While I’m gone, I thought I’d repost some of my favorite stuff from the past few years. But an all-repeat post is kind of boring so here’s the details on the favor boxes I put together for Evan’s upcoming 3rd birthday party:

Boxes, twine and tag from In The Clear on Etsy

Dinosaur tattoos, stamp and toy from Oriental Trading Company

Dinosaur stamp from Melissa & Doug set I bought Evan

Custom “ROARRR! means I love you in Dinosaur” from Tickled Pink Paper + Ink on Etsy

Moss filler from the local dollar store

To be honest, I spent a long time thinking about these and putting them together and have do practically nothing else in preparation for the party. I figure I’ll toss around a bunch of moss and rocks and a few more toy dinosaurs and call it good. I’m even going to feed my guests store bought food and a cake I hired someone else to make. I figure with two toddlers of my own and a house full of guests I need to stop driving myself crazy doing EVERYTHING myself. Although I’m pretty sure I’ve said some version of that same sentence before every party I’ve thrown.

Here’s a trip down party memory lane:

Evan’s First Birthday: Circus (food, friends, decorations, photobooth)

Caroline’s Baby Shower: Nursery Rhymes

Evan’s Second Birthday: Bubbles, Balls & Balloons (decorations, food, friends)

Caroline’s First Birthday: Sparkle & Snow (party post, details)

Are you really, really hungry now? Sorry about that.

After Evan’s big fancy over-done 1st birthday last year I swore I wouldn’t be doing a major party again until he was well into elementary school. But as this year’s birthday approached it occurred to me that throwing the party had very little to do with him and everything to do with ME. I wanted to celebrate the day I gave birth to my baby, I wanted to hang out with all my friends, I wanted to make my house pretty, I wanted to eat a disgusting amount of cake.

So I threw another party.

(Edited to remove my address & phone number so you can’t crazy stalk me. I know you were planning on it.)

I made the invitations on my computer with an old graphics program I stole borrowed from my office job. Then I ordered them as matte photo prints from Snapfish using a coupon code. Total cost: $4.05

The biggest difference between throwing a first birthday party and throwing a second birthday party is that 2 year olds need to be entertained a lot more than 1 year olds. So I went with a play time theme featuring the three things Little Evan loves most in the world: bubbles, balls and balloons. Then I categorized all those things as “round” and ran with it. I ran like I was in the Boston Marathon being chased by rabid badgers on roller skates carrying flame throwers.

Dining Room

As usual, all the “tablecloths” are just yards of fabric from Joann’s. The ones on the main table are really 3 piece of fabric just laying there. I am too lazy to sew.

Entryway - please ignore one wonky circle in the banner. It's glitter paper and my sticker didn't stick

Living Room - I made the banners with scrapbook paper, my printer and salad bowls for circle tracing

Living Room

The ball pit is actually Little Evan’s birthday present from LAST year. We left it up in the living room for a few months but I eventually wanted my house back and put it away. He was REALLY excited to see it again and I’m sort of amazed it didn’t get popped considering how much fun was had in it.

I love this picture the most because you can see decorations in both rooms, the gorgeous colors, and the children having a great time

Blurry photos of other people's kids to protect privacy

A few decorating details:

I bought the bottles of bubbles at Michael’s ($3 for 6), cut scrapbook paper into strips and then printed the circle stickers I designed on sheets of label paper. I used a big hole puncher to cut them, stuck them on the paper and hot glued the paper around the bottles. Boom, party favors!

I bought a 50 balloon helium tank at BJ’s for $21 and my dad blew them all up for us. Some of the strings were long enough for the taller kids to grab, but Little Evan kept losing his so we made sure he always had them with him:

That's the shirt I made! The same fabric is on my headband and on the entry table.

My mom had the brilliant idea to anchor some of the balloons with the adorable polka dot chalk we found at Michael’s ($1 for 5 pieces) and send them home with the kids.

Adorable, right?

There are also lots of round candies, so I filled a bunch of glass containers with them at stuck them on the mantel – jelly beans, peanut M & M’s, gum balls and DumDums. I ordered the giant rainbow lollipops from Oriental Trading Company and used more of my label paper, graphics program, and giant hole punch to make the stickers. Then I raided my milk glass collection for vases.

Other stuff I got from Oriental Trading:

Party Lanterns (And they fold up, so they're reusable!)

Beach balls and mini beach balls - perfect sized for small hands and helped fill up the pit nicely. I *think* some of the kids took them home (which was the plan) but we still have tons. They were cheap.

And to round it all out (BA DUM CHING) I picked up flowers in the colors that matched my theme: yellow, orange, blue and green. I was very excited to find blue flowers – and NATURAL blue flowers at that!

You know what DIDN’T work out great? The bubble machine. It got sort of sticky during our pre-party trial run and didn’t make the huge number of bubbles it used to. I put it on the porch to avoid slippery floors but it made the floor out there slippery so I turned it off until the kids found it. I had imagined gorgeous photos of children and bubbles but didn’t get any at all. But when it WAS working (for about 10 minutes) the kids really liked it!

