Enjoy this airplane party….

Tate’s second birthday party “took off” this past Saturday as approximately 10 young passengers and their carry-on parents joined us for an airplane theme party.

First, the invitations were sent out to look like boarding passes:

My friend Eleanor at Pink Peppermint Paper did all of the creative and design work, and she is fabulous! She designed the “Tate Airways” logo that says “Flying High Since 2007.”

We sent the invitations in red envelopes with a tie closure to look like travel documents. The return address said “Tate Airways” and we printed “Important Travel Documents Enclosed” in a stamp font on the envelope to make it look official.

The location was Founders Plaza, which is an observation area at DFW airport where you can watch planes take off and land. I called the airport for permission and was told they never had a birthday party there before! But it’s one of Tate’s favorite spots to visit, so we thought it would be enjoyed by his friends as well.

A banner I printed at FedEx Office greeted guests to our picnic area.

Pink Peppermint also designed “Baggage Check” and “Baggage Claim” signs for the gifts and favor bags. The airport doesn’t allow you to bring extra tables to the picnic site, so I used pieces of luggage to hold the gifts and favor bags.

My sisters both wore white shirts and black pants to look like TSA security. I gave them badges that said “TSA: Tate’s Super Aunts.”

For lunch, we served Lunchables. Not only was it easy for a picnic setting, but the packaging looks like airplane trays! I also had individual packages of pretzels, because, you know, that’s what you get on airplanes. My sister cut out placemats in the shape of white clouds for the blue tablecloth.

We had some airplane theme toys for the kids to play with.

Cousin Blake brought his own seat. I guess he didn’t want to ride ‘coach’ with the rest of the party-goers at the picnic table!

Note that cousin Blake came dressed in an appropriate “wing man” shirt to serve as Tate’s sidekick!

The cake. Um yeah. It was made out of cupcakes and was supposed to be in the shape of an airplane. I’m not so sure. And I picked it up on the way to the party and didn’t even notice that Tate’s name was spelled “Take.” Luckily my Mom did a quick fix on it to correct it.

For the favors, I ordered white bags that look like air-sickness bags (aka “barf bags.) The stickers were done by Pink Peppermint Paper and say “We’re Sick to See You Go. On behalf of our captain and flight crew, thanks for flying Tate Airways.”

Inside the bags we had rubber ducks dressed like pilots, a glider plane, little plastic parachute men and individual luggage tags for each guest.

After the party, we sent thank you notes from “Captain Tate Robertson.”

We had a great time, and the birthday boy loved every minute of watching the “ah panes” land with his friends!

Enjoy Judy’s Airplane Birthday….

I had so much fun planning my son’s 3rd Birthday party this year!  His dad chose the theme this year – airplanes.  Since there isn’t much that’s commercially available aside from Jay Jay the Jet, I had to do a lot of custom design work to do to make the theme cute!

It all came together based on the invitations that I purchased from a seller on Etsy!  They were so adorable – airline tickets with map envelopes!  AP Airlines stood for my son’s initials!

Outside I hung a giant number 3 balloon and an airplane mylar balloon on the mailbox, along with a giant gold number 3 balloon on his playhouse.

I handpainted cloud-shaped directional signs that I made out of inexpensive foam core to stake along the route to our house to help our guests navigate their way to the party…

and using Adobe Illustrator, made signs throughout the house…

Most importantly, my son loved it!

Hey….have you entered the giveaway yet?

Have a look, leave a comment, and then hop on over to Nounces Designs to see what else she’s got going on!

Enjoy Nounces Design’s party…..

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After what seemed like months of planning, the party is already over. The inspiration for the party came from the invitations.

Hard to believe he is already two! For the goodies bags, I painted a Cheerios box brown, I then cut two pieces of brown paper into the shape of a suitcase and attached one to either side. To dress it up a bit, I used two stripes of yellow cardstock and travel stickers. I think they turned out pretty good. The adults were also sent home with a goodie bag, chocolate chip cookies….YUM!

I went back and forth about the cake. I didn’t know if I wanted to go with cake or cupcakes. I couldn’t decide…so I went with both! Dan and I made the cake topper airplane out of Crayola Model Magic. Derek loved seeing the airplane on everything. He would get so excited every time he saw it. For the cupcakes, I added flags. Some with the airplane graphic and the others with his age, 2.

Aww, I love the picture of him blowing out his candles. Such a big boy!

I probably got a little carried away with the airplane theme. I decided to serve the guests, pre-packaged lunches.

The kids had a great time playing with all the toys Derek received.

Thank you to everyone that helped us celebrate Derek’s birthday!

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This Airplane Birthday Party definitely soared to new heights. So many fun airplane details and Mindy was great about sharing all the Etsy stores that helped her make this party so GREAT! The invitations are simply fabulous! The “runway” for the tablecloth…GENIUS! I’m telling you…there are so many details…make sure you look through and read through everything so you don’t miss a thing!

Have a look, leave a comment, and then hop on over to Everyday Celebrating to see what else she’s got going on!
Enjoy Michelle’s Party…..

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This past weekend was the big birthday party! My son is now TWO! TWO!
I can’t believe it! He’s hugely into planes and trains and a little thing called “rocket”
off of the cartoon Little Einsteins.

I’ve got quite a few photos so I may break this up into two posts. Plus, I don’t want to leave anything out for those that are looking for inspiration. Also, feel free to post questions in the comments section.

First, invitations. I had a post totally devoted to them with a few pictures.
But here’s a shot of them just to tie everything together.
You’ll notice the event had it’s own logo. “Special K Air”. You’ll see this spread out through various details of the event. I used clip art found online and made the logo myself. I’m happy to share it in psd format. Also, this invitation was designed in Publisher and I’m happy to share that as well.

