The first thing I purchased were these strawberry crates from Shop Sweet Lulu. I have to admit that I'd been waiting for the perfect excuse to buy them and this was it. I also bought the pink paper straws for the drinks, from here as well.
My friend gave me a bunch of red paper straws that I used as the "sticks" for the pinwheels. The pinwheels were made out of paper I mostly found at Michaels but I found the strawberry paper at Joanns. I put them in mason jars for the center of the tables. I made them with this tutorial.
We had the party at our neighborhood park. The weather ended up being perfect. No humidity, nice and cool. But the wind was a little stronger than normal which made keeping the pinwheels in place pretty interesting. I ended up putting a bunch of these strawberry candies I found at the dollar store at the bottom of the jars to keep them from falling over. The table cloths were white lace plastic ones at Walmart for 1.50. They are super cute! {my sister in law found them for one of the baby showers we gave}
The banner was made with doilies, twine and more scrap book paper. I just traced the letters off my computer screen and then cut them out. I used the phrase "Life is Sweet" to tie into the strawberry shortcake theme. And because I'm a sucker for words and phrases. You probably know this by now.
The main table was set with lots of treats. Strawberry red vines, pink chocolate covered pretzels and huge pink and white marshmallows in glass jars. I got the metal scoops and chalk board vinyl at World Market a while ago. They were labeled but the writing kept getting erased from little hands. After re-writing it once, I just let it go....There were a few things that I would have liked to "perfect" but it just didn't happen and I was so ok with that. I wanted to enjoy Bella and not stress over things no one else would ever notice!
I bought the stuff to make these topiaries for Bella's room a long time ago and finally decided to get a move on them since I thought I could use them on her treat table. I got all of the supplies at the dollar store except the little wooden dowels I got at Michaels. Oh and the little lace planters they are in are from IKEA.
My friend Monica {aka the cake pop queen round these parts} made strawberry cake pops! They were perfect! She initially had them on sticks but I took them off and put them in the crates instead. They disappeared pretty quick. She did an amazing job on them.
We also had Peanut Butter and Strawberry jelly sandwiches, strawberries and cool whip and strawberry cupcakes with pink icing.
The treat table also had a chalkboard on it {that I was supposed to write Happy Birthday on, oops!}and a fabric banner I made. I found strawberry shortcake fabric at Walmart! Our Walmart recently brought back their craft/fabric department and gave me a reason to ever have to go there. Besides spray paint. The fabric was super cheap too. I got the strawberry shortcake one, a red gingham one and green. I just cut them into strips and tied them to twine.
We kept the food easy with hot dogs, chips, dip and pasta salad that I made using a quick recipe my friend Ashley gave me. We bought all of the food at Sams and it was very affordable!
Drinks were strawberry lemonade, strawberry milk {milk bottles also from Shop Sweet Lulu} and strawberry capri suns.
On the gift table, I had a chalkboard with the phrase "Life is Sweet, Grab a Treat."
B made these little tags using a Strawberry Shortcake image from google and we tied them on to little bakery bags with twine. I made strawberry cake mix cookies, with cream cheese icing in the middle and each person took one home. These things are so good and so easy! Just use cake mix, 1/4 of oil and 2 eggs and bake for 10 minutes. So yummy. The tags said "Thank you for making my day so special, Love Bella"
The thing I loved most about Bella's party is that pretty much all of her favorite people were there. Neighbor friends, church friends, family.... She was so happy and loved every bit of it. She told me her friend told her it was the best birthday party she'd ever been to. Now, I don't care if that is the truth or not, the look on Bella's face when she told me that and how much she loved it herself was THE best.
She got a special birthday flowers from our Nana and pretty much thought they were the greatest thing ever.
Also? We had random, extra {ehem} neighbor kids show up for the party too. Which is great because that is pretty much us right now. We have neighbor kids at our house all hours of the day...Sitting on our front porch shootin the breaze like no big deal. So it wouldn't be right if they didn't show up to Bella's party too ;)
I absolutely love celebrating our kids on their special days. I think there is always a reason to celebrate.....big things, little things...but the day God blessed us with our precious gifts?...Pretty sure there is no greater reason to celebrate.
P.S Because I know this will get asked--all cake plates were from Costco :)