Actually, the kids liked all of it. Especially the birthday boy.

How can I help but give this kid the best parties I can?

I had intended to just do one post for the whole party but this is getting ridiculously long, so I’ll save food for tomorrow. Or maybe later today. It really is the best part – I went a little crazy on the theme. I also ended up making the cake, frosting and filling from scratch (recipes and links coming soon!) so I need to give it the attention it deserves. And if you come to my house I have some left over for you to try. Please, please come eat this cake.

I linked up at Tip Junkie – she’s got some amazing parties on her site!

Although my plan was to save money by making all the decorations for Evan’s circus birthday party, it didn’t take long for things to get out of hand with my budget. (Or at least that’s what WOULD have happened if I’d had a budget to begin with. I’ve never been good with numbers.) I would have been better off ordering a couple banners off Etsy, picking up paper plates and cups at the dollar store, plopping a hat on everyone’s head and calling it good. So don’t come around here looking for cheap party tips because I don’t have any. If you want inspiration, cute ideas or hints on where to find circus themed stuff, then by all means keep reading.

I decided I needed a wreath for the door at 9 pm Friday night. It’s tissue paper on cardboard.

Banner on the front porch. Craft paper from JoAnn Fabric.

Playbill font on craft store paper.

I pushed our buffet in front of the fireplace to keep the kids out and used it as a cake table. The photos on the mantle were done by Nina Benjamin, a local photographer. Tablecloth is just a couple yards of fabric from Joann’s. Circus tray is vintage from my grandmother, crown is from Michael’s crafts with a little felt badge I made glued on.

I used “Coffee Tin”, a free font I downloaded, and printed on paper rectangles I bought at the craft store. No cutting involved!

Popcorn boxes from the $1 section of Target, wind up clowns, gumball machines and pin wheels from the dollar store.

Prizes for the older kids, although the games were so disorganized I just handed them out to whoever I could find.

Origami circus animals from Michael’s.

I bought a 50-balloon helium tank from BJ’s for $22 and used ALL of it. Balloons outside, balloons inside, balloons on the ceiling, balloons on the staircase.

BALLOOOOOOOONS!

My proudest and most frustrating decoration – I cut every single one of these tiny triangles out by hand and sewed them together one at a time in a looooooooog streamer.

Clown noses ordered from Oriental Trading Co, free circus font downloaded from internet, tablecloth is fabric from Joann’s

Napkins from Celebrate Express (seriously, they had some good stuff)

Games: clothespin drop, pin the nose on the clown, coloring pages of (non-scary) clow faces

ALL those little circus graphics are actually from favor boxes I bought at Christmas Tree Shops. I cut them up and used them as my theme and color scheme. The silverware holders are actually pencil holders from the $1 section at Target. Tickets from iParty.

I ordered a photo book from Snapfish with a 30% off coupon code and left a few pages blank in the back to use as a guest book. The photos are a recap of Baby Evan’s first year.

Bean bag toss – the cloth was purchased at Target on clearance, E built the backing. Extra bean bags bought at Christmas Tree Shop.

More fabric from Joann’s, top hat and mustache from local party store, baby suspenders from Belt Outlet online.

In the past 30 years, my wonderful husband has done a lot of stuff. He learned to play several instruments, kicked ass in marching band, became an Eagle Scout, graduated high school, saw The Matrix in the theater 79 times, decided college wasn’t for him (it interfered with Matrix-watching time), joined the Navy, survived boot camp, became a really excellent dancer, blazed up the military ranks at wild-fire speed, got married to your truly, adopted a dog, bought a house, traveled to Japan/Hawaii/Singapore/Greece/Gibraltar on a nuclear submarine, made Chief (E7) in less than 10 years, bought a boat,  and contributed 50%  of the genetic material needed to make Baby Evan. Next up, he’s hoping to get picked up as a Limited Duty Officer and contribute some more genetic material, several times over. Since most of E’s friends are internet-based (or deployed) and extended family is a 10-hour drive, we’re going to celebrate with a nice sushi dinner and some family time. But 30th birthdays are a Big Deal so I did my best to make it a (surprise) special occasion.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

When I got up to feed the baby at 5 am last night I also packed a lunch for E to take to work (so he wouldn't have to hike to the cafeteria in the snow). I also included some special treats.

I also decorated the dining room for the evening's cake eating.

Did you guess the theme yet?

Carrot cake with cream cheese whipped cream frosting - E's favorite. The frosting is slowing sliding off the cake (I made it too thin) but it TASTES absofrigginlutely delicious.

Baby Evan helped with the frosting.

And this is a picture from our craft project this morning, when Baby Evan made daddy his first of many birthday finger paintings. The gift is the only thing that's still a surprise.

I don't think the Crayola people had this in mind when they labeled it "non-toxic".