My “Brave Boys” Birthday Party

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The theme for this celebration was “Brave Boys.” There are so many great rustic birthday party ideas out there, and I had a hard time narrowing the plan down. But basically, we went with simple outdoor-inspired fun and some bright colors to liven up the place.

Because you just can’t have a party without balloons – I purchased these confetti-filled and mini balloons from The Flair Exchange. They’re absolutely amazing and I love how much atmosphere they gave to the entry; the one unfortunate thing is that they cannot be filled with the special helium that keeps them floating for a long time, so we had to have them filled and picked up the morning of the party.

I wanted a special place for the boys to be able to eat their cake and get pictures together. I whipped up these fun “about me” chalkboard posters in Photoshop (which are available in our digital design shop now) and had them printed at Staples. They were about $1.50 each – you can’t beat that for a cute party decoration that doubles as a photo prop! The tissue paper tassel garland is a custom one I made on The Flair Exchange website.

We had the party in the middle of the afternoon, so food wasn’t a huge necessity … but what’s a party without food? Because there were so many kids and babies attending, I wanted some tasty but “healthy” options. We had a milk bar that consisted of three different kinds of milk: chocolate, cashew, and skim. The kids loved drinking from these adorable glass milk bottles with the birch tree straws.

My go-to water option for parties is ice water with lemon and strawberry slices. Not only does it look pretty, but it tastes yummy, too! To keep with the Brave Boys theme, I used a sharpie to draw two arrows on white paper cups.

As I said – we were trying to provide healthier food options. The babies got to choose from a rainbow of Plum Organics Mighty 4 Pouches, and the older kids could pick their own cup of veggies. Each cup had a few slices of celery,  bell peppers of all colors, and some baby carrots. In the center was a dollop of ranch dressing. We also had a tray of meats and cheeses with bread, and a huge bowl of tiny tomatoes.

Instead of using individual food labels, I printed some menus on kraft paper and put them in these cute frames from IKEA. To decorate the food table, I placed vegetables in some cute galvanized tubs: various ornamental kale, radishes, brussels sprouts, etc.

Possibly the most favorite part of the party was the individual fruit pizza bar! I’ll admit that I purchased the cookies already-made from our grocery store, even though my plan was to make them myself. Then I topped them with a yummy cream cheese frosting (1 C. powdered sugar per 8 oz. of cream cheese), and let the kids put their own fruits on them. We had strawberries, blueberries, persimmons, and kiwi. Huge. Hit.

Each of my boys had their own cake with a special birthday candle on top. I have been dying to try out a naked cake for a long time, and this was the perfect opportunity. So, my older son got a mini 3-layer naked cake. I’ll be posting a how-to for naked cakes soon!

My little one had a carrot cake cupcake with some of the cookie pizza frosting on top.
He obviously didn’t like it at all :-)
Side note: don’t you love his pants?!?! They’re available in my shop!

Instead of little toys that the kids would break within a day, I opted to offer a “Hit the Trail” mix bar as favors. These adorable clear boxes were purchased on Pick Your Plum (but you can get them on amazon, too), and I used some woodland stickers from Hobby Lobby to spruce them up a bit.

We had all sorts of fun trail mix goodies: pretzels, mixed nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, marshmallows, and craisins. The cute animals hanging out on the bar were just plain plastic animal toys that I painted.

It’s hard to tell in the photos, but they both had birthday shirts that I purchased on Etsy.

We had so much fun!