One must ask
children and birds
how berries and cherries taste.
-von Goethe
I know that I get harebrained sometimes (read: all the time), and that my ideas are a bit out there on occasion. The hardest part of being harebrained, by far, is trying to verbally convey what I’m imagining before it’s become a reality. I’m pretty sure most of my close friends have taken to simply smiling and nodding when I’m trying to describe the girls’ birthday party themes, and I can’t blame them, haha! Honestly, I should just keep my mouth closed until the actual party, because seeing is believing, right? ;) For Cricket’s second birthday, we hosted a Birds-and-Berries themed bohemian-ish picnic. (Scroll below to see what I mean, haha!)
The idea for the theme really centered around wanting to do a moodier color palette (I was all pastel-ed out) and the fact that Cricket loves, well, birds and berries. Armed with inspiration from berry tones (magenta, purple, red and deep blue) and the iconic aqua of traditional berry baskets, I ran blindly into inspiration with the notions of birds, berries, picnics, pies, and my little wildflower of a child. I was terrified that the whole party would feel like a Fourth of July bash, so I tried to lean more into the bohemian vibe — I dip-dyed buffalo-check fabric to create picnic tablecloths, chose wooden berry baskets instead of traditional picnic baskets, and shied away from red-n-blue. I wanted everything to feel wild, feminine and FUN because that is exactly who Cricket is.
I crafted a TON for this party, really because nothing I imagined was easily found, of course! I seriously felt like a mad scientist at times — spray painting and watercoloring and dip-dying (and re-dying, oops). As you scroll through you’ll be able to see everything I did, but my FAVORITE thing has to be the bird silhouette banner welcoming everyone to the space. (I want to do the same thing for every party in a slightly different way now…) I always do an area with generic kid activities (read: Play-Doh), but I wanted an official “something” for the kids to make during the party. After much trial and error, I landed on making fabric wings for them to color and wear (like superhero capes), and, truthfully, I was scared that after so much effort no one would be interested. However, after the first kid saw someone with their wings on, the activity took off and was so much fun! (And cheap — I used muslin, poster board to make a stencil, black spray paint and markers. Easy-peasy!) We chose Easter weekend to have her party, which I decided I could turn from a liability into a bonus, by doing a “Bird Egg Hunt” in lieu of an Easter Egg Hunt. I painted plastic Easter eggs either white or robin’s egg blue and speckled them to look like little bird eggs. I thought they turned out great, and the kids had fun of course!
The most important thing I have to say, though, (besides “I love you, Crickie!”) is THANK YOU to everyone who helped me — to Ryan for letting me be crazy and putting up with my madness; to my mom for watching the girls while I crafted; to Wendi (Ryan’s mom) and Mike for, well, a TON of stuff including taking the girls off my hands and providing the food for the party; to our day-of babysitters, Sara and Olivia (who actually had to leave the kids to come help set up!); to Meredith Mejerle for making my floral dreams come true…SERIOUSLY; to Carrie Tabb for putting up with my photography demands, haha!: and to Alli Finlay for…well, (Lordy, where do I start?) for listening to my crazy ideas, helping me make decisions, aiding in dip-dying and re-dip-dying (even in the dark), for MAKING ALL THE HANDPIES for the party (yup, skillz) and for helping day-of and beyond. Thank you everyone!
