A Celebration of Wishes Part II

As promised a post on sources for our celebration of wishes!  But before I get started please take a peek at some of the pretty pins that helped inspire our celebration.

Our princess  invites were sent via Paperless Post.  I love that their invitations resemble one you’d receive in the mail and love them so much that we used them for our wedding and were able to allocate the funds elsewhere.  Although I think nothing compares to holding an actual piece of mail in your hands, Paperless Post is a great alternative.  I changed the wording to say “Princess Jalayla is finally getting her wish – to be a Briscoe just like her daddy.  Please join us as we celebrate Jalayla Yvonne Briscoe and the fact that wishes do come true!”

{Image via Paperless Post}

I enjoy thinking of ideas and themes for parties.  I often find inspiration on the web and then try to figure out a way to recreate it for less (sometimes the parties that inspire me are easy on the eyes aren’t necessarily easy on the bank account).  We did have to purchase some supplies to make some of the pretties we used for this party but there were also quite a few things used that I already had including:

{wish cork board}

This lovely cork board is from Sara of Shabby Chic Fairytale.  I have purchased several lovelies from Sarah and even used several of them for our wedding.   She was so sweet and even wrote a post and mentioned me in it which you can read on her lovely blog here.  I found the stars at Michaels.  You peel the paper off one side and it’s sticky so I put them in Ziploc bags with glitter and started shaking.  The letters were printable from Martha Stewart.  I literally used them for all my banners and you can find them here.  The lovely little poster was from Frog Prince Paperie, the site where I found most of my inspiration.  The poster can be downloaded for free and if you email her she’ll send you a larger size.  Unfortunately we had some problems with the formatting when trying to print it but fortunately we were able to use the 8 x10.  The photo was from the princess when she was 3.

The photo props were also from the wedding.  The night of the wedding they were nowhere to be found and since then I had been waiting for an opportunity to use them.  They were made by Brooke of Little Retreats and the bow ties were from my friend’s bow tie baby shower and from Whimzy Creations.  If you haven’t been able to tell, Etsy is another one of my loves.  At least once a day I ask myself what I can make because I secretly dream of opening up my own Etsy shop.  The princess wands came from Target and I found the thinking/speaking bubbles at Michaels.  They werent meant to be hung but I took the string out and glued a dowel on it and it worked!

For the centerpieces I used sparkly wands.  Initially, I wanted to make them but I found some ready-made ones online at Oriental Trading.  I decorated them with ribbon and leftover doilies, tags, scrapbook paper and crown stickers. We stuck them in Styrofoam covered  in tissue paper (we did the same thing for the dessert table) and also decorated using mason jars also from the wedding.

We used the same wands for the princesses to decorate too.  When I ordered them they only had gold so I decided to try my best to tie in both gold and silver in the decor.  Rather than making crowns I decided to order tiaras and while browsing found paper crowns for our kings and princes.  Oh and for good measure I ordered some jewel stickers and got free shipping!

I made this wand using a wooden star and dowel from Michaels.  I painted them both and painted the star using chalkboard paint.  I didn’t get many pictures of the outside but we also lined the walkway with the pink fairy wands from Target so our guests knew they had come to the right castle :)

Food was labeled using place setting tents {from the Hallmark store} I had left over from a recent bridal shower.  A gold gel pen was used to write the names of foods and desserts and they were each accented with a crown sticker.

Banners were made by cutting triangles out of scrapbook paper, punching holes, gluing letters onto some to say “star light star bright”, “wish upon a star”,  and “wish” and then stringing them onto ribbon.  And guess what?!  Martha comes through once again!  She’s got another how- to  template for these little pretties.

I made garland using cupcake wrappers and doilies.  A tutorial can be found on Amy Atlas’ blog.  But I didn’t stop there.

I made a wishing well using a craft paper cylinder box, wood, and popsicle sticks.  Don’t laugh ok?

{That’s us in the background during our first dance at our wedding giving hardcore Eskimo kisses :)}

These were made gluing dowels painted green to the bottom of tissue paper pom poms from the party store.  Please don’t mind the tape.  I glued two dowels together per flower and of course they broke from the wind so they had to be repaired. Our veggie garden, although it did produce some veggies didn’t make it past August so I tried to think of a creative idea to fill that space and Dandelions are for wishing.   Oh and those ruffled streamers you see – initially they were going to be a backdrop for the photo booth but the breeze (which we appreciated on this hot summer day) was making them get tangled so my mom wrapped them around the canopies.  Our Aunt made them for us using this tutorial and this tutorial.  We ended up using a sheet for the photo booth that we planned to use at the wedding but weren’t able to use.  I must say our wedding decorations have been gifts that just keep on giving…

One of my favorite parts was our wall of wishes…

That darling sign was made by Cheryl of My Primitive Boutique.  Bet you know what I am going to say next….Cheryl made us a sign and ampersand for our wedding both have been used by us and family and friends for parties since then but this lovely is going to go in the Little Miss’ room.

Other Etsy vendors included Hey YoYo for stripped straws and star cupcake liners.  Love that shop! And also The Posh Box where I purchased cupcake containers for the children to take home the cupcakes they decorated.  And everything else, if I didn’t have it already, came from Michaels (got to love those 40% off coupons), Joann’s and Target.  I apologize for not having better pictures and initially was a little very bummed about it but our photographer (a.k.a family member with mad photo skills and a giver of the “family discount”) couldn’t make it and although we tried there were some things we missed…

Ok.  Back to the good stuff.

Before I go I’d like to share just a few wishes shared with us by our guests.  For some of us our wishes have already come true for others they have evolved or we are still striving to make them a reality.  And just so you know I’m all for wishing but I’m also a believer in prayer.  For the Little Miss and our family the adoption of our angel by her daddy was definitely an answer to our prayers.

• “I wished I could have a lifetime supply of cake.”
• “When I was little I wished that I had a wardrobe (armoire) that led to the magical world of Narnia or somehow to Sweet Valley High.”
• “I always wanted a pink bike with a banana seat with a horn, a basket and the little streamer things coming off the handle bars.”
• “To have a family.”
• “A Barbie dream house.”
• “A cool pink car.”
• “To own my own business and share it with my sons one day.”

If you’d like to see more photos from our Celebration of Wishes  just click right here.  Oh and if you have any questions regarding the festivities please don’t hesitate to ask.  I’d love to hear from you!  So would the Mr.  He’ s been super busy with school and work these days but trust he’s reading and hopefully working on a post (wink wink).

Not bad for a DIY party if I do say so myself  (thankfully not entirely Do-it-yourself.  I did have some help.  And am I ever so grateful for that.).