We love seeing how our items get used--so often we fill orders and hope that people are able to print and assemble, but we never know for sure. It's SO delightful to see the decorations in action--especially when they knock it out of the park like this! The monster theme continues to be one of our best sellers--especially in September and October! I think it's such a sweet theme for a first birthday because those babies really can be the sweetest little monsters.



I'm obsessed with the sugar cookies Jamie had for the party--they are such an amazing match to the monsters used throughout the printables and are such a bright, cheerful addition to the dessert table.



The tissue paper tassels are from Party City (although Jamie had to tear off the pink ones!) I love when you can find party store decor that fits so well.



Water bottle labels are some of our most versatile items. They fit water bottles, mason jars... and can be used as a wrapper for napkins! I love these guys silly faces.





Coloring walls are always a hit--and when you don't have a wall that works, using it as a tablecloth is just as fun.



Sawyer ate his birthday cupcake off our matching melamine plate. It's so fun to get a matching plate for parties--we have a stack in our cabinet that help us remember how quickly the years are flying by!



Thanks so much to Jamie for sharing her AMAZING pictures. She did such an outstanding job putting the party together. All monster items are available in our Etsy shop here.

Ready for an adorable Batman party? Good because you are about to get a million pictures of one! My oldest son loves Batman--and even though I probably could have talked him into a few other themes, I couldn't resist throwing him a party I knew he'd LOVE. (I forgot to get a good picture of him until after we dismantled the dessert table. Whoops!)



Finley and his brother are both April babies--so I reused a ton of decorations from Braden's train party. Like, as much as I possibly could. :) I started hoarding black and white objects months before and tried get creative with foods so I wouldn't have too much prep to do!



The Gotham City Skyline was so fun and easy to put together--not to mention cheap! The tutorial for how to put it together will be live HERE later this week! I love how nicely it framed the table and naturally tied in to our color scheme.



We had so many fabulous sweets! I tried my best to find store bought treats or make easy things so that I wouldn't spend too much time baking. I loved the oreo tower under the cupcakes--Trader Joes makes a great cupcake that looks adorable in our cupcake wrappers! Zebra cakes, whoopie pies, chocolate Twizzlers, yellow M&Ms, Lemonheads and popcorn were a few of the treats that I was able to purchase and not make myself!



I love dipping pretzels in chocolate--kids LOVE them and they are pretty hard to mess up. I don't ever want to attempt another cake ball--I always mess them up. But I'm pretty good at dipping pretzels! I think wrapping mini-chocolates in our wrappers is super fun too! And no party is complete without Victoria's sugar cookies! Could they match any more perfectly or be any cuter? Love.



I am not sure I can throw a party without paper garland--I'm just too obsessed with how it looks! The bats were cut out on my Silhouette and I chopped up black and white paper to make the striped garland. I can't stop with the paper garlands.



The kids took home a Batman coloring book, cape and a few Batman trinkets I picked up around town. I loved the way the invites came together--I am not sure I'll be able to send another invite without lining the envelope first! I found some superhero stamps on eBay and loved the way they looked on the black envelopes!



Coloring walls are always a hit with the preschool crowd--they had a blast coloring in and adding their own superheroes to the skyline! They ended up coloring on the floor since the trim on the walls made it too bumpy. Not only are they fun--they are inexpensive too! My local printer prints them for $.75 per square foot.



I love making dessert tables--but I also love carrying the theme through to the eating area!  The paper lantern garland bridged the two rooms and helped to tie them together. After settling on black and white as the main colors--I realized I could make more engineer prints for the walls! The big Finnman print was a few dollars and served as a great backdrop to the table.  I bought a few yards of black felt and threw together some capes fairly quickly. They looked cute on the chair backs and the kids loved running around in them!



I love so much about this table--I love the confetti table runner, the yellow circle placemats and gable boxes. It all came together so nicely! The gable boxes were great for pre-packaging the kids meals--and after the meals were over I filled their boxes with treats from the dessert table--a great way for them to take home sweets for their parents to dole out, rather than being on a huge sugar high!



So that's the Batman party! It was a fun one--mostly because my five year old LOVED it!

It's safe to say that Rachel and I both squealed when we found out that our strawberry baby shower was featured yesterday on Hostess with the Mostess. When I checked this morning, over 1500 people had liked the facebook post. This is just really like sweet buttercream on the fresh strawberry cupcakes because we were already obsessed with this shower. We're so glad more friends get to see it! Everything was sweet, pink, red and plenty of splashes of pool/aqua from Paper Source. It was our pleasure to work with Kami from Orange Peel Photography. She captured all the darling details beautifully! (And there were kind of a lot...)
The party was loaded with pretty flowers and strawberry treats — fresh strawberries featured in spinach salad and in all the sweets. We filled jars with strawberry candy, licorice wheels, hard candy and gummy bears from Nuts.com. It’s so easy to search for strawberry candy there!