One word of warning about these invitations. Some of my guests, while they thought they were cute and unusual, didn’t realize they were party invitations at first. *shrug*

The food table was to be an airport runway. I built one airplane out of a diaper box.

I used green broadcloth fabric as the “grass” and used airplane runways that are typically used by hobbyists (bought off ebay). Holes were poked through the green fabric to lay down white Christmas lights to create a lighted runway.

I made cupcakes for the guests and one of the large cupcakes using the famous large Wilton Cupcake Pan. Both the base and the swirls on top were made using the pastry bag and 1M tip.

Silverware was wrapped in napkins with paper napkin rings carrying the airplane logo theme.

Pretzels were hand dipped in dark and white chocolate with nonpareils. Individually wrapped in pretzel bags you can find at Michaels and included the logo on the outside.

I found this 40 INCH balloon on ebay! It was gorgeous and HUGE and my son loved it!

I had a separate table set up for children’s activities. One of the activities included decorating their own foam glider. Foam gliders found at Oriental Trading.

Also, there was a photo op board. I got this idea from the blog
Muchkins and Mayhem. The kids loved it! And it was super easy to create.

One of the favors the children took home were these super cute wooden pieces with markers.
You find them at Michaels and they are $1.99 each. They come with a stand too. I made the labels that went on the top. In the next post, I’ll talk about other items I gave out as well.

Finally, I made a large airplane for my son to sit in to eat his cake. This fit right over the booster seat and chair. Made from one XL UHaul box.

My sweet “Special K” eating his cupcake!

Up next, I want to spotlight a few ETSY sellers who provided amazing products for the party!
Such great talent and their products really added special creative touches!

A few Etsy sellers provided some amazing product for my party and they really added some beautiful and fun touches! I wanted to make sure I noted them here so everyone could check out their stores and make note of them when you are hosting your next get together.

REMEMBER: Click on any picture to see more detail.

1. Handmade airplane suckers from Custom Candy Creations
Summer from Custom Candy Creations sent me the most adorable airplane shaped suckers! She made them in red to match the color scheme and they were too cute! Cherry flavored, of course! I have to say that they were HUGE and made a great impact! And she packed them so well, there wasn’t a wing or a tip broken! Go visit her store. She sells other candy as well, but you have to see the suckers. She does Blues Clues, Tool sets, stockings, etc.

Here they are on top of the other favors. I tied star garland to the sticks to add a contrasting color.

2. Cupcake wrappers from Yummy Cuppy Crafts
Kim at Yummy Cuppy Crafts designed the great cupcake “cuppies” or holders that adorned some of my cupcakes at the party. She was so great to work with and even offered to include the logo in the cuppy. These come flat and and you wrap them around and close them with a sticker she provides.
You have to go see her store and see all the cute themes and animals she can do (the giraffe is particularly adorable!)

Here’s a side shot so you can see the back as well:

3. Mini Banner from Mary Had a Little Party
Kristen at Mary Had a Little Party made this super cute mini banner for the children’s table.
These are a smaller take on the huge banners you see a lot now. She makes those too, but when you need something smaller, these are just the trick! The letters are about 2 inches wide and she’ll even customize the font to match other details of your party, like the airplane logo.

4. Cupcake toppers from Simple Sensations
Stephanie at Simple Sensations took the time to custom design these airplane toppers especially for this party. You can now find them at her store and I can’t brag enough about the detail these had.
It took quite a bit of time and steady hands to put these together. And the children loved them! Not to mention how she made sure to match them to the color scheme. Visit her store to see gift cards and tags and the cutests gingerman cupcake toppers for the holiday season!

5. Airplane gift tags by Lori Long Designs
Lori had these great gift tags that I used for the children’s favors. They were the perfect size. Not HUGE and not too small. I love to use a custom gift tag whenever possible, especially at events like these where you want each person to know they favor/gift was especially for them. Children especially love to have their name on things, ya know? Her shop if filled with cards and adorable holiday tags all at amazing prices!

The tags are attached to these coloring books.

6. Photography Art by Sue Bees.
Sue takes these amazing photographs! She had provided me with two fabulous photos that I had intended to use as large backdrops for the runway table. In the end, I my vision was larger than my working space so I didn’t get to use them, but they are fabulous and I wanted to make sure she was mentioned here. Her etsy store is filled with all types of photography. Think outside the box of what other ways you can use photography besides hanging it on the wall.

One of the photos she provided. Isn’t it dreamy? Wouldn’t it have made a fabulous backdrop?

Keep these etsy sellers in mind when planning your next event! I’ve never worked with more generous and accommodating vendors!

This was my son’s 1st Birthday. It was an airplane theme.
I designed the invitations to look like airline tickets. I personalized each ticket with the “passengers” names, City, and even estimated how long it would take them to drive to our house for the departure and arrival time.

Since I had designed sort of a logo for his birthday for the airline ticket, I stuck with that for the rest of the party. I altered a jay jay jet plane pinata

I decorated the cake to match

I used iron on transfers and a t-shirt to make a bib to match

I found an airplane clipart that I liked and drew and painted that to make the birthday banner. For the lettering on the banner I printed out the letter in large size on paper and then cut them out and glued them down (voila…perfect lettering)

I continued with the airplane on the favor bags by just printing up stickers and adhering them to simple brown paper bags

I had a condiment container from a quizno’s restaurant that I altered to match with vinyl lettering with the help of my sister-in-law (who owns a sign company)

It was a fun theme to work with. My daughter even dressed up like a flight attendant with a navy blue skirt, white blouse and a scarf around her neck. It was cute, and you can sort of see it here.

The best part of the party was when my son LITERALLY took his VERY FIRST STEPS on his own right in the middle of the party as we were opening gifts. So we have pics and video of it!

How precious is that?!