Well, no actual pepto-bismol was involved. But, Poodleful decided that the best way to celebrate Margaret (3) and Portia's (1) respective birthdays was by throwing a large combination birthday party that had a "pink" theme. Overall, I felt that the party was wildly successful.
First, I drew up a guest list. I totally ignored the advice often given for children's birthday party guest lists--invite as many children as your child is turning. Here that would have been four guests (3+1). I invited fifteen children and all of their parents, and even some of our friends who are childless, and my whole family came from out of town.
Second, I arranged the entertainment. Margaret really adores puppet shows, so I secured a puppeteer to come to the party and give a performance. The other main attraction was the cotton candy machine that we rented. They are very easy to use, although not very nice looking.
Third, party decorations were fairly elaborate. I made tissue paper pom poms that hung at different lengths above the party table. I made pennant flags from a variety of pink fabrics that I purchased at Hancock Fabrics. My mother and I made crepe paper roses. We purchased piles of pink candy, and created paper flower/candy bouquets to adorn the table. We dressed the table with a pink crushed velvet piece of fabric trussed with reems of pink ribbons. Directions for the pom poms and pennants follow. Finally, we served some light food items--Matt's famous quesadillas; a bowl full of strawberries, pomegranate seeds and balsamic vinegar; french bread and goat cheese; a barbie birthday cake and a chocolate tart (inspiring my mad tart trend described in my October 30th post); kir royales for the grownups and a pitcher-ful of shirley temples and pink lemonade for the kids.
TISSUE PAPER POM POMS
supplies: tissue paper, scissors, ribbon, pipe cleaners, stapler
1. Procure several different colors of tissue paper. Each pom pom requires 6 sheets.
2. Take six sheets of tissue paper, and fold them accordian style. Tie center with pipe cleaner. Holding the accordian closed, as if it was one narrow strip, cut off the ends into either round or pointed shapes.
3. Release the strip, and pull the tissue paper sheets apart on either side, forming a puffy ball.
4. Attach string to pipe cleaner in the middle and hang pom poms from the ceiling on different length strings.
I used many shades of pink and orange, and they looked very pretty.
Pink Pennant Banners
supplies: several different patterned fabrics, pink bias tape, newspaper, ruler, sewing machine.
1. Create a pennant flag pattern. (This is very easy--just use a ruler to draw an isosceles triangle on a piece of newspaper.
2. Fold your pieces of fabric in half and pinning the pattern to the folded pieces of fabric, cut out many pennant shapes. (For each pennant, I would recommend around 14.)Remember that you want each pennant shape to have two pieces, hence the folding in half. Once you get going, this part takes no time at all.
3. Take the two pieces of fabric and turn them so that the back of the fabric is facing outwards. Use sewing machine to sew a running stitch down the two long sides of the isosceles, leaving the short third side open.
4. Once you have completed sewing all pennants, turn them right side out, and iron. I used a pencil to really push the bottoms of the pennants into points.
5. Use straight pins to pin the pennants, one after another, to the middle of the bias tape. Once all pennants are pinned, sew a running stitch down the middle of the bias tape.
This project took me approximately two late night hours (no rest for the wicked or for working mothers either), one hour of which 1 year old Portia was awake.
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