easter party

Since hearing about Maddycakes Muse Spring/Easter Tablescape Contest, I thought I'd better post (and then enter) my oldest daughter's second birthday party. I also thought this post would be timely if any of you were looking for Easter party details.

My daughter's birthday is April 6th and that year her birthday fell on Easter weekend. So needless to say, a theme was pretty easy to choose that year. Living on the east coast has lots of advantages, but the weather in early April is not one of them. It is still pretty cold, so a fresh, spring table was well received.

Lets start with the invitations. Pretty simple, but just so cute for a little girl's birthday. Can't you just hear those chicks saying "chirp, chirp"!?



As you all saw on previous posts, I stamp plates with edible images for a lot of my parties. For the written how-to click here. I promise to post a photo tutorial soon. This particular party I used the "Happy Birthday To You" stamp again. (I remember I was on the hunt for a large bunny stamp, but came up empty handed, so back to the old birthday party stand by.)


Notice I wrapped the table in astroturf (available at Home Depot or Lowe's). This really set the tone for the whole table. It gave a good back drop to all the other colors. I have used this turf on so many of my other parties too - Super Bowl, a golf party, a friend borrowed if for her son's bug party. The possibilities are endless. It is a really low cost item to have in your decor arsenal.

My favorite detail of this party was the silverware. I bought green utensils and orange napkins and with a little twist of some green pipe-cleaners, I had cute little carrots. The irony is (funny little fact about me) I despise carrots. But I liked these carrots.


But wait, I LOVED these carrots even more. For the favors, I filled cake piping bags (being the "cake lady" I have hundreds of these laying around) with orange jelly beans and tied them off with some metallic green curly ribbon. Since this party, I have seen these all over the place around Easter time. Wish they would have been available back then and I wouldn't have had to make them.


I have posted this cake before, but I had to include it again to show the overall table. Many guests at the party didn't know this was cake. They kept putting their fingers into the frosting! I think it was just an excuse to have some frosting before cake cutting time. Of course I had to make it a carrot cake, right!? What do you know - another "carrot" I like.


Here are some more overall photos of the whole table. The food... more CARROTS (ugh!) and deviled eggs. An Easter party wouldn't be complete without these staples! I found those cabbage plates the deviled eggs are sitting on at Tuesday Morning for a great price. (R.I.P. Amity, CT's Tuesday Morning. You will be sorely missed by the bargain hunter!) I also made bird's nest cookies. See recipe here. Since I always want your parties to be even better than mine, I had noted on the recipe that it only made about 2 dozen cookies (instead of 3 like the recipe said) when I used my cookie scoop. I guess I could just be a "big" cookie maker, but I didn't think they were that big?



To bring some of the spring decor out into the living room, I made this Easter tree. Employing my now infamous white ice bucket, I put Styrofoam in the bottom to feed the Pussy Willow branches into. Then I decorated with ribbon and Easter ornaments. In years past, I have also used a large tree branch, spray painted it white and then decorated. Very springy!

Happy Easter!