1. Pizza roll-ups. These are perfect finger foods for adults and children to enjoy! Get the recipe here.
2. Football field chip dip. Create a stadium of deliciousness! It’s even outlined in sandwiches. YUM! Get the full idea here.
3. Pretzel bites. Always a crowd-pleaser: cheese & baked bread. Get the recipe here.
4. Jalepeno poppers. Jalepenos, cream cheese and cheddar cheese wrapped in bacon – delish! Get the recipe here.
1. Layered Drinks: to achieve this look fill your cup with ice and pour in lemonade, fruit punch and Gatorade. Be sure to pour slowly and you can read more information here. Add a fun straw to top it off!
2. American Flag Dip: this idea is easy to do as well! Cut up red peppers to make stripes, add humus to be the white stripes, and blue corn chips for the blue area. Such a fun and patriotic idea your guests will adore.
My good friend Marni enlisted my help for her daughter’s 5th birthday party. As the mom of two boys, it was so much fun to be involved in the planning of a GIRL party! Since her birthday is in the summer we wanted to find something fun to do outdoors, and we landed on doing an outdoor movie night. Her daughter loves movies, especially at movie theaters, so we wanted to bring that experience to their backyard.
We found the perfect invitation, Glowing Affair Photo Trifold Party Invitations, which gave us the flexibility to change colors, fonts and text so we could make it fit our theme. We changed the main text to read, “IT’S SHOWTIME!” For the photo we had a little mini photo session with the perfect prop, popcorn. Pretty sure Gwyneth had a great time, and it really helped set the stage for the party! Turns out the invitations inspired a lot of our outdoor movie party ideas, including the decorations, colors and activities.
Even before choosing the invitation we knew we wanted lanterns and lights hanging around the yard. Pinterest had LOTS of ideas for this, some not so realistic, but we threw some up here and there, and it definitely added a little element of ‘party’ to the backyard.
One of the moms at Pear Tree wanted to organize an outing for her family reunion, so she came up with a list of activities that they could do as a group that would be something more than the usual picnic. We thought we’d share it, and added a few ideas of our own, in case they sparked some summer party ideas for you!
Image by: wellpy.net
We chose some of our favorite products to help set the mood for our red, white and blue theme, and created some new party decorations (which you can download here) to add some flair to this party. It all starts with an invite, so we chose our Stamped Fonts Party Invitations and changed the colors to red and blue. (Check out our party invitations collection for more 4th of July ideas.) We also repurposed our I Do Stripes Wedding Favor Tags into some fun tags for our milk bottles, which we filled with festive red and blue beverages.
Like most of our team parties, this one was pot-luck style. In order to get all of the essentials needed at a 4th of July party we asked each team member to bring a few specific items, using their creativity, of course! As you can see, they did pretty well! All the essentials made it: hot dogs, deviled eggs, baked beans, macaroni salad, fruit and some other fun things! We held our picnic at a nearby lake, and dressed our table with a red tablecloth and our free printable banner. The beautiful scenery became our backdrop and the weather could not have been better for a picnic!
From Vanessa (her bio below):
I recently hosted a surprise birthday party, rainbow style, for my dear friend Nicole of Petal Wishes. There are those people in the world that are just so giving and happily (and tirelessly) do so much for everyone else, without looking for any sort of payback or recognition. They are the people you can count on for just about anything and they usually offer before you even have to ask. Nicole is definitely one of those rare friends and I’m so grateful to have her in my life and my family’s life. Nicole, like me, loves a good party (check out the cowgirl party she planned) and I thought a surprise party would be the perfect opportunity to show her how appreciated she is by all of her friends. I think it worked because she was teary eyed the entire time, causing this hormonal pregnant lady to be teary eyed the entire time as well!
The entire party was inspired by Pear Tree Greeting’s Color Stream Retro Party Invitations. How adorable are these modern invitations?! They’d work for just about any type of party – birthday party, baby shower, bbq, etc. I love how easy it is to modify colors and wording on the Pear Tree Greetings site to create the perfect invite! I took the rainbow theme of the invitation and ran with it. Lauren Haddox Design created the rest of the rainbow party printables used throughout the party (isn’t she amazing?!).
I had guests arrive 30 minutes early and gave Nicole’s hubby the task of keeping her at home until she was scheduled to arrive. Not an easy task when the birthday girl was texting me that morning asking me if I needed her to arrive early to help set up for what I told her was a party for my blog. She was slightly early, despite her hubby’s efforts to delay her, but it all worked out and we pulled off the surprise. Guests enjoyed breakfast foods, a cereal bar and were entertained by a photo booth. The littlest guests colored rainbow coloring pages and played with bubbles at this outdoor party.
The main centerpiece of this morning party was the cereal bar. I filled big glass containers with everyone’s favorite cereals, including Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops to match the rainbow theme. I included strawberry, mini marshmallow, chocolate chip, banana, and raisin mix ins for guests to add to their cereal. Shamrock Farms so kindly sent their on-the-go mmmmilk jugs for guests to enjoy. I also used Shamrock Farms milk for the little donut shooters I passed around the party, which were a huge hit! Who can say no to cute little donuts and milk in shot glasses?! We also had full sized donuts, fruit, mini chocolate chip muffins, a coffee station and OJ on the menu.
My husband was turning 30 years old and I wanted to do something a little different than our annual BBQ with friends and family. One of Jeff’s hobbies is brewing his own beer, so I came up with the idea of a beer tasting party! Guests were mailed The Big 3-0 Birthday Party Invitations (sample shown below) and were asked to bring a 6-pack of chilled specialty beer within particular categories that the birthday boy prefers.
The menu consisted of your standard and yummy bar food. Most of my best beer tasting party ideas involved creative ways to display it. I used brown kraft bags to hold the soft pretzel bites, and mini clothespins to close the bags and add some detail. Another great tip is to use small chalk board signs to indicate different dips or food. I’ve found that guests love this because they don’t have to ask you what everything is. Using an apothecary jar, I filled up peanuts and added a pop of color with the bright red popcorn boxes. The best thing you can do when planning a party is utilize all the space you have available (including the drawers)! Of course the table wouldn’t be complete without a great sign and a beer growler filled with wheat stalks.
Both of my parents turned 60 this year, and although I wasn’t able to pull off a huge surprise party, I had a few birthday ideas that made it special. My big idea was to send a card announcing their birthdays to all of their friends and relatives, asking each of them to write back with a favorite memory of my parents.
My dad’s birthday was first, and I chose our Surprise Photo Birthday Invitations for him, mainly because I didn’t have a lot of childhood pictures of him, and this card featured just one photo. Inside, I wrote about his upcoming big day and asked that people use the enclosed card to write to him about their favorite Carl story. I then enclosed one of our Engraved Distinction Note Cards and an envelope complete with address labels, so the recipients just had to fill out the card and pop it in the mail. I was careful to make sure the note card I chose would fit inside the larger birthday card.
