Way Over the Top Birthday Party

Rachel Ray recently did a segment on a couple who spent $12,745 on their daughter's 1st birthday party - yes, that is $12,745 U.S. currency & yes, it is more than my wedding cost! You can watch the segment here.

I'm all for a great kids birthday party, but come on, over $10,000 on a kid's party??? Especially a 1st birthday! The child won't even remember it (of course, with a $1000 professional photographer, the birthday girl will be able to look at the pictures from the big day). While it is true that our kids don't remember everything we do for them, this party just seems way over the top and extravagant beyond belief.

The parents who threw the party said they could afford it, so why not? The mom is already planning birthday #2 & says it will be even bigger. What kind of message does this send to the child and will she expect a bigger and better party every year? A million dollar-plus wedding? I don't know anything about their financial situation, but wouldn't $12,000 be better put into a college fund?

Maybe how we celebrate our kid's birthdays is all relative - I am on a tight budget, so I shop at discount stores, dollar stores & clearance sales and host a small scale party with big aspirations. I do put in a lot of hours planning just the right party and making the invitations & decorations. Honestly, I mostly plan parties for my children to have wonderful experiences and lovely memories, but I also plan these parties because I completely enjoy it.

While I understand what people do with their money is their own business, I completely disagree with the money spent on this party. Just my opinion - I'd love to hear what you think!

Berry Sweet Birthday Invitations

Invitations for Emma's 5th Birthday party are all done and being delivered tomorrow. Since they are being hand-delivered, I wanted to do something different than just envelopes. I found these drawstring bags on clearance at Toys R Us and thought they would work out great! They bags are usually used for goody bags, but I plan on using something else to send the party favors home in.
Each bag includes the invitation, a small print-out of directions to the party (not shown) & 3 strawberry bonbon candies (they are wrapped to look like strawberries). I printed a tag with each child's name and attached it to the outside of the bag with pink ribbon. We invited Emma's pre-school class, a couple of neighborhood friends and realtives for a grand total of 25 invitations.I purchased the blank note cards at Michaels and paper pieced the invitation. I was lucky enough to find a Strawberry Shortcake 50 sheet notepad at Big Lots for only 50¢ and cut out the images from the notepad for the front of the invitations. The graphics are really cute and the cost so much less than if I had to print them myself. The butterflies are cut from a single sheet of scrapbook paper & the grass is just green cardstock. I had to cut a new center for the sun because the one on the notepad had some writing.

I used pop dots to give a 3-D look to the bow, sun, butterfly & grass. I also used a glitter pen to color the strawberry & ribbon on the hat and the dots on the butterflies. It ended up being a little more work than I had originally anticipated (isn't it always???), but I was able to work on the pieces after the kids were in bed at night while I was watching my favorite fall shows!
The inside of the invitation reads, "Strawberry Shortcake and her friends are celebrating a berry special day ~ It's Emma's 5th Birthday!" I listed the "Place" as "Strawberry Land" with the address of the party (our house). The strawberry is a part of a clip that I found at the dollar store - 10 clips for $1. When I took the spring mechanism out, I was left with 20 cute plastic strawberry embellishments!

I apologize for the fuzzy photos - I could not get a clear picture of the invitations to save my life. If you click on the pictures, the larger version seems to be less blurry.

Candy Cane Poles

Look what I found today! These awesome candy cane poles were left across from my daughter's pre-school with a "Free" sign, so I scooped them up!
There are 42 PVC poles with all-weather satin ribbon stripes. I had been planning on buying Christmas candy cane lawn decor to use at Lulu's party in October, but these will be perfect & free! Lulu's 5th birthday party theme is Strawberry Shortcake and I plan on using these striped poles to make giant lollipops to decorate the yard (in Strawberry Land, the landscape is full of candy trees & plants). Since her party will be in the back yard, these poles will also work well to designate the different stations of the party.