After lunch, guests could choose from many strawberry desserts on the buffet! We customized the table with pinwheels hanging behind it, and a small display box repurposed for desserts. The strawberry lemonade, iced tea and water bottles were all available on our vintage red drink cart. Fresh macarons from a local sweet store, Andre’s, fresh strawberry cupcakes from Boxer Lady Bakery, and homemade sugar cookies rounded out the strawberry options for our guests. The printables from our shop allowed us to personalize the dessert table, drink options, and label all the food with a touch of strawberry and more pink!
We work with the BEST vendors. Check out this great group!
– Photography: Orange Peel Photography
– Ruffled Tablecloth: Candy Crush Events
– Hershey Kisses & Nuggets Labels: iCustom Labels
– Berry Basket, Strawberry Cupcake Toppers & Red & White Checked Paper: BonFortune
– Vintage Berry Stamps: Verde Studio
– Cupcakes: Boxer Lady Bakery 
– Red Candy: Nuts.com 
– Macarons: Andre’s Confiserie Suisse, Kansas City

Rachel is busy hosting a party for her 5-year-old (impossible! he can't be 5!) today, so I'm stopping by with another throwback for you. It's one of our favorites, perfect for bridal and baby showers and first birthdays! Parents love to say, "She's growing up up up!" and use this invitation and party pack. While we do receive some requests to change the colors, most people love it as is. I think you will see why below! The invitation included both stripes and polka dots to make it extremely versatile and playful throughout the entire party pack. Everything matched chartreuse and papaya from Paper Source. Printing on luxe paper gave everything a watercolor look. We can't afford to print on luxe all the time, but there are some cases where it is just perfect. Like this party. We had a pretty impressive spread of food and favors. It was very much a family and local Kansas City affair - the cashews, almond granola and wild plum jelly are family recipes while the macarons and carrot cake were handcrafted with love in KC. Hand folded pinwheels gave the bride-to-be an extra bit of pizzazz. (See the tutorial here!) There were customized place mats and alphabet lists too!While the bride opened gifts, the guests tried to guess the answers to a honeymoon trivia quiz and had so much fun we included it in the party pack. We love to give thank you notes to the guest of honor!

Everything is available here in the RV Parties shop. Check out our great vendors as well - we work with the best of the best!

– Paper Designs: Victoria of RV Parties
– Navy Straws, Nut Cups, Orange Sprinkles: DKDeleKtables
– Macarons: Au Bon Macaron
– Mini Carrot Cakes: Three Women and an Oven
– Homemade Wild Plum Jelly: Co-host’s dad made them

This barely counts as a tutorial, but it does count as one of our favorite tools of ALL TIME. Rachel told me at least three times to buy the Martha Stewart Scoring Board and Envelope Tool before I finally listened and purchased my own. Now I find myself reaching for it over and over again. By sliding a food label or favor tag into the right angle of the scoring board, I can easily line up the cardstock and find the middle. As you can see in the top photo, there are many lines across the board so it's easy to find the center of any tag. One swipe of the bone folder and the tag is perfectly scored for an easy fold.

I haven't used it to make an envelope yet even though the instructions are included from Martha. You could get totally crazy and make your own envelope and then line it too. (Or you could eat a cupcake instead. That's more likely around here!)Cardstock can be tricky to fold neatly. It can break or crack across the top of the fold, so this actually is an inexpensive tool to make assembly faster and cleaner. Line up, score, fold, and attach to your perfect party favors.

PS. Should we list this party in the shop? It's one of our absolute favorites from this spring. We love custom orders like this!

This pinwheel party was one of my favorites--and slipped through the cracks here because, well, it was two days before I went into labor with baby boy #3. Whoops! I was so excited to help style this party for Miss Margaret and help her celebrate turning FOUR!



The backdrop medallions were so fun to make and are still some of my favorite ways to fill up space behind a dessert table. I could not handle how much I loved the fondant and sugar cookie pinwheels. It's really amazing what people can do with delicious desserts!



Using paper to decorate is always my favorite thing--I loved using the circle garland as a table runner! And we couldn't help but stick pinwheels on anything that we could! Straws, napkin rolls... they were just so easy and darling.



I am not sure why I ever threw a kids party without a coloring wall--it's always a hit and such a fun and cheap decoration! And obviously, we stuck pinwheels on the corners.



Almost a year later, I'm still smitten by this party! Probably because I have three boys and will never plan a pink party... Love so much! Check out all the printables here!

VENDOR CREDITS:
– Printables, Costumes, Sugar Cookies and Party Styling: RV Parties
– Photography: Peanut Butter and Jenny Photography
– Fondant Pinwheels: Fondant Fantasy
– Rock Candy: Candy Crush Events
– Pinwheel Hair Clips: Princess Gumdrop
– Scallop Polka Dot Chocolates: Sweeties by Kim
– Sugar Cookies: J&J Bakeshop

And in case you are interested in throwing your own party--we have a set of extra decorations available in the shop for a limited time!

