Let's talk parties or #crappyiphonepicsaremyjam

I have been throwing parties, even if I haven't been blogging about them.  Working backwards, I did a small party here in West Palm Beach for Molly's 8th birthday.  I thought it was worth showing, b/c not everyone is up for a 2 day install (and breakdown).  It was also done at the last minute without any epackets from China. 

Our theme was Good Golly Miss Molly.  We just got some free clip art from a google search, and made the invites and mailing labels in Word.  They were packaged with this poodle skirt from Amazon, and mailed in mylar bubble mailers.

 I originally wanted to do black tuck-top boxes, but it was cost prohibitive (at least with my time frame, which was Prime) before I went to the post-office, and the mylar made it sort of festive.   

I had to order catering with the VIP lanes, so we decided not to go too crazy on the sweets on just focus on cupcakes and fancy sugar cookies.  And since I wasn't doing much else for this party, I figured I would do them.  

I bought the icing and cookie recipe from Sweet Ambs.  I spent a lot of time mesmerized by her videos...she'll make you want to be a cookie artist.  The cookies are amazing without icing.  With icing, kids like them.  I like them with coffee.  But they are cuter with icing.  Poodles were surprisingly easy, and the jukeboxes were SOOOO hard.  Not sure I ever made a good looking one.  The black icing on the bowling ball ended up bleeding into most of the bowling pins, so I suggest just waiting between colors instead of trying to do it all on one pass.  These extra fine Wilton writers are the secret to the Good Golly Miss Molly cookies and the poodles' lashline.

To keep our 50s theme, we did it at the bowling alley.  Now that I live in a tiny house, I'm scouring the county for party venues.  We were able to book the "VIP lanes" at the bowling alley in downtown WPB, which just meant you had a private area.  The set-up  (leather chairs and coffee table or high tops) wasn't great for decor or kids parties or the theme, but the classic car museum was $2000+ so we made due. 

I brought my own tablecloth like a psycho, but it did punch up the space. I did a couple tassel garlands with tissue paper for our large balloons from Party City.  If you don't buy tassel garland from aliexpress or etsy, use this method.  Don't use this method--its so much harder.)  Warning--the balloons looked generally the same size when I picked them up but one couldn't support the tissue garland and the other could.  The third got popped by Kevin on the way into the bowling alley, so suffice to say this is not what was envisioned, but it was fine.  I recommend having your balloon place put the tassels on if you can to avoid weird quality problems.   

The downside of the bowling alley is that I have no good photos as it is super dark.  But it was very cute to watch all the little girls in poodle skirts running around and bowling.  I'm officially a fan of sending out attire for parties. 

We put a small sparkly lollipop from Azalea Circle Sweets and a pearl necklace (from Target's Sprout line) in these gift boxes with a big satin bow.  Definitely made the most of a small favor, and helped fill the table.