Guest Post: Sesame Street Party!

Hey everyone! Jen here.  Like most crafty people, I surround myself with other crafty people.  Jessica is a dear friend of mine, who also is another Navy wife.  I asked to her do a guest spot on the blog about her daughters birthday party that she did on the cheap!

Hi! I am Jessica of Jess Nicole Photography. I recently did an awesome birthday party for my sweet, darling daughter Ava's 2nd birthday! I decided to do a Sesame Street theme because Ava was really obsessed at the time. I wanted to do a whole party for about 20-30 people for under $250. I got pretty overwhelmed when I began thinking about food, decorations, invitations, and party favors. I turned to my beloved Pinterest for inspiration, my crafty background for the leg work, and my hubby, mom, and aunt to help me pull it all together!

Decorations:
First, I decided to go with a rainbow Elmo theme with a really cute rainbow chevron pattern. I found the perfect accent fabric (which really tied the whole thing together) at this Etsy shop- $20: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShuShuStyle I ended up serging around the edges and using it as the food table runner.

 

Next, I decided to make a ton of the tissue pom pom balls to hang from my kitchen ceiling. The white ones I borrowed from a friend from her daughter's birthday a few weeks prior. The others I got from various stores: Hobby Lobby, Target, and Dollar General. Word of advice, don't buy tissue paper from Dollar General. It tears super easy. It's not a huge deal, but just so you know. Also, start on these a few weeks in advance. They can be time consuming. I followed this tutorial on Pinterest from the All Knowing, Martha Stewart: http://www.marthastewart.com/265163/pom-poms-and-luminarias-how-to I had two leaf sized trash bags full and I spent about $12. I did cut some of the tissue paper in half to make smaller, fuller balls. The mix really looked great hanging in a big cluster from the ceiling.

I got 3 blue metal tubs during the Wal Mart summer clearance sale for $2 each. I used them to hold iced water bottles for the adults and the other held iced juice boxes for the kiddies. The last one held party favors on her gift table.
I splurged and bought 2 linen table cloths for $20 total in lime green and fushia. I will be able to use these again and again.
The most expensive decoration, which was by far my favorite was 2 wreaths I made. One Elmo feather wreath ($15) and one yarn and felt Cookie Monster Wreath ($10).

I bought a fish bowl for $3 at Michaels to hold the Goldfish crackers.
I also bought, which I got *so* many compliments on, a Wilton 3 tier cake stand from Jo-Ann's. It was originally $35, but I had a 60% off one item coupon. Bringing it all the way down to $14. I can't wait to use this again!
I went to Hobby Lobby and used their 40% off coupon to purchase a small helium tank that was $27, but the coupon made it about $17 and 2 packs of balloons for $4.
For her gift table, I bought a book for everyone to sign birthday wishes in. I chose "If you Give a Pig a Party" by Laura Numeroff. It's a sweet little tradition we started on her first birthday.
I sat her Sesame Street Characters all around the food table and gift table. It was a really cute added touch.

Food:
I decided on a simple menu. One pleasing to adults and toddlers alike. I chose homemade chicken salad with crossiants, Italian pasta salad, hummus, cut up veggies for dipping, vegetable dip, fruit kabobs (huge hit!), Goldfish, and Alphabet cookies from Trader Joe's. I made all of these except the fruit kabobs the night before, and truthfully, that should have been done the night before also. It couldn't have been done with out my aunt! All of the food was under $60. The paper plates, napkins, and forks I actually traded for. They were new in the pack and I put a "in search of" post on a local Knoxville trade/swap group. That's a wonderful and economical way to get things you need or want. We bought a small cake and 30 cupcakes from Sam's Club, totaling $24.

 

 

A few other things I did, was hire a photographer to take pictures (except for these in this blog, these are mine) which was $40 because we worked out a massive trade between us. The last money saving thing I did was not send out invitations. I created a Facebook invite and called it a day. It's easy, time saving, money saving, and practical. Since I am a photographer, I took her birthday pictures and used those pictures to dress up her Facebook invite. I wanted to display those adorable pictures, so placed them in frames around the house and I pinned a piece of wrapping tulle to the wall and tied a bow on each end. I hung pictures of her on that with clothespins for FREE! It was so cute, I kept it up and it is now used to display her artwork.

The Breakdown:
Food: $60
Decorations: $121
Cake: $24
Photographer: $40
Total: $245


Finally, on her actual birthday morning, I made her Cake Batter Pancakes from Chef in Training (found via pinterest) :  http://www.chef-in-training.com/2011/06/cake-batter-pancakes/
They were good, sickeningly sweet, but a great way to start off her life as a two year old! She loved them, in my opinion, they were a bit tough. I have no suggestion as to how to fix this. We ate them, nonetheless.

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