{Real Parties} Nikki's Retro Inspired Cupcake Birthday Party

Well folks, the Mini Diva is now 9!  What in the world happened to this little adorable thing?  I mean, where did the time go!  When we started brainstorming on ideas for her party, I was so excited when she agreed to do a cupcake themed party.  We loooove cupcakes in our house and this party was right up our lane. 

Miss Thang had tons of suggestions for me, of course about who she wanted to invite, what flavor cupcakes she wanted, and the activities we should do.  Then, She REALLY threw me for a loop when she said she wanted a giant cupcake cake!  WHAAAAT?!!!  Well, I'm glad to say that momma was able to deliver everything my little ray of sunshine wanted (with the help of a few friends!)  Check out all the fun we had and read about how we pulled everything together!

PARTY ELEMENTS THAT INSPIRE:

• Handmade Baker's Hats
• Chalkboard 'Menu' featuring words that describe the birthday girl
• Decorative yarn pompom cupcake garland
• Real cupcake centerpieces and sweet place settings

(A special and lovely tutu designed for the birthday girl by Atutudes!)

Happy Birthday to my little girl who is as SWEET as a cupcake!

Theme
We decided on the cupcake theme after Nikki saw me making a cupcake garland for a client - and plus we LOVE cupcakes at Casa de Sibert.  This made my planning soooo easy and I knew I was already off to a good start.  I already had a cupcake printable set that I formerly designed for a client about a year ago.  I did want to make it a bit different for the birthday girl, however.  So, for Nikki's party, I redesigned the printables to have a more retro color scheme and look but with a  modern feel.  My sweet friend, Andrea from Paper+Pop printed the printables for me - and when I got them in the mail - I was in LOVE with how bright and colorful they looked.....they were perfect!

Decor
When I started planning the party, I envisioned a really retro bakery vibe, with the main colors being red, aqua, pink and yellow and a bit of brown kraft paper thrown in the mix.  I didn't want to overdue the retro element too much so, I mainly stuck with those colors as my inspiration.  For the backdrop for the sweets table, I asked my amazingly talented friend, Sunny Duran of Sunny by Design, to create a cupcake themed chalkboard 'menu' of sorts with all the different sweet things that would describe the birthday girl and cupcakes!  She did such an amazing job on it that it completely changed my idea for what I originally had in mind for the backdrop - a bakeshop window!  I planned to use rosettes, hanging garlands and tissue paper globes (courtesy of Martha Stewart Celebrations) and poms around the party space and kept with that idea, but placed them over the sign as part of my backdrop instead and I love how it turned out.  I used one of my favorite go-to birthday table coverings, from Ruby's Farmhouse for darling little girl parties to cover the dining room buffet.


I also created festive displays on our fireplace with some artwork that my my put together using the cupcake prints and painted canvas squares and a cupcake pompom garland as a focal point for where we placed all of The Mini Diva's gifts.  At the entryway was a welcome sign on a table that was decorated with a cupcake liner garland and the cutest box signs from The Tomkat Studio.



Activity
After a little play time in our backyard, the girls got to decorate their aprons for the party.  I found felt cupcakes at Michaels and sparkly bling that they used to dress up the aprons individually.  After their aprons were done they decorated two cupcakes - with a little instruction from me and the assistance of some of my AWESOME mom friends.  One cupcake was for eating and the other was for taking home.  I am very bummed that I didn't get to take pictures of all the cupcakes they girls made....they were just fantastic!

Table Setting
I knew from the start I wanted to incorporate kraft paper in my design.  I just didn't really have an exact idea of how I wanted the tablescape designed.  Anyhoo, I love brown kraft paper. I have a huge roll of it that I got at Home Depot and use it for backdrops and table coverings and also to let my kids draw on.  For the party, I used it to cover our dining room table!  I had to use two long pieces to cover the whole table.  To hide the seam from combing the two pieces, I used paper rosettes (that didn't get added to my backdrop) and large confetti that I made with a 2" and 1" circle punch.  I also used footed table signs, cupcakes and the toppings along the middle of the table as the girls would be using those items to design their treats.

