Happy Tuesday! If you read our Cake Blog then you know it was Jilly's Hot Pink and Zebra Striped Birthday Party this weekend! We celebrated in a park with a bunch of family and friends. Now, when your Nana and Aunt are Party Planners you know that it's not just going to be plastic tablecloths and paper plates...nope it's going to be ZEBRA tablecloths and PINK paper plates and MORE! LOL! But seriously, it really is just a little "park party". So today we are going to share some of our tips on how you can take a park party and jazz it up a bit.

First off , of course, is the invitation! These from an Etsy vendor cost me about $10 for the digital copy that allowed me to print off as many as I wanted. Since this was just family and close friends I was actually able to email this to them! Saved on postage but I still have the digital file so I can print one out for a keepsake. It definitely sets the theme, right?!

 Of course Tory made awesome water bottle labels! Since it was planned for the first of September you never have any idea if that is going to be a 70 degree day or a 95 degree day. So we made sure to have lots of water for everyone. Since we were having it at a park that not only had one but TWO playgrounds, the kids made good use of the water too! These cute labels were printed on sticker paper by Kinko's so all she had to do is trim, peel and stick! Ok, it's a bit more than that and she's really really good at it now after lots of practice but it's still fairly easy to do. But they look totally awesome and really added to the table decor!

 I found these little zebra striped heart shaped stickers at the scrapbook store and just stuck one on each of the pink and white plastic cups.

 Zebra Zebra everywhere! So I used plain pink plates, in dark pink and light pink, for the food as well as plain white and pink plastic flatware because there was so much zebra everywhere! Zebra napkins, zebra favors, zebra balloons, zebra cake...even the tablecloth! I put down a plain white tablecloth then topped it with the zebra "runner" and finally unfolded a dark pink table cloth just enough to make a strip of pink right down the middle of the table. Now it was really, really...no, seriously, really windy there so I was pretty happy that I held all of these layers down with tablecloth clips. The ones I have are stainless steel and there are 12 of them. They just clip right onto the table edges to hold down the tablecloths. Seriously needed on that day and they were less than $5 for the set! 

 The favors were cute little dollar treats from Target and Party City. Pretty hair bows and bracelets for the girls and trucks, sunglasses and planes for the boys with fruit snacks for everyone! The Barbie silhouettes were from another Etsy vendor! I used them for the favors as well as for the banner so it was a good purchase. For the favors I got the treat bags (about $2 for 24) and then cut out a circle of white paper and glued the Barbie silhouette on top of that. I used double stick tape to attach it to the bag and then a sticker alphabet to add the initials of all the girls.

 The back of each one, to hold the bag closed, was this sweet little Thank You sticker. (click on the photo to read the saying) This is also from an Etsy vendor and it was just a few dollars for 12 of them. The girls bags had the silhouette on the front and these on the back and we only used these on the back for the boys so we could easily tell them apart from the girls favors. Each bag was filled then tied with a white ribbon bow and finally sealed with the Thank You sticker. SO cute!

These were all placed on the gift table until it was time to hand them out!

 Here is the whole set up. The banner was just made from squares of scrapbook paper layered with circles of scrapbook paper, the Barbie Silhouettes added to the center and then a sticker alphabets spelling out Happy 4th Birthday! The Birthday Girl took that home after the party to go up on her bedroom wall! We topped off each corner with bunches of pink, white and zebra print balloons! You can just see the center of the pop up canopy in this photo. We filled it up with paper pom poms and paper lanterns.

This is why you never get rid of good decorations! You can use them in different ways for other parties! The pink pom poms are from a baby shower, the white lanterns from a wedding and the zebra striped ones from the dollar store! What an easy and affordable way to add more detail to even a "Park Party"! 

 Keeping in mind that it was a park party we wanted kid friendly, park friendly food. So we went to Pizza Hut for their big box dinners! We got four different types of pizza, two different types of pasta and lots and lots of bread sticks! Here is the cheese and pepperoni pizzas with the chicken alfredo pasta.

 And here is the grilled chicken and sausage pizzas with the marinara pasta and bread sticks!  

 Even the Birthday Girls was dressed up for the theme! In a black and white dress with a hot pink sash and flower she fit the bill perfectly! She got this adorable necklace from Costco!

 Even the hair bow fit the theme! Once again, Etsy to the rescue! 

 After lunch we had ice cream! You can buy individual cupcake "clam shell" containers. I just scooped a couple of small scoops of ice cream into each container the night before, let it freeze up solid over night and then plopped it down into the ice of the cooler until it was time to serve it. The spoons are novelty spoons that change color when they hit the cold!

Finally there was cake! You can find out all about how Barbie was dressed up over at our Cat's Cakes Cake Blog and see what the back of this dressed up doll looked like too! Barbie was dressed up to the Nines for this party, right down to the present in her hand and her zebra striped candles!

It was even zebra striped INSIDE! The double chocolate and vanilla cake was baked in a way that makes zebra stripes on the inside of the cake when it's baking! Too cool! And yummy too!

Next week we'll share with you a football themed party! Until then you can always visit us over at our Facebook Fan Site for daily tips and tricks!

See you there!

Cat