I was watching my favorite reality TV family the other night and got a great idea for a birthday party. On “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” the family gathered together to do dress up night. The kids got a kick out of it, and so did I–which is what inspired this dress up party entry!

1) Decide on a theme. There is a whole lot of different things you can do when planning a dress up party. From firemen and police outfits to cowboy and cowgirl attire, your birthday girl or boy and their guests will have a good time dressing up as anything you choose.

2) Ask guests to bring their own outfits. There are a number of activities you can do with this. You can have a fashion show, or a best dressed contest. And, the kids will have fun trying on each others outfits.

3) Take plenty of pictures. Have your camera handy. If you have a instant camera such as Polaroid, take pictures of your little guests all dressed up that they can take home with them as favors.

4) Set out mirrors. Make sure you take out all your mirrors so kids can see how they look from head to toe.

5) Send invitations. Choose one of these invitations to match with the theme you chose for a fun dress up party!

Cowgirl Lasso

Fire Engine

If you’re planning a baby shower, here’s an idea for creating something memorable for the mom and dad to be. Have little note cards personalized with their baby’s name on it and leave one for each guest. If they don’t have a name yet, just personalize it with the names of the parents-to-be. Bring a handful of colorful pens and ask each guest to write words of advice or little notes to the new parents on them. These are sure to be a big hit with everyone and something that they can save, put into a scrapbook and treasure forever.

When I was looking for a fun, casual venue for an event I was planning, I stumbled upon the zoo. Since most kids love animals and hence love the zoo, I thought that this would also be a great place to have a birthday party. Keep reading for tips on how to make your party, wild, crazy and lots of fun!

1) Check out your local zoo’s website. In addition to finding out if they have special birthday packages, you can get all the details about having your party there. In November and December, for example, I learned that the San Francisco Zoo hosts ice skating parties at their zoo.

2) Get chaperones. Depending on how many kids you invite, you might want to gather up some parents and family members to help you supervise and keep track of all your guests.

3) Favors. Cute stuffed animals or a small bag full of kid-sized water bottles and snacks will be much appreciated after a long day at the zoo.

4) Food. The best thing about having a party at the zoo is that food can be conveniently ordered and purchased there. You might want to see if they also provide utensils and paper plates. A birthday cake or cupcakes designed with animals are sure to be a big hit with guests!

5) Activities. The zoo itself is filled with tons of things for kids to do. For the party, you could bring crayons and coloring pages of animals for a little something extra.

6) Invitations and Thank you cards. Here are a few animal themed birthday party invitations and thank you cards that would be perfect for a zoo party!

Have an aspiring cowboy in your family? Here’s few tips on how to plan a cowboy birthday party that they’ll get a kick out of.

1) Invitations. After you’ve gone over the guest list, choose or have your child use their favorite invitation. Here are some adorable ones from Tiny Prints.

2) Decorations. Sites such as Oriental Trading sells fun decorations such an inflatable cactus and gold nugget bubble gum to give as favors. They even have a pinata shaped like a cowboy boot!

3) Activities. Purchase inexpensive cowboy hats, vests, bandannas and other fun costumes for the kids to play dress up. Play pin the tail on the horse. Or how about playing pass the cowboy hat to a Country Western music CD. The person who ends up with the hat when the song stops wins!

4) Food. Barbecue goes best with a cowboy themed party. Serve hamburgers, hot dogs, corn bread and baked beans. End with a cowboy shaped cake and root beer floats!

Did you notice that a lot of wedding trends are now being adapted to create memorable baby showers? Here’s a list of ideas that have been re-purposed resulting in elegant and sometimes elaborate gatherings.

Decide on having an all girls event or having both parents-to-be and their guests involved. This will influence what type of activities you have. With all women, having a spa themed day would be perfect. Serve fun finger foods and pomegranate juice in martini glasses.

Create a scrapbook for guests to sign-in and write notes of advice and best wishes for the parents-to-be. Kolo has gorgeous books perfect for this occasion.

Have a color theme for the event. Go by either the bride-to-be’s favorite colors or if you know the sex of their baby, use hues of blue for boys and pink for girls. Another option would be to create your own color combination. Orange is a popular color right now and can be blended with red to add excitement or cooled down with blue.

