I'm going to be honest, I love entertaining. It really doesn't matter what the occasion is, I have so much fun bringing people together and having a good time. From casual to formal, I just think it is a wonderful way to create memories and foster relationships. As we have gotten older, my parties have been a thread that holds our group of friends together as our lives pull us apart and demand more of our time.
Right now, amongst our friends, my older son Townes is really the first kid so his first birthday party last year was quite an exciting event. But really, a one-year old's party is more for the adults than the kid, because they don't really have a concept of whats happening and get pretty over stimulated after about an hour.
So when his second birthday was coming up, I was really excited to choose a theme that he was going to enjoy and to have an activity that he could participate in and to see his friends play with him. At the time that I started thinking about what to do for his party, he was really into golf. Like weirdly, very into golf. He would watch the golf channel with his grandparents and squeal with excitement over the "ball ball ball!" and ran around the house putting anything in sight with his plastic clubs (courtesy of his grandmother). Unfortunately, every once and while he tried to putt the baby, but other than that, his golf obsession was pretty adorable and provided me with a great direction for his party.
When I hopped on Pinterest to start browsing for some inspiration, I came across a funny reality that apparently, toddlers aren't often into golf. Almost all the golf parties I had seen were old dude's retirement parties; I get it, but kids like golf too! So as I lamented my problem to my husband, he was like, why can't we just take him to Putt Putt and be done with it.
I understand his request; we have an awesome Putt Putt course five minutes away that is BYOB (Peter Pan's Putt Putt, its practically an institution here, check it out if you visit Austin). However, I thought that would be a huge hassle with toddlers running around and with a two-and-a-half-second attention span. But he was on to something with mini golf.
After thinking on it, and tossing ideas around with Chanel, we decided to turn our backyard into a mini golf course and have a country club baby brunch at home for Townes.
My party process is pretty much the same every time: I start with the idea, then it moves to the invitation. The invitation narrows in my color scheme and theme and sets the tone for the party. Once those are in the mail, I nail down the activity and what that will entail. Next, I create a menu based on the theme. Lastly, the decor.
Since I had my idea: mini golf, choosing the invitations was next. My go-to site for invitations and cards (anything paper) is Minted. Their paper quality is fantastic and the designs are wonderful - it is a co-op of indie designers from all over the country so there is a lot of variety.
The invitations
For Townes' party I chose these adorable Party Hat Invitations and customized the back with a more personalized message that instructed everyone to participate by wearing a fun golf-inspired outfit (if they wanted to). To make the invitation suite more personal, I ditch the plain envelopes that come with the invites and head to Paper Source for a custom color and envelope liners I cut from their paper myself. For this these I chose the A7 size envelopes in Royal Blue and a hand painted orange and gold argyle paper for the liner. (I have their envelope templates and use a cutting board, Exacto knives and double sided tape to cute and fasten the liners into the envelopes).
I also try to embellish the envelopes to look like they are part of the invitation: I use similar or the same fonts to those on the invitation to address the envelopes (in this case printed on labels) and then use something to add a little pop (in this case, adorable gold glitter monogram stickers).
The activity
I had to enlist some of Aaron's creativity for the main event on this party. I asked him to create a mini golf course appropriate for toddlers, but also entertaining for adults, and for a reasonable amount of money. He really succeeded! He used sheets of plywood, spray painted them green, cut a hole in each one (in various places), and then created bumpers using foam pipe insulation spray painted white (you could also use pool noodles). In one afternoon we had nine holes of tiny golf!
The number flags I made from wooden dowels, affixed with foam sheets cut into triangles with contrasting circles and numbers (I stenciled and then cut