MAGICAL GARDEN NEVERLAND PARTY AT HOME

This was a really special one.  This party was for three of the loveliest kiddos that the COOP chicks have ever known.  An incredibly kind, gorgeous family that has supported us since the get go -- and they wanted to help them host a BIG BLOW OUT for all three kiddos in their new magical backyard.  The kids and their friends range in age from 7 - 12 ... and are equal amounts boys and girls.  So we just wanted to create something MAGICAL.  Nothing too boy or girl themed.  Just fun an magic and colorful and gorgeous.  We started with glitter and feathers and pom poms and just went from there.         The "usual" way to approach a garden party would be greens and wood elements -- but we thought we wanted to do something more bright and fun for this crowd!  We settled on a vibrant color scheme and started creating ribbon backdrops for the food table, the chairs, the swing  and the treehouse, as well as the amazing backdrop for the treat table.  That is kind of my favorite thing ever... my son Grant and I made it in our driveway.  We rolled a 20 foot piece of watercolor paper down our sloped driveway -- and then, just like a couple of Kindergartners... we covered the paper with pieces of colored tissue paper that we wet in order to get the color to bleed all over the paper.  The result is this amazing watercolor effect in these beautiful bright hues... that I just LOVED!!!!  I also spent what seemed like weeks glittering and assembling these amazing feather headdresses for all the kids.  I was SOOOO Happy when the birthday boys put theirs on the second they saw them (over their baseball hats!  So cute!!)  I also made a bunch of paper pinwheels in all the bright colors to decorate the yard.  There is a TON of yard -- and we had quite a few fun areas going on.  The golden pinata tree with 4 golden fringed pinatas.... the treehouse  area where the kids got burlap bags filled with slingshots and colorful pouf ammo (we even hand painted some bullseye's for them that we placed near the Teepee we brought in for the fun!) , a magical dress up area -- where we also hosted a magic show and of course the driveway was taken over by the extraordinarily looooong party table covered in feathers and glitter and poufs and flowers and fun of all kinds!!    A couple of weeks before the party, mom sent us the  invite she sent out for the party ... it was a beautiful handwritten note about how her kids were all growing so fast and how she wished so many things for them.  Then she listed her 27 wishes (27 is all three of their ages added together) for her kids on their birthday this year.  I thought it was such a beautiful sentiment that I really wanted to incorporate it somewhere.    I decided to use clear plastic plates and spray glue a square of white glitter paper with a wish at each place setting.  It was such a lovely and  personal touch at the party table.  Mom gathered up all the plates at the end so she keep them as a special memento.  It makes us so happy when people appreciate the time and effort we put into making their parties special and unique... and to see them want to hold on to that magic really makes us proud.  Julie from blue cupcake did the gorgeous bright fun cakes -- dipped in rock candy - which were  SOOOOO CUTE!!!  OK -- I could go on an don about this party but I won't -- I'll end it with some pics and this excerpt from the thank you e mail mom sent us onMonday...

"Honestly, that was a dreamy dreamy day… I received so many nice notes from people who echoed what I felt - that we were just reliving the whole party all Monday. You are a magic maker!!  I really can’t thank you enough, Juliet.  Jack, Calvin and Cecilia were in 7th heaven - they said it was their most favorite party ever.  A big hug is the closest thing to give you to represent the warmth and love you brought, but really it doesn’t do it all justice!

sigh, my words are inadequate. but hopefully you get the picture :)

SWEET 16 / Party at Home

We did a beautiful SWEET SIXTEEN party for one of our very favorite clients this past weekend (this is her fourth COOP Party!!!)  All her previous parties have been AT the COOP -- but this year -- for her milestone 16TH BDay... Isabel chose to have us come and do a COOP AT HOME party for her in her backyard.  She's the loveliest young lady and we were thrilled to help her celebrate this beautiful afternoon with her girlfriends for a ladies lunch.  We did 2 walls of ribbon surrounding the table (and blocking the backyard -- making the party scene a bit more intimate).... giant balloons with paper tassels and of course a GOLD 16 Balloon to celebrate.  We also hung a few gold glittering pinatas from the tree for a bit of sparkle!  Each of the girls took home a potted succulent... we HAD to fancy them up a bit so we painted the rims gold an then doused them with glitter and added a pink pom-ed pick with a custom Burlap ribbon that read Isabel's Sweet 16 on it.  It was a beautiful celebration for a beautiful (inside and out) young lady that we were honored to create!!!  Hope you enjoy the pics!!

