Wednesday, August 13, 2014

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!”

Monday, July 28, 2014

MAX's FARMER's MARKET














We did a beautiful party for a sweet Farmer's Market loving' Max recently that we really wanted to share.  Max's party was going to be the first of our video series "Best Birthday Ever... with the COOP!"  which will be airing SOON on POPSUGAR.com.  But - sadly - we couldn't get the filming calendar organized fast enough so we couldn't film this one!  Shame -- because it was just SO SO Cute -- and full of fun DIY elements that would've been fun to share!  One of my favorite DIY elements was the amaaaaaaazing crepe paper "grass" table runners.  I LOOOOOOVE how they turned out ... aren't they FAB?  We used them as the main focus on the cake table -- along with some gorgeous flowers and honeycomb fruits and veggies popping out of the "grass".  It was so fantastic looking!  Another favorite for me was the 3D paper fruits at each place setting.  They weren't SUPER easy to make (they didn't want to stay standing!) but they looked so cute that the effort was absolutely worth it!  As always Julie from Blue Cupcake did the gorgeous cake and cupcakes.  We also made some darling banners for inside and out, and did our cute drink cups with fruit / vegetable cut outs and mini honeycomb fruits on the straws.  We made a "carrot patch" out of carrot shaped bags we filled with goldfish crackers... also a really cute element!  Basically -- we just loved it all!  Hope you love the pics!!!

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

STAR WARS - the HOTH SCENE..











We have been so blessed over the years at the COOP to work with some incredible parents and the one featured in this blog is truly one of the most inspired! This was Jennifer's second COOP party with us she also had the Yo Gabba Gabba the year before both for her gorgeous son Tenz. Every year Tenz and Jennifer come up with a cool theme and pull out all the stops in making it look and feel sensational. Jennifer created the crazy wonderful Hoth puppets as well as the gorgeous hats. Julie from Blue Cupcake created the incredible cake and cupcakes and the COOP took care of the decorative elements. Bebe Jacobs took all the FAB photos and the family (who are picture perfect) had a special birthday that would make George Lucas proud! 

SUPER FAB - SUPER PINK - ROCKSTAR!


















How gorgeous is all this PINK for ROCKSTAR! I was so happy with the way that this little Pink Rockstar turned out that I contemplated painting my kids room PINK! He didn't go for it - but he did allow a metallic vase with glitter microphones as decor on his desk!
I really went a bit nuts with the details for this one. I found a super fabulous hot pink petal material down town that I used as the main tablecloth and went from there. I created little poptini's with the signature COOP gummi cherry as garnish as well as Rockstar cookies leaning against little bottles of PINK milk to put on the main table along with the regular COOP lollipop display boxes. The amazing Julie of Blue Cupcakes took care of the cupcakes with the most adorable glitter microphones and guitars on top.
Outside the pink fest continued with stars and glitter and microphones being used to tie it all together.
It really did ROCK the world of our little birthday girl Charlotte as well as all the party guests who danced along to the COOL COOP rock soundtrack!

RAPUNZEL PARTY at HOME...










I loved it when one of my favorite COOP party at home mommies asked for a Rapunzel party as Rapunzel was my favorite princess when I was little. Also as I only have two (amazing sons) it is always with glee that I decorate and put together a girlie party! Juliet & I really wanted to make sure that the colors were vibrant and bright but not too Lakers (an LA basketball team for all our International bloggers!). So we used purple and yellow and also incorporated some pretty greens and pinks.
We used Rapunzel's hair as our table runners and tied a small braid to each of the goodie bags. The goodies included tiara's and tutu's and wands for all our little princess's. Juliet put together some gorgeous flowers and the whole effect was more RAPUNZEL than LAKERS so we were thrilled. Our beautiful birthday girl was over the moon especially when Rapunzel herself appeared!!