Library Birthday Party

We have family rule about birthdays: every other year is a friend birthday party. We celebrate every year, of course, but the "off" years are celebrated with family only. It keeps the jealousy and fairness in check but most importantly it keeps the costs down! Somehow we have it now that the older two are on the same year and the younger two are on the same year. Three of our four kids have birthdays in the fall, one month apart. September, October, November, Christmas in December, broke by January. Can anyone else relate!?

Little Ellie's birthday is in May. So when Family Fun and Martha Stewart magazines both had library and book themed parties I knew I had a hit in the making! Picking a theme for any party sure helps with all the planning and adding a color scheme makes a great guideline for all things party: invitations, decorations and even outfits.

With a library themed party at the local library I knew there was only one option for invitations. So I ordered some library cards and pockets. I even ordered the date stamp. Could I have gone without that, of course, but it was too cute for only $2.48.

My cousin Loni had a great idea for cards and gifts (since I was asking for no gifts--Ellie is the youngest of 4--she has no need for toys or clothes)

My sister Kristen came up from Portland with camera in tow so we did a teeny family photo shoot. The last time we had all sat down for pictures was right after Ellie was born, so it was over due. I am in love with EVERY one of the pictures Kristen took. Here are two of my favorites:

Food, drink and crafts for Ellie's party was a cinch, I just picked all her favorites! Cheese, crackers, deli turkey, popcorn, grapes, carrots and cucumbers with dip. Popcorn bags happened to follow right along with our theme! The Dollar Tree even had a red and white scoop! Perfection!

In the Martha Stewart magazine she had a garland made using little handmade books. I think using real books? Or photocopied? I decided to make it personal by printing off Ellie's birth story and numbering the books so guests could read it in order. I played with the font inside the books and made it a bit more fun to read. Although Ellie's story is pretty engaging as it is, it was fun to look at, if nothing else.

(wardrobe provided by Goodwill. Seriously)

The cake. OH the cake. Since a normal cake plate simply wouldn't do, I wrapped a bunch of books of all sizes in either blue or red paper to serve as my cake plate. I knew I wanted a cake that looked like a stack of books. I didn't know how to do that. Or what in the world I had gotten myself into. Blue and red icing?? Let me just tell you it really did taste better than it looked. I added some lemon flavoring to the blue icing. It was fresh. Nice, actually. And the red icing. Well, it was flavored with about two canisters of icing dye and a whole box of raspberry jello. The color kept developing as time went on. Quite honestly, I didn't even serve the top cake. That was just for show.

To cater to my sweet gluten free, egg free, diary free nephew and nieces I also made some yummy "approved" cupcakes. They were really yummy--all the kids ate them!

For our craft I bought tote bags from the Dollar Tree and some fabric paints, glitter glue and fabric markers. Personalized totes that are the perfect size to take to the library, load them up, keep them collected back at home, and return the beloved books. My kids LOVE their totes! However, I think I could have done without the glitter glue.

What is a library party without story time!? No party at all, if you ask me. We read two of my favorite stories; Llama llama Mad At Mama and 329th Friend. (329th friend is the book my grandpa used to read to us every night we stayed over, no matter how old we got!)

All in all it was such a lovely party. Most all of Ellie's favorite people were there to celebrate with her! Here she is with the top two: Daddy and Mr. Bear!