STELLA TURNED FOUR AND I SURVIVED

I'm pretty sure my husband doesn't want me to throw another party ever again. He's patient with me as I dedicate our home and much of my time to planning and preparing for our daughters birthday parties. He likes to get involved, within reason. He designs adorable party invites and I'm always grateful to have one thing off of my to-do list. And I'm as patient as I can be as he asks me, without fail, "how much more have you got planned with this thing?"

With our oldest daughter turning four, I decided it's time to move on from a family birthday gathering to a friend party. She wanted to invite a few friends from school, a couple from church, her best friend, her cousin and some neighborhood friends. 16 kids total (Yeecsh).

She wanted a POLKA DOT theme. I asked her about colors and she said, "blue and purple". Once I found an outfit, I based the color palette around it and started planning the invite, food, cake, decor and favors. Below is my style guide for shopping and a few photos of the party.

THE FOOD: anything round I could find. Melons cut in round shapes and stacked large to small. Tomatoes, Carrots, Cucumbers, Grapes, Blueberries in round clear containers. THE CAKE: I ordered Cake Pops from Kate's Pop Sweet Shop via etsy for the kids. I don't feel confident with my baking skills so I am usually sweating through the whole process and praying it all comes out ok. I made a three layer vanilla cake with blue frosting with tissue puff skewers on top and a circle punched number four. I also found some circle sprinkles that helped the bottom edge. It was a cute cake. THE DECOR: I made circle danglers by using a Fiskers circle punch and sewing them in strips. I used dart balloons to create a small wall of color. I bought a 36" balloon online and made the tassel with ribbon, fabric and tissue paper. I really wanted Craspedia Billy Ball flowers but instead I opted for simple yellow tulips. I wanted to use bamboo forks and colorful plates. I have a stash of bottles from previous parties and got some dot straws on etsy and put them all in a large round yellow tin, filled it with ice. I made some yarn pom pom garlands and tissue pom poms for decor around the house. THE PARTY FAVORS: I originally thought about sewing dot baggies for candy but opted to go simpler and got craft bags and some washi tape. Filled them with dot candy, a dumdum wrapped in dot fabric and tied with twine, some blue foil wrapped chocolate balls and some purple sixlets. I circle punched a "thanks for coming" and hot glued it to close the bag as washi tape doesn't hold very well sometimes.

My daughter really wanted to paint at her party. She loves crafts so I got some wood letters, the first letter for each child invited. I spray painted them white and got a variety of colors from the color palette and circle sponge applicators and let them create their own letter art. Of course, aprons were a must ;)

A huge thank you to my husband and all of the moms for helping to make the party go smoothly. Thank you Nicole for jumping in and taking a few photos.

Maybe we'll do this every other year? We'll see if I can stop myself.