Purse theme, pink and damask 10th birthday party.

Every year I let Savannah Grace chose her birthday theme. For some reason she always comes up with the hardest themes to pull off. This year it was purses - We are really in love with the black and white damask print right now, so chose that along with pastel pink as our color palate.

The decorations -

I customized Chinese lanterns to match out theme and colors (instructions are posted in a separate blog entry).

The birthday banner was created from full size 8.5 x 11” scrapbook paper and cardstock. The backing is black cardstock with the corners rounded with a punch. Applied on top are various patterned papers cut into the frame I desired. Letters, cut with the Cricut machine, were applied to the top. I punched holes in the corners and attached each piece with pink tulle.

The birthday gifts were wrapped in damask paper bought at Hobby Lobby at Christmas. I hand tied the ribbons from florist ribbon and attached little purse embellishments printed on white cardstock.

I found the perfect party balloons on ebay in damask, pink scroll and soild pink.

I made decorative labels from cardstock, scrapbook paper and coordinating ribbon.

The damask napkins (actually bandanas found at Hobby Lobby) were tied with pink satin ribbon and embellished with more of the purse cardstock purses.

The food –

For the past several years we have had cupcakes instead of a cake for birthdays. I searched the interest for ideas for weeks for the cupcakes and found some with tiny purses as embellishments. I then searched for weeks and weeks for some little purses, without success. I finally decided to try and make some from gumpaste. Let me just say gumpaste is a sticky mess, like playing with adult playdoh. It was difficult to get each purse even remotely similar even though I measured out each amount. Eventually, I did end up with enough that looked similar enough to use on the cupcakes. I found damask baking cups at the supermarket and had the local bakery bake the cupcakes. I then embellished them at home with the little purses and pink sugar pearls.

We made party punch with fresh fruit floating on top. We served strawberry ice cream cups placed on a pretty cake pedestal. Party goodies included pink snowballs, brownie cookies, chocolate chip cookies, strawberry marshmallows, pink and white m&m’s, and raspberry Hershey hugs.

All in all the party turned out as planned and our little girl was provided with special birthday memories to last her a lifetime.