(That is so Scarlette, losing a shoe in the middle of the festivities.)
Since Scarlette is in love with books, I decided to have a book-themed birthday party. Plus, I figured it would make for some cheap decorating if I just put a bunch of books everywhere. I thought this was a totally fun/unique idea until I looked on Pinterest, where I found tons of book-themed birthday parties.
Warning: this post is photo heavy. That’s because I didn’t want to be behind the camera during the party so I asked my BFF’s husband, who happens to be a photographer, to take some photos for me. That’s why they look better than all the pictures you typically see on my blog. You know, because he actually knows how to work the dials and stuff. Anyhow, click CONTINUE READING to see like, a dozen pictures of her party! 
I used my favorite digital kits from Paislee Press (meant to be, meant to be alphas, and headliners) to design her invitations and paper goods. I ordered the library pockets from this etsy shop and designed the library card. It says “BOOKMARK your calendar, we’ll have a NOVEL good time!” Then I created a bookmark to tuck in the invitation that featured my favorite pictures of Scarlette reading (look how little she is in that last one!)
I printed the address labels and bookplates on label paper. I did that for the little “check it out” on the library card pocket because I could not for the life of me figure out how to line up my printer to print directly on it. (HOW DO YOU EVEN DO THAT?!!)
You can see the post about the goodie bags here. And for decorations I used the fabric streamers I had from last year’s party and just stacked a bunch of books all around the house. Stacks of books = cheapo party decorations.
I also printed out a bunch of different photos of Scarlette reading and just switched out the photos in all of our frames. My inlaws brought us that bottle of wine, it says “Georgia Scarlett” which I think is awesome. I also tore out some book pages for decorations, like that one that says “Katie Fieldmouse’s Birthday Party” on it. And then I tore out some other ones and made them into accordion flowers and hung them from the chandelier. I totally stole that idea from this tutorial. And I made some into banners. There were book page banners all over my house. You can never have too many book page banners, that’s what I like to say. I’ve never actually said that before.
I really like that I found a Thumbelina book. And also, how do you feel about my attempt to babyproof the fireplace? We had to block it off completely once we discovered that Scarlette had thwarted our previous attempt and had filled the fireplace with plastic balls.
I made little signs for all the food that said “Inspired By The Book:” and then a photo of a favorite book. Pinkalicious Pink Lemonade was my niece’s favorite. The recipe for the finger sandwiches is this one from Becky Higgin’s blog and they are fantastic.
My sister in law made pumpkin cupcakes and banana pudding cupcakes. She’s pretty much the best cupcake maker ever. In fact, after I sent out party invitations I had several people ask me if Steph was going to make the cupcakes when they RSVPed. No one asks if I am making dessert when people have parties because they are all worried that I’ll roll my cookies in salt rather than sugar or something.
Scarlette was all “YAY CUPCAKES! Wait, WHAT?! How did this icing get on my hands? Kindly remove it from my extremities. Now I will proceed to eat this cupcake crumb by tiny little crumb. I am very dainty.”
I love this series of pictures. I like how she’s all “What is this thing you are showing me? A gift?! For me?! LET ME EXAMINE IT CLOSER, WOMAN!”
Scarlette’s M.O. is to be really shy and suck on her lip while holding onto my leg whenever she’s a new situation. After a few minutes she abandons this faux shyness in favor of randomly counting stuff on her fingers. We’re all “Scarlette! Smile!” and she’s all “One, Two, Seven…”
I get most of Scarlette’s hairbows from my friend Martha’s etsy shop and I asked her if she could make me a birthday crown. For Scarlette, I mean. Although I would totally rock that. Anyhow, I sent her a picture of Scarlette’s birthday dress and she sent me that crown! She is amazing. And I found that Persnickety dress super cheap so I decided that she could have a special birthday dress. And that then I would sell it 😉
My mother has a bouncy house so we blew that up and thanks to the beautiful weather the kids played outside on the playset and jumped in the bouncy house. (There are no photos of that here because not everyone posts about themselves on the internets like I do and I want to be respectful of our friends/families privacy.) We held her party a few weeks before quarantine started and it was such a special time for us to be able to have our family and friends all together to celebrate our sweet girl. (And it was so much fun for me to throw a party for her!)
