party time (almost)

My baby boy is turning two years old very soon and even though we are doing a very small family party, I want there to be special small touches for him to enjoy. We have had a rough year and a sweet little party would be really fun!

I always wanted one of my kids to love Sesame Street. The first two had no interest, but this one at least loves Elmo and likes Cookie Monster. I really love that, especially since there is a good chance he might be my last one. So I would love to throw him a little Sesame Street party to give him some big smiles!

As an event planner I have a system to planning parties. Do you want to know what it is? I research. I go to Google Images, Etsy, and Pinterest and I find all the pictures of ideas that I love (don't forget to bookmark the sites too). Then I take all of those pictures and make an inspiration board. I really like my parties to express who I am, or if I've been hired to do them, express whom the person of honor is. I also like to put a lot of love in my parties and you simply can't do that by just buying a bunch of stuff that looks fancy from the first person you see on Etsy. Sure it will look great, but you are not in there too. Once I make my inspiration board I then decide exactly what I want to do or if I am hired to do a party, I review it with my client and we make lots of notes. Then shop, shop, shop and create, create, create. I try and make everything myself so I can put my own spin on it and I always try to come up with as many original ideas as I can so it's not copied. Of course there are going to be some things that just need to be done by someone else and for those I go ahead and purchase. For everything else I make a plan and then off I go!

So here is my inspiration board for my little guy's birthday party. I would never show this ahead of time because I like the big reveal, but there will only be family there so no big deal

The touches I really am leaning towards are a special shirt, cute block letters he can keep, character pom poms, a cute fabric banner that we could also use in his room, colorful circle garland, a personalized hand-painted sign, and making him a sweet blanket as his gift from his momma. What do you think?

Where to find the images used:

shirt * block letters * pom poms * banner * garland * sign * blanket