Summer In Paris - The Collection

I have 2 little girls and they are 2 days shy of being 2 1/2 years apart in age. With a birthday every 6 months, I feel that I am constantly planning a birthday party :) Good thing I enjoy my job!

This year, my oldest turned 6. She's been a huge fan of Paris and the Eiffel Tower since watching her Barbie movies. It was only fitting that we have us a Paris party theme this year. We are glad to share her special day with you here and share the release of our newest party collection, Summer In Paris.

Grace, the birthday girl, chose pink, black & white for her colors. Shocker! :) Then she chose polka dots & zebra print for her patterns. That meant mommy needed to get to work on some designs for supplies. I loved the idea of doing a boarding pass invitation. I made up a template and then an envelope which I turned into a file I could print with my cricut machine, purchased some shimmery card stock, and began assembling the invitations.

Boarding Pass Invitation

The guests arrived and were welcomed with an adorable welcome sign on the door that we jazzed up with some tulle and acrylic buttons. We incorporated a few French words into our decor for this party...

Summer In Paris Welcome Sign

As the guests came in, the birthday girl greeted them and had her photo taken with them "inside" the frame. Cindy at BadApple-Photography did a great job of making my day just a little less stressful....ok A LOT less stressful!

Birthday girl and dance buddy, Macy

Our food consisted of delicious pink poodle cake balls (chocolate & vanilla) from Viva la Cake Balls, based in Santa Fe, Texas. Mary & her staff do a great job with flavors and design. They were a huge hit with the kids at the party. What kid wouldn't love a pink chocolate flavored poochie!

Poodle Cake Balls from Viva la Cake Balls

We posted a menu of food on the dry erase board and decorated it with polka dot balloons. We had

• french baguette with strawberry jam
• strawberry malted milk balls
• raspberry lemonade cake (this recipe was so moist and yummy...see it pinned on Pinterest)
• yogurt covered pretzels
• cheese & crackers
• fresh fruit
• rock candy
• candy sticks
• chex mix
• pink lemonade.

At the beginning of the planning phase, I knew I wanted to get some cute little cookies for this party. I love the Eiffel Tower shaped cookies but budget restricted us from being able to pay $2-$3 per cookie. I began searching on etsy and came across some cute little mini heart cookies that were a great price. Karen over at Sugar & Flour made these to match the colors of our party perfectly. We set these out with cute little zebra print bags for the kids to take some home with them.

Itty Bitty Heart Cookies by Sugar & Flour

Most of the parties we've had in the past the kids just run wild and crazy. This time we wanted to have a little more structure. We made a 20 x 30 poster that we had printed at Sam's Club for a great price. It was a Paris version of pin the tail on the donkey with an Eiffel Tower and a large heart. We call it Love In Paris. We printed and cut out large hearts, sprayed the back with removable adhesive, blind folded the girls, and had some fun. Each winner won a satin goody bag with a hair clip and a bottle cap necklace.

Party guest playing Love In Paris game

The girls had a great day and topped it off with a dance session on the Xbox Kinect :). Nothing like a good dance workout to expend some energy from all of the sugar we had just given them. This party was so much fun. Our decorations came out fantastic and all of the little details just fell into place.

Each child went home with a favor bag filled with zebra pencils, bracelets, cherry scented nail polish, & bubbles (with some cute bottle labels made by us). Also included in the favor bag was a strawberry scented Eiffel Tower soap in either pink or black. These soap favors were made especially for this party by Favor Boutique by Angelique. They smelled fantastic, great craftsmanship and my girls thought it was "awesome" to be able to wash with "Paris soap." She has tons of adorable soaps in her Etsy shop. We made the Merci tags to go on the soaps.

Eiffel Tower Soaps by Favor Boutique by Angelique

All of the decorations seen in the party can be found now in our Etsy shop. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the details of our Summer In Paris party!

{Shannon}