There were no seats at the table, as I needed to fit 12 girls around the table and my table only seats 10 people.  So, it was standing room only for this affair.  Each place setting had a piping bag filled with frosting and tied off with a grosgrain ribbon - a little tip I got from my friend, Andrea at Paper+Pop!  The bags were placed on the cutest striped plates that I desperately wanted for the party but could not find until super sweet, Stefanie Frazier Grimm of Couture Parties sent me over a few she had on hand.  They served as my - charger and then I topped that with a solid color plate and an adorable Toot Sweet scalloped polka dot napkin by Meri Meri.  I was really happy with what I ended up with - because I honestly had not put a lot of thought into this part of the overall setup.


Food
The Mini Diva really wanted honey bbq wings and pizza - which was NOT my original plan for the menu, but the birthday girl gets what she wants.  So, we set out the food for the girls to nibble on  ---- after they wolfed down their cupcakes of course!  For the Sweets table, Fresh Bakes provided the most adorable and delicious decorated cookies for the party, along with fondant toppers and colorful sprinkles that the girls used to decorate some of their cupcakes.  I baked all the cupcakes with a little help from Duncan Hines :)  (If you've been reading this blog for some time, you know full well I am a cake box snob.  However, I'm not crazy.  I had to bake four different flavors of cupcakes that yielded 24 per box - mmmhmmmm......).   I also made a big ole cupcake per Nikki's request.....and what a task it was to frost this thing, it took me a few tries to get it just right - but in the end - I WON.....and my baby girl got her cupcake cake!

Favors
Tonya Coleman of Soiree Events sells the most darling little bags of cotton candy with custom labels - and cotton candy is one of Nikki's faves.  So, she sent over about a little more than a dozen of them with labels personalized for Nikki's party and coordinated to match the theme perfectly!  The girls also got to take home the aprons they decorated for the party along with the baker's hats and a favor box filled with a cupcake lip gloss that I ordered from Amazon.  They also went home with one of the cupcakes they decorated packaged in a cute  kraft paper favor box from the The Tomkat Studio and some got little retro oven boxes that I purchased from Simply Everyday Me.

I really loved how the party turned out, my sweet baby girl was so happy and excited to share this moment with her friends.  It was a good time to be had by all and nothing means more to me than to see my babies happy!  I am so grateful for all the helping hands that came to my house and without missing a beat stepped right in to help with setup and activities.  Huge, HUGE hugs to my Mister, my momma and her beau!  A special thank you to Stephanie Frazier Grimm for being a lifesaver!

Vendors & Where to Buy:

Styling & Design  - Cupcake Wishes & Birthday Dreams
Cupcake Yarn PomPom Garland & Printables - Cupcake Wishes & Birthday Dreams
Chalkboard Sign - Sunny by Design
Printed Items - Paper + Pop
Tutu - Atutudes
Decorated Cookies, Colorful Sprinkles and Fondant Toppers - Fresh Bakes
Custom Cotton Candy Bags - Soiree Events
Pretty Pastel Decorating Kit - Layer Cake Shop
Red tissue paper globes - Martha Stewart Celebrations
Kraft Scallop cupcake boxes & Box Signs - Tomkat Studio
Retro Oven  Cupcake Boxes - Simply Everyday Me
Scalloped Paper Napkins by Meri Meri - purchased online at Williams Sonoma
Cupcake Cake - made using The Great Cupcake Pan
Fancy Footed Frames - Michaels
36" Crystal Clear Latex Balloon - Amazon
Children's Aprons - Amazon
Cupcake Lip Gloss Party Favors (Not Shown - but super cute) - Amazon
Happy Birthday Table Cover by Ruby's Farmhouse

(FYI - The FTC would like me to inform you that I may or may not receive payment/commission for some items linked to Amazon on this post.)