Alphabet Birthday Party

Update:  It's been a while since I've been able to blog but I love following along various sites. So when I saw The CSI Project was requesting links for The Birthday Party Challenge - I had to jump at the change to enter in this Alphabet party!




In November 2010, my three children turned two years old, That's right I said three - they are triplets. Two girls (identical) and a boy. With so many creative themes out there in the blog world, how was I to decide which one would be right for my trio?  The party theme needed to be gender neutral and I wanted something that I haven't seen too many up. So after weeks of deliberation and months of planning, the Alphabet Party came to life. Some might think that at two years old, they might be a bit young to an Alphabet Party.  The children LOVE to read books and will look at them for hours so I thought it was a good fit.

It was my first real attempt at throwing a party with a lot of details and as a perfectionist, there will always be room for improvement.  Yes, there would be many things I would have done differently and now chalk it up to a learning experience.

I found my inspiration from a pad of scrapbook paper at Michael's Crafts. The colors were great and chose 8 colors to coordinate with everything.  Looking back it was A LOT of colors but it made it fun.

I'm a last-minute-Lucy - always have been - always will. Thus the price I pay for this is wrinkled tablecloths.  Every time I look at those pictures I cringe. Lesson learned for next time!

For the party favors, I made about 16 sets of alphabet magnets I saw the idea from Nice Girl Notes (you really need to check her site - so funny!). In total I had ordered 500 of the wooden discs and primed half in white and the other half in gray. Next time I would skip the gray and just use white - even for the darker colors. Then spray painted about 60 discs in each of the 8 colors.  I wanted to put my own spin on the magnets and made the first set with chipboard letters. Since I wanted them to hold up and be fairly kid-safe, I wasn't thrilled with them since the letters could be pulled off. So the rub-on transfer letters won hands down.

Another item in the goodie bag was a set of homemade Alphabet Crayons. In total there were about 296 of them made. Time consuming but way cool!

Guests were treated to little bags of Alphabet Hershey Kisses. I recruited my niece Danielle (thank you!) to help adhere the alphabet stickers to 600 kisses. 

The goodie bags were arranged on the dining room hutch and to dress it up, I lined the inside of the glass doors with colored construction paper.  On my last trip the Brimfield Antiques show in September, I snatched up an old Milton Bradley Anagrams game that had the coolest plastic letter tiles. I tacked them up on the glass using reusable poster gum.

To keep in the theme we served up Scrabble Cheez-it's, Alphabet Tater-tots and Alphabet Spaghettios. 

The dessert table!

Since the party was at the end of November and here in New England we are not typically blessed with warm weather this time of year, I wanted a big pop of color in the house.  I used chair sashes (60 of them) and looped them over the curtain rods (curtains removed). I went with 7 colors and put them in the dining room, living room and the kitchen.  I found them and the table cloths from Tableclothsfactory and they have unbelievable pricing and selection! (But make sure you iron them before using!) 

Marshmallow Pops

My first attempt with using fondant. Much easier then expected but I despised using the miniature alphabet fondant cutters. There must be an easier way!

Billy's Vanilla Vanilla Cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. Yum!  I made the cupcake toppers using scrapbook  letter circles adhered to scallop-punched card stock and glued to craft sticks.

I think I'm ready to start thinking about their next birthday theme. :-)