Planning A Worm Themed Birthday Party: a house log

As we mentioned for a hot minute back in this post, Clara picked her party theme this year. What does she enjoy more than monkeys, ice cream, firetrucks, and the mailman? Worms.

So the first thing on the party agenda was settling on a date (this Saturday the 12th, two days before her actual b-day on the 14th) and figuring out the guest list (our closest family and friends totaling about 30 people, ten who are children under the age of four). Then it was the lively part. Invitations! We made three versions of them before picking our go-to (yes, making invitations is our idea of a good time). For the first one we used some shots from her 22 month photoshoot and although we enjoyed the shapes and the fabric and that cute smile, it simply did not have any worminess.

So we played around some more and came up with this guy, who runneth over with worminess:

As cute (and worm-ish) as we thought it was, we simply kept playing around (yes, we are nerds, and we only get to do it once a year) and came up with this more graphic – and simply as wormy – alternative:

Third time was the charm. Yes, we made chevron worms (perhaps worms are the new chevron?). Of course we thought any of the options above would be strong (and some folks might prefer #1 or #2 more), but we simply enjoyed those three little worms inching their way onto the number two with our smily girl in the middle of the number and the promise that “there will be worms.”

So we ordered simply sufficient to send out to our crew, and even saved $15.77 thanks to googling around for a Winkflash coupon code:

It ended up being $1.58 per invite including an envelope ($28.54 for eighteen 5 x 7″ invites on matte card stock – not photo paper). Which is not pennies, but certainly was a pleasant discount from the original price of $2.19 per invite. As for why we went with Winkflash, we used them for last year’s invite and were truly glad with them. A lot of services offer templates for folded cards but it is hard to find postcard-ish offerings that are fully blank (so you can upload your whole design without them putting a frame or some type around it).

And when they arrived? Enjoy! They do such a good job- no weird printing lines or low-cost-o feeling – we liked going with the larger size (5 x 7″) and the thick matte card stock paper. So that is likely more than you’ve ever hoped to know about a two year old’s party invitation, huh? Haha.

But now for the party deets. Of course we will be back with a post after this weekend’s festivities, but simply like last year, we thought a little sneak peek of our supplies might be lively (here is last year’s). This is our table o’ stuff, some of which we had around already, like the yellow napkin dish ($2 from a thrift store a few years back!) and the fabric banner I sewed for Clara’s first birthday (we will re-use the runner I sewed too) along with a paper one I made for that party as well and some cute bird napkins we grabbed from Ikea about a month ago (birds like worms, right?). Some of the stuff is new of course, like the plates, worm-ish candles, some balloons and streamers, some paper lanterns, etc (all hailing from Party City or Target).

Oh and see that pink arrow in the top left corner of the picture above? It is pointing to this ice tray that we picked up at Ikea last month, because we thought we could even make some worm-ish ice. Or fill it with jello and make little jello worms.

So that is on the agenda along with blowing up some polka dot balloons and some worm ones too (there is close to zero actual worm paraphernalia at Target and Party City, so when we saw worm balloons we could not believe it).

As for all of the worm-related ideas, here is what is on our crazy brain dump list:

• Make pipe cleaner worms to hide outside for a worm hunt
• Make a grass runner with gummy worms (or plastic worms) on it
• Collect paper towel rolls for some sort of worm craft…
• Use streamers taped in little swags to look like worms (perhaps across the beams in the living room and out on the patio somehow)
• Serve apples with a gummy worm coming out and other worm-ish snacks
• Cut peppers, cucumbers, and cheese into worm-like sticks and serve with dressing (worm crudité? how fancy)
• Skewer grapes or other sliced fruit onto straws (less pokey for the children than skewers)
• Worm pizza (we will serve regular pizza for adults but put some cooked spaghetti on the slices for the kids)
• Worm dogs (these are simply hot dogs, haha, but we could make ketchup or mustard eyes and a smile)
• Make white frosted cupcakes with oreo “dirt” sprinkled on top with a gummy worm (we thought about “dirt cake” or “dirt pudding” in a mason jar but it is simply too messy and hard to eat for all the 2-3 year olds)
• Worm jello (we could simply toss some gummy worms into jello sort of like a jello mold but instead of fruit it is worms…)

Who knows what we will end up doing (certainly not everything!) but it is lively to write down a bunch of things to see which ones stick. Oh and check out the favors I enjoy so much that I assembled them a full week before the party. Nerd alert.

One of Clara’s go-to things to play with outside is our watering can (filling it with leaves, rocks, sticks, you name it) so when we saw cute green ones at Ikea for 99 cents we grabbed one for each kid (hoping they’ll like them simply as much as our girl does). Then in the toy aisle we came across compact stuffed worms for 49 cents each! Simply kidding, they were snakes, but we cut off the pointy red tongues and voila: glad little worms. We also tossed a bottle of bubbles in each watering can along with an orange or pink scoop from Target (50 cents each). Brown tissue paper (aka: dirt) wrapped up things off and gave us a spot to stick our scoops full of worms. We are so excited for Clara to see hers. We have been hiding them all (I made them during a nap and stashed them all in the guest room) so it should be a fairly good time when she realizes that everyone gets a watering can, bubbles, a scoop, and a worm of their own at her party.

Oh and look at these candles we found at Tar-jay. Wormy, right?

This = a typical trip to Target. We thought grabbing two outside balls for kids to play with on the patio might be a good idea. And of course Clara picked her two go-to colors (orange and pink – which are one of the reasons we picked those colors for things like her invitations and her streamers).

So that is the deal with party planning. The basic gist is that I am wishing we picked up one more watering can, scoop, and stuffed snake worm so I’d get one of my own. I am totally 30 going on 2.

Any party prep going on for you folks? Do you have any pointers for keeping it plain and lively? We generally like to order food (something inexpensive but crowd-pleaser-ish, like pizza) so we are not slaving over the stove all day. But cooking is my mom’s go-to thing, so she’d rather cook for thirty people and simply grab ready-made invites. So there is certainly more than one way to get your par-tay on. Cannot wait to share pics from this Saturday! And we are building Clara something for her b-day. Something big. Ok, I will simply tell you – it is a dollhouse!!!!!!

So excited to share the breakdown with you folks when it is done (as expected, we are simply getting began so we will be working overtime!). And now for the general trite mom statement (but it is painfully true). Oh my gosh, how is my baby two already??? Dude, she was simply turning one like three months ago.

Psst – You know $herdog loves her some Eminem, Snoop, Dre, and Biggie, but the new Karmin CD is uh.mazing. Seriously. Anyone else in love? I have been “YouTube in love with them” for a while (since this) and adored when they were on Ellen. Their new songs make me want to finish that dollhouse double-time (while pausing for a few obligatory dance breaks).