FROZEN - WINTER WONDERLAND....

We were so thrilled when one of our favorite clients asked us to create the perfect FROZEN WONDERLAND birthday for her little girl. The mom asked that it not be too brand heavy but feel like a Winter Wonderland. As it was a 100'degree Los Angeles day this posed a small challenge :). We started by deciding that we would use mainly the colors white and silver along with the shape of a snowflake. We hand glittered a few dozen snowflakes and then got to attaching theme to all the elements such as the glittered mason jars for flowers, the plastic cups for the juice and the lollipops. We also used the silhouette of Elsa throughout and I thought the effect was just lovely. We even cut out tiny Elsa silhouettes for my straw toppers! 

We knew we wanted to add some old world touches so we hand made a gorgeous banner that in lieu of saying the usual Happy Birthday said "True Love - Sisters". We just loved how it turned out and it was very easy to make by purchasing 2 different fabrics from Joanns Crafts and then glittering and gluing wood letters onto the triangle cut fabric. We handmade some beautiful Princess Crowns which turned out beautifully and all the little girls loved them. 

We had a lovely Elsa and Anna Princess for games and of course Olaf made a special appearance!
 It was a truly magical day and once again proved that everybody needs a little FROZEN to melt their hearts.

NEON POW WOW...

My two gorgeous boys are born 3 days but 3 years apart so one was turning 11 and the other 8 so we really had to come up with a theme that made them BOTH happy! My littlest likes anything NEON and so that was his choice for one half of the theme. My oldest loves old time Westerns and also the culture and believes of the American Indians and thus the NEON POW WOW was born. I’m not sure what it was about this theme but it pushed my creative juices up about 100 knotches and I went crazy creating NEON everything forthe event. It was my biggest DIY to date – I went DIY bannanas!

I had used a super cool image of my boys for their invitation and I knew that I wanted to incorporate the image at the party. I took the raw image and saturated all the colors in photoshop and it turned all the colors neon which was perfect! I used two large blown up pictures in the main room and then two for the patio table. I surrounded the photos with ribbon in the main room and I loved the effect it created.
I had also seen a very simple image of a teepee on a t.shirt on etsy and so I had my husband tape it out on the wimdows of the main room. I also bought two t.shirts with the teepee image for my boys to wear during the party to tie everything together. I love white as my base when creating parties and white with the NEON accents made everything pop. I spray painted (neon) some fantastic American Indian molds I found on ebay and then spray-painted the doilies to place on the plates that were the base for the Indian molds.
I knew I wanted an activity for the little ones on the outside patio so I went about finding a large piece of wood and painted a large neon bullseye on it. The kids loved using it as target practice and it was super fun. I also handmade a table runner of feathers that was originally going to be used for the main table but it wasn’t quite neon eneough so I used it outside. The drinks table was so fun with Big Chief cocktails and a neon rattlesnake that I painted with some glitter so as not to scare the kiddies!!
I spent the morning of the party downtown at the flower mart and created two very colorful flower vases and then I spray painted some 99cent store little vases to add pops of color. I colaborated with the AMAZING Julie of Blue Cupcakes and I was thrilled with the cakes she created that fit perfectly into my theme. I mean the little cactus cupcakes were to die for! I also requested some white and neon cookies with a hole in the center to place on top of the little bottles I had spray-painted white.
For my outside patio I wanted to create a scene out of one of my son’s favorite Westerns so I set about painting a teepee neon and making a Buffalo banner to put around it. I also created a little fireplace from sticks that I had found in my garden. My son loved it! It was important to my son Dashiell to remember the wisdom of the Indians and to honor them so we made little signs with American Indian quotes and placed them around the party.
For the goodie bags I hand painted Buffalo heads on each bag using a stencil that I found on etsy. The effect was simple and cool. I then added a little sac of Indians a headdress and a bow and arrow as my party favors.
The big attraction at the party was really the mechanical bull that we hired – the kids went crazy for it and I would really recommend it for any party!

The NEON POW WOW Party will forever live in my boys hearts and my jeans as they are covered in neon spray-paint!”