The small kink in this formula is that I'm not very creative in coming up with ideas. When I say that people tell me, "Oh that's not true, sure ya are." Thanks, but seriously.... I'm not. I can't come up with any original, creative ideas on my own, but thanks to the wonderful world-wide web of everyone else's original, creative ideas I can pretend. Whenever it's time for a birthday party, baby shower, etc, I park myself and my laptop on the couch and tell Bran I'm doing "research." ;) I am. I find all of these great ideas and then make them myself ... because we are poor and though I want it to look that good, no way could I spend the money some of these people do! There are some amazing blogs and sites that I love and that have made me look good with friends over the past few years. So, in case you have a kid's birthday to plan or just love parties like me (and come up with reasons to throw them), I thought I'd post all the links from my bookmark folder titled "make me smile." :)
The Cake Blog- It has a variety of party types and of course creative cakes. They pull together ideas from different vendors and my favorite things are their real parties and inspiration boards tabs along the top. I think I pulled a lot of ideas for my sister's ducky baby shower from here.
The TomKat Studio- This is a great site for all things related to the paper products used for a party. I don't mean cups and plates and such-- I'm talking invites, labels, favor tags, cupcake toppers (yes, that's a thing and it's very big right now). :) She has great ideas and she links with photogs to show how they can create an entire setting at a party. -which I both love and loathe because it's great inspiration but my stinkin parties will never look that amazing! I will go straight here if I ever in my life get to do a dang little girl's birthday party!
The Purple Pug- That's actually the link to the blog and then you can go to their website of products as well. I totally stole most of their ideas for a pirate party when I helped with my nephew's birthday this year. I created similar signs for the house, used similar buckets stuffed with candy and silverware, and set the tables to look like theirs -- and one day I will do it all again for Drew's birthday. What can I say, they made it look so good! I also love that several of their parties have a "milk bar" and it really makes me want to do a cookies and milk bar at Ben's birthday party. Maybe next year.
The Party Dress- This site is just so pretty to me. It makes me want to throw trendy dinner parties every weekend in my big, open house and use place cards for seating at my giant dining room table. -Or maybe center it around the beautiful gardens out back in the summers and have the "help" to circulate with tapas to keep it casual. It'd also be very easy to scale back on some of the great-ness and use ideas for parties I ACTUALLY throw.
Also, some good sites:
http://sugarswings.blogspot.com/ Great ideas for cupcakes! The superhero ones are next on my list.
http://www.bakerella.com/ If you've never heard of cake pops, go here. It will change your life. :) I made some for Drew's last bday and a youth Lock-In -- time-consuming but not too hard.
http://dimpleprints.blogspot.com/ Cute invite ideas (which can easily be made yourself with free clip art and Publisher)
http://www.polkadotbirthday.com/ Have I ever mentioned my loooove for polka dots. I work them into any theme.
http://hoosierhomemade.com/ Go to cupcake heaven or cupcake tuesday - I dare you not to dream about cupcakes that night. I've made several of these for children's church, youth group, preschool- not hard ones, but they did require a lot of ingredients for the details.
http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/ Ok, this is not a "pretty" site, but every time go to look up bday ideas, it comes up and there really are great ideas especially for foods and games. They're mostly sent in by those original, creative people I was talking about.
http://blog.amyatlas.com/ Just discovered this one recently. Cute, cute!
http://cupcakewishesandbirthdaydreams.blogspot.com/ I'm liking the new "Share your party" spot.
http://blog.thecelebrationshoppe.com/ I haven't spent a lot of time on here, but I did find Ben's train cake for the upcoming big "1" on it.
*Just a warning, if you do click on just about any of these sites: They will lead you to another 1500 sites that I didn't even mention and soon it will be 1 am and you won't be able to stop yourself from looking at just one more. Well, that's what I was told at least. Maybe that's just for those nerdy, OCD mommies, I don't know. :)
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