A MARY POPPINS BIRTHDAY

:::UPDATE 9/4/2012::Almost weekly I have receive  many requests to buy this invitation. I am flattered. However because I work for a large greeting card company my contract states to sell artwork for other card companies or to an individual for card use is a conflict of interest. Sorry I am unable to sell this. I'd kinda like to keep my job. Thanx.

Besides sewing spring clothes for my daughter I've been planning her 4th birthday party. Back in December I asked my her what kind of birthday party she wanted. Her response was a Meet Me in StLouis party. I said try again. She said Mary Poppins. More doable. Both of those movies are her favorites. Meet Me in StL more so but I thought it would be a bit difficult making that into a theme. Of course nothing exists in the way of party decor so I had to create it. I found lots of great ideas on Pintrest and even used some of them.

Above is the invite design.

Only I know this but there are lots of references to 4 in the illustration. 4 flowers in her hat, 4 balloons, and the clock reads 4 oclock.



Saw a Mary Poppins hat cake at cakecentral.com. My first attempt at making foundant and covering a cake in foundant. Definitely a learning experience. Had some cracking issues. Cake topper looked great on top though. This cake is small, 8".





The cake was for my daughter and the cupcakes were for the kids. I made some pinwheels out of straws, paper and brass brads.



Party favors included felt kite pins, cups full of Hershey kisses with spoons that read Spoon Full of Sugar, and mini chalk boards with erasers and boxes of chalk.



A big scene in the movie is when all the characters magical jump in to one of Bert's sidewalk chalk drawings. So I decided chalkboards would be a great party favor. After finding out how expensive mini chalkboards where I decided to make my own. I bought wood 5x7 plaques at Hobby Lobby. Spray painted one side and the edges a teal blue and then sprayed, what is usually the bottom of the plaques, with chalkboard paint. I've been skeptical about chalkboard paint for a long time. I always hear it doesn't work. I was surprised, it works and works well. The key to chalk board paint is that once the paint is dry take a piece of chalk, scribble all over your surface and then erase it. It some how sets the paint and you can draw with chalk just fine.

I made the erasers out of 2x4's cut into 1" sections. Painted those white, glued on two layers of black felt on the bottom and glued 1" ribbon along the sides.

I made stickers for the cups, erasers and chalkboards with quotes from the movie. I designed these in Photoshop cut them out and spray mounted them to everything. I used up a whole can and in the process gave myself a headache. Wear a mask! I could have easily bought scrap book paper and used that but couldn't find anything in the colors I was looking for.



And here is the dress on the birthday girl at the party. Of course she had to have the hat too. I made her leave the umbrella at home.

The hat was bought at Target. I used 2 yards of white tulle to create the bow and glued fake red flowers to the front.

We had 15 kids and 16 adults attend. All had a blast! Now onto party number two for family.:)