Go Shorty, It's Your Birthday: Fall Festival Birthday Party

Well, seeing as fall is just about over, we told mom that we'd let her post the fall festival birthday party she recently styled for one of our buddies. I like to say that I was very involved in the planning process, although most of my suggestions were in the form of blowing pumpkins up, so I can't say that mom adopted all of them. Lucky for us, we were also invited to the party. So we got to partake in all the festival goodness. For a few weeks after, I was requesting a fall festival birthday party of my own (I did get to wear my pirate costume after all), but I've now moved on to asking for a "busytown, science, harry potter, ninja, post office party." And I'm quite clear that I want all of those covered in one single party. Get on it, mom. Until then, enjoy some of the great pictures from our friend Amelia's second birthday party!

Amelia's parents, Liz and Dan, have an annual Halloween party and Amelia's birthday is October 30th, so she wanted to combined the two, but not have a traditional Halloween theme. Mom and Liz came up with the idea of a fall festival with a vintage carnival feel to it (and requested guests don costumes still). Vicky from luvalexa designed a really great invitation and party package that served as the starting point for the rest of the decorations.  Mom lined the envelopes for the invitation from the party pack and included color-coordinating carnival tickets in each. 

The party was at Amelia's home, which has a great open staircase that we decorated with tissue paper fans and stars (from Luna Bazaar) and handmade poms. Liz made a supercute photo booth backdrop and ordered fun props. A vintage-type finger pointed guests upstairs to the main party area and, as you walked up, the hanging decoration came into view. 

The focal point was the dessert table mom and Liz put together, which featured: a candy bar of colored-coordinating candy, cotton candy on striped straws, baked apple cider donoughts, inside-out caramel apples, and a beautiful (and really yummy) pumpkin patch cake Liz MADE with another friend -- it was amazing. We topped the table with a burlap runner and decorated the mantle with a banner from the party pack hung on purple baker's twine, hanging fans and a lovely wooden "A" made by Route 17 West Weddings. We used apple bushels and crates throughout to help present the food. 

We set up the savory food, including homemade chili, pigs in a blanket and meatballs, in the adjacent dining room. Mom made a pumpkin centerpiece by printing images from the party pack onto inkjet sticker paper and putting those on some pumpkins. A burlap table runner and custom "confetti" also topped the food table. Dan made some delicious kettle corn that we served in popcorn boxes mom made from the party pack. 

The weather was great and we utilized their back deck to set up carnival games (pumpkin bowling and pumpkin cornhole) for the kids (and big kids, too). We kept the party favor simple and seasonal with mini pumpkins topped with a cute thank you tag.

Great party!