a little "Happy Birthday" sign from the extra wreath circle and left over Cookie circle (see what Elmo is holding below at the snack bar...)

That's what I loved about Adrienne... I came up with or saw an idea and she just made it happen. I asked if it was possible and she always said it was :) So if you are planning a party (not just for children) and need some fun and fabulous paper goods to go along with the party to complete your theme definitely contact Custom Programs to see what we can do for you!