Popular at weddings, a candy buffet would be perfectly sweet for this sweet occasion. Purchase candy jars, bulk candy, candy scoopers and mini paper bags for guests to grab these tasty treats to their hearts desire. I bought my jars, silver scoopers and paper bags at a craft store and you can buy wholesale candies on line. The most popular at our wedding was the mint chocolate malt balls we served which was so good, I wished I kept some for myself!

Match your theme with your invitations. Here’s a few popular shower invitations that would go perfectly with an orange themed wedding.

If you have an aspiring ballerina in your family who’s celebrating a birthday soon, check out this post for tips on ways to create a successful ballerina themed event! After deciding on your guest list, you’ll need to order invitations. Tiny Prints has fun, new cards designed with your ballerina girl in mind.

IDEAS & TIPS:

Planning a slumber party? If so, here’s some tips on ways to make it fun for the kids and easy on you. First of all, decide on the number of guests that will be manageable for you. If you have the time to do so, order your personalized invitations well in advance, around 6-8 weeks prior to the party. Then send them out 3-4 weeks before allowing enough time for guests to save the date.

Prepare yourself with lots of fun snacks, goodies and activities. Rent a video and have some popcorn handy as a fun late night activity. A week or two before the event, purchase a few of your child’s favorite snacks and decide on the menu. Finger foods such as tacos and pizza are always popular. You might also want to find out if any of your guests have any food allergies to take into consideration. This would also be a good time to purchase any decorations or favors for guests.

Lastly, give yourself time to get things in order, clean the house and relax a little before all the craziness begins!

Here are a few of our party invitations perfect for slumber parties.

Check out Birthday in a Box for more information on party planning and the timeline.

As I mentioned yesterday, I found lots of fun ideas while we were away at the BizBash conference in Los Angeles and one of my favorite ideas was the All American Softy truck. When I saw this truck sitting in the convention center, I was immediately brought back to days when I would run after the ice cream truck with all the kids in the neighborhood for a summer time treat. There was something about hearing the cheerful tune from the truck that was able to suspend any game that we were playing in the moment for a cool break.

Now, you can rent an All American Softy truck for any party for attendees of all ages! This truck also fits perfectly with our of our new themed party invitations: sweet tooth birthday party.

If you are planning a birthday party for your little one, you may not know where to begin. Picking a theme always makes it fun and does help with your planning. Once you choose a theme, picking out things like invitations and paper goods are a lot easier since everything should follow that theme.

A lot of little girls that I know love everything princess. How about having a princess birthday theme complete with outfits her and her friends can play dress up in and a crown for her to wear? There are tons of paper supplies with princess designs on them from napkins to plates. Pottery Barn for kids has an adorable Garden Princess party themed collection. An activity that might be fun is to have everyone make their own princess jewelry that they can take home as favors. Kara’s cupcakes also offers a cupcake decorating kit that kids can have fun with.

Here’s a few of our newest princess inspired invitations that is sure to delight the birthday girl and her friends.

With a flood of baby shower and wedding invitations filling up my mailbox lately, a recent cultural party invitation really stood out. On tomato red paper and with gold letters the invitation announced a “Red Egg and Ginger Party” hosted by my friend’s in-laws. Since I’ve never heard of it before nor have I ever received any invitation like this, I did some research.

A Red Egg and Ginger Party is a Chinese cultural tradition that celebrates a baby’s 1 month birthday. High infant mortality rate was common in China as well as other countries at the time so when a baby turned 1 month old, this meant that they had survived. The event was celebrated and the infant was finally shared with friends and family and named.

Today, parents hold the party when their baby is 1-3 months old. And following tradition, they usually give out eggs that have been dyed red to symbolize happiness and renewal of life. This partly explains the name of the party but where does ginger come in? Well, ginger is supposed to balance out an overtired new mother’s yin and yang with a little heat. Ginger and eggs are both given out at the event.

If you are attending a Red Egg and Ginger party and don’t know what to get. Gifts traditionally given are money in red envelopes or clothing.

If you’re planning a Red Egg and Ginger Party, take a look at some of our invitations on Tiny Prints. And with its red and gold colors, this invitation from Wedding Paper Divas would fit perfectly for this occasion.

Sources: http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa012303a.htm