I love to plan parties!

So this past weekend was Cole's 4th birthday and I planned a little shindig for him.  I planned this party so it would work for just the 3 of us or to accomodate whom ever wanted to come from Syracuse.  We ended up with 10 people!  Hooray for our awesome families! Although we missed having EVERYONE around, we were so happy to have so many people who love him come to be with him and us on his birthday. 

As any good cheapskate would do, I DIYed most of the party details.  I'll do tutorials in posts that have yet to be written so if you see something you like-- hold on a few days and if after that you haven't seen a tutorial (and you'd like one), let me know.  Now on with the show!

Quick party overview:

These days (and what seems like might just be FOREVER) Cole is obsessed with the 'Toy Story' movies.  We based our party on that.   Without getting too theme-y (notice all the new words I'm making up in this post), I tried to incorporate portions of the movies into the party.

Like for example the blue cloud wall-- like in the main character Andy's bedroom. 

I had visions of making our whole dining "nook" into Andy's room, but in the interest of time (and money) just the back wall got the treatment.  I looked for cloud fabric to hang, but just couldn't find anything close enough to Andy's room so I decided to take measures into my own hands.  Instead-- light blue wrapping paper and hand-cut clouds did the trick.   

image source

Pretty close (if I do say so myself).

In one of the movies (can't remember which), the toys use a 'Pizza Planet' delivery truck to get around.  I used this when deciding to make my life easy and order pizzas as the main food and used the rocket from the 'Pizza Planet' logo for food labels.  The rest just kinda fell into place. 

couldn't help myself with the silly name

We had 'Pizza Planet' pizza, turkey burger sliders, french fries (and sweet potato fries) and fruit salad. 

We did in fact put mini turkey burgers in the buns-- but they were cooking when I had to take photos. 

No detail was too small.  

I created custom napkin rings (which at first were a total fail-- more on that later)...

 Custom party hats...

note-- Cole is wearing his hat backwards.  AND I don't think he likes it very much :)

Custom party blowers...

Water bottle wraps in 2 of the party's color scheme colors...

A custom t-shirt for the birthday boy...

I even "made" the string holding the spoons to the jello (and holding together the circle banners). 

 And even after all this, there were still so many things that I wish (in hindsight) that I had done as well - like a wreath for the front door and little party hats for his Toy Story friends.  Guess next year I'll just have to start planning/working earlier.  Ya' know-- 5 is a big deal!

And some final parting shots of the party. 

travel Light Bright.  Did you know they still made Light Bright?!

 

And some post party fun with Grandpa