The year was 2012. My second baby was turning one, which made him officially... a little man. It was the height of mustache party popularity, and it was so fun to plan this party. Mustaches continue to be an adorable theme, and its even easier to find matching goodies to go with them. This continues to be one our best sellers, and its easy to see why!

Highlights include:

• many many mustaches and bow ties cut out on the silhouette machine
• one of my favorite color schemes--navy, chartruese and aqua
• adorable bowties printed with the pattern from the decor
• my favorite Anthropologie inspired backdrop (tutorial here!)
• lots and lots of mustaches!

These family pictures make me smile! The boys were so little.



It wouldn't be a party without Victoria's famous sugar cookies--these still go down in history as some of my favorites!



Basically, I slapped a mustache on everything. It was too fun not to!



For a more in depth look at the decorations, go here!

And for more on the food, go here!

And to buy the decor, go here!

Some of our favorite parties have been featured on our own blogs (or elsewhere on the internet!), but we wanted to feature some Thursday "throwbacks" as well over here!

Here are the party details!

• The party was for a dear friend and sorority sister. The first baby in our Kansas City group of friends.

• But it could also be for a first bee-day. We've had several people order it for the "bride to bee" as well! Occasionally it is used for gender reveal parties with a "what will it bee?" theme.

• We loved the soft gray and yellow, the simple bee graphic and the use of the font Nelly. Lots of swirls everywhere.

• Our favorite little detail was totally the honey stick favor. These are one of the most popular items in our shop, available as an instant download and printed double sided labels.

• We STILL love this party because it's so perfect for gender neutral showers. The baby bee theme is a clean classic. Available here in the RV Parties shop!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Even though its a somewhat silly holiday--St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my faves. I had so much fun setting up this Top of the Morning brunch--I felt like it was a fitting theme for St. Patrick's Day!



I had a blast trying to pick out foods that were green and gold--and also fit the brunch theme. I tried to use ingredients that were naturally green or yellow, because no one wants to eat something with a bottle of food coloring in it! The pancakes were fabulous--colored with spinach and layered with some cream cheese frosting. The recipe is available here. The scrambled eggs cooked up to a lovely golden color. One of my favorite touches were the bell pepper shamrocks--just slice a pepper, pour in some eggs and cook over low! And there were quite a few green and yellow fruits to choose from--kiwi, pineapple and grapes.



And no party is complete without sweets! Rice Krispies, shamrock macarons, homemade marshmallows and chocolate covered pretzels were a few of the goodies we enjoyed. The pretzels were so fun and easy to make--tutorial available here!



To decorate the table, I grabbed as many green and gold things I could find around the house and played around with the table until I was happy. The background cost me less than $10 to put together and was fairly quick too! I love the way it filled in the wall and mimicked the stripes in our printables. All of the printables are available for free download below. The cute treat bag toppers are a fun gift for friends and the banner is a fun way to spruce up your mantle!



All of the decorations are available for download here! (Free until March 24th, 2015, then available for purchase on Etsy.) To say thanks, we'd love it if you'd like us on Facebook or pin an image to share the love (or luck!) with your friends.

Choo choo! Who doesn't love a train party?  This was the perfect theme for my two year old who is beyond obsessed with trains.  There are more pictures and details on Hostess with the Mostess if you are interested in specific details!

It was a fairly low key party--held in our backyard with a few sweets and friends. I'm a little smitten with burlap... I seem to think it goes with everything. I tried my hand at sewing crepe paper... and think I may leave it to the professionals next time! I pined after the red paper suitcases for weeks until I finally caved and bought them. I just love them.  It was fun to incorporate red bandannas throughout the party--wrapped around a B, as a little satchel for party favors and as a bunting behind the kids' table.



The party was a lot lower key some of our parties--which was a lot of fun. Train lollipops, cupcakes, Vic's famous sugar cookies, cake pops and chocolate dipped pretzels and oreos--nothing too fancy. But everything was delicious. I can not say enough great things about Miss Lulu's Sweet Treats--everything she makes is delicious! I stretched myself and used a lot of our printables in creative ways--extra cupcake toppers got glued to burlap ribbon and the treat bag toppers served as a little sign for the favors.



It's easy to set a super cute table with items you can get at any party store.  Plates, napkins and flatware in matching colors can be easily coordinated in place settings.  I wrapped the flatware and tied it with some twine.  The glass Frappucino bottles get used at every single party--treat yourself to a few and save the bottles! My favorite part of the table was the table runner--the party favors were a last minute addition to the table and really brought it all together.  All the kiddos got a little bandanna full of train goodies and an engineer hat! I used the extra bandannas and hats as a bunting behind the table--another last minute idea that I loved.



Credits...
– Printables, Costumes, Sugar Cookies and Party Styling: RV Parties
– Photography and Cupcakes: Peanut Butter and Jenny Photography 
– Burlap Ribbon: We Can Package
– Cake Pops, Oreos and Pretzels: Miss Lulu’s Sweet Treats 
– Train Lollipops: Candied Cakes