Actually I didn’t plan to threw a party for Sabria’s birthday. But my mom requested it so I finally made a simple gathering and invited my cousins, the in-laws, and of course, Nike.  I didn’t have a clue about the decor because last month I was focused on this project. Because the party was held at my sister’s house, so I just made a simple decor that can be easily stripped after the party was over.

Since I’m not a fan of super-colorful decor for kids party. I only managed to pick light blue, white, and gray color palette for the decor. When I bought some of the party supplies, I finally add light pink to the palette to cheer it up a bit. Most of the decor was made on the D-day (yes, I’m truly a deadliners), except for the pompoms, goody bags, and the balloons that was prepared a day before the party.

For the photo backdrop, I just use 2 meters of light blue cotton fabric with little polka dot pattern. I made the letters from dark gray felt then clip it to a tiny rope using wooden pins. Then the rope was attached to the backdrop using masking tape. Sabria loves balloons so much! So I want to use pastel tone balloons for the decor. Unfortunatelly, here in Indonesia, almost all ballons comes in bold colors with a “Happy Birthday” text or tacky pictures of strange looking Mickey Mouse or Winnie The Pooh. A pastel colored balloon is very very hard to find, let alone pastel balloon that was plain or simple-patterned. So I just use white and light gray plain balloons. I use little white dots sticker to make a polka dot pattern on the balloon. Some of the dots sticker were tinted in pastel color like peach, light blue, or mint green using crayons to add a dash of colors to the white balloons.There were 8 kids at the party, so I prepare a little drawing corner for them. I just put some crayons and  markers in a papercup, made a simple “Let’s draw” signs from doilies pinned to a cork board. Then I prepare a couple of white plain balloons on a stick as the “canvas”, as well as some sheets of paper. For the birthday cake, I bought Triple Chocolate Cake from Harvest, then decorated it with origami pinwheels in light blue and light pink. (Never made an origami windmills before? Check the tutorial here. You can find lots of other fun and adorable origami tutorial too!). I made 2 small slits on the back of the pinwheels to insert the tip of a wooden skewer, cover it with a dot sticker on the center, then insert the skewer into a paper straw. Then I made the birthday banner using scrapbook paper. My two nieces (age 7 and 5) insisted that they want to help me decorated the party. So I taught them how to made a simple yarn pompom, and then I cut some paper straw, threaded it, and attach the pompoms. The pompoms looked messy and uneven because the girls only manage to wrapped the yarn around about 30-40 times (normally, it took 80-100 times for a fluffy pompoms). And I also didn’t trim it because I think it looked more natural this way! My nieces were so proud that they can made pompoms and already stated that they want to make pompoms for their birthday party on December :))

Oh and I also made some simple signs for the dessert menu with a scrapbook paper, stickers, wooden skewer, and paper straw. For the party favor or goody bags, I put some snacks, milk, crayon/ markers, and a small drawing book into a brown paperbag, decorated it with doilies and draw something with markers. Overall, it was a very fun gathering in a hot sunny Sunday!

Resources:
Pasar Jatinegara
– Brown paperbag size A4, Rp20.000 / dozen
– Plain white & gray balloons, Rp 8.000/ pack (10 pcs)
– Balloons sticks, Rp12.000/ 100pcs

Pasar Sunan Giri
– Light blue polka dot cotton fabric, Rp18.000/meter (width 1.15m)
– wool yarn, Rp2000/ each skein
– Dark gray felt fabric Rp2000/sheet (30x30cm)

Others
– large doilies Rp9000/pack (20 sheets) at Tip Top Supermarket
– paper straw Rp45.000 at Gudily
– wooden pins (part of a hanging paper frame) Rp18.000 at House of Zakka