It's a Pajama Party {Emily's 7th Birthday}

{click to enlarge photo}

I have finally waded through all the photos from Emily's big 7th birthday bash - I took a bunch!  Unfortunately many of them didn't turn out that great because of lighting issues, but I hope I captured some of the fun!  Emily's first request was a sleepover party, but this tired mama (Carter still wakes up in the very early, early morning every day) didn't think that was such a great idea this year.  Our compromise?  A pajama party!  We held it from 6-8pm. and the girls all wore their PJs.  Here are all the little details of our party - get a snack, because this is gonna be a long one, folks......

Invitations:
I blogged about those here - they were pretty cute if I do say so myself!  We had to use a bunny since Emily sleeps with a VERY special bunny (aptly named "Bunny") every single night.  You will see more of Bunny later in this post =)  Here's what the invites looked like:

Decorations:
First - the inspiration!  Emily and I (if you think I am the only party planner in the family, think again!  Emily loves all of the little details, just like I do!) initially thought of an aqua and pink color scheme, with touches of black.  We went to Hobby Lobby (our mecca) to look for some plates, and found what turned out to be the inspiration for the whole party.  The colors are gorgeous - pink, chocolate brown, and the sweetest vintage aqua -  and the polka dots and paisleys are sweet but not babyish.  So, this is where we started:

I knew I wanted to use the pajama/sleepover theme in the decor, and I needed to do it on a MAJOR budget.  I also wanted to incorporate my love of all things sweet and vintage, yet reflect Emily's spunky personality.  I hope I did that!  Just about everything I used were things I had, or that I borrowed from my mom and mom in law.  I also made a lot of the decor.  It was a lot of work, but so much fun!  Emily helped me with pretty much everything.  We had some good mother-daughter bonding time getting ready for this party.

This front door bucket was a total last minute thing - I literally threw this together in about five minutes.  We wanted something to welcome our guests, and this was a cute way to do it.

When creating the table, I knew I wanted it to look like a bed.  My inspiration came from the very talented Melissa and her beautiful tablescape.  The table was beautiful, but I don't feel like I really got any great shots of it =(  I'm hoping that maybe my brother got some better pictures that he can share with me.  I made the pillow (with my mom's help), the table cloth is a vintage chenille bedspread, the gorgeous pitcher was a garage sale find, and Emily and I made the party hats together.  Emily's first childhood teddy bear is sitting at the head of the table, and yes, I made a hat for him (and for Emily's bunny as well).  Crazy, I know, but fun! Here are a few shots of the table:

After Carter's party, I knew we had to have a candy bar at Emily's party - the kids love them!  And they are so much fun to put together.  My favorite part of the candy bar were the cute "candy kabobs" my mom and I made!  They had little pink teddy bears at the top (in keeping with our sleepover theme) and they were just the cutest little things.  I made the "Emily" banner in about five minutes by cutting triangles of scrapbook paper and attaching chipboard letters, then gluing them to a piece of ric rac.  The location of the candy bar wasn't ideal, as it was in front of our fireplace/giant TV (my decorating nemesis), but I think it worked well.  Here are a few pictures of the candy bar, and the cute candy kabobs:

Rather than have a cake this year, Emily wanted cupcakes, and her Mommy was happy to oblige!  We had chocolate cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting and silver and pink sprinkles - yum!  These absolutely ADORABLE "night owl" cookies came from Etsy seller TSCookies.  They were almost too cute to eat!  I borrowed the pink glass cupcake stand from my mom, and I made the cupcake toppers using her Cricut.  I tried making some cute cupcake toppers and other printable party goods, but I figured out that I need to leave that to the professionals!  Let's just say that they didn't work out at all.  Next time, I'm ordering some from someone who knows what they are doing!

For the favors, I made (see a theme here?) each guest their own chalkboard door hanger.  They were a big hit!  This was a very frugal project - the unfinished wood hangers were only $ .47 at Hobby Lobby, and I only used a couple of pieces of scrapbook paper, chalkboard paint (that I already had), and some other odds and ends that I had in my craft stash.  The girls loved these.

Our main activity was decorating pillow cases with fabric markers (while a certain little marker-stealer kept making trouble!)...

Big sister Lindsey and her friend Ariana did makeup and hair, and then led the girls in charades and some other fun games.  If you don't have a big sister around to help with little girl parties, I recommend inviting a few older girls to help out - the little ones just love the older girls!

Here are a few more pictures from our party...

{Emily's bunny was all dressed for the party, and perched in a doll bed right in the middle of the festivities.  Emily insisted!} 

The best part of all?  This little seven year old thanked me a million times for working so hard on her party - and she had a blast!  Making her happy makes me so very happy =)

Happy 7th birthday, my sweet Emily June!  No matter how big you grow, you will always, ALWAYS be my baby girl!  I love you!!!!

PS - I have to say a HUGE thank you to my sweet mom, Bebe, for helping me with all of my crazy projects.  She never judged my craziness, she just did what I asked her to do!  Also, my mom in law Johnnie, who watched the kids the morning of the party so that I could decorate without "helpers."  I couldn't have pulled this off without both of their help - thank you Bebe and Nanny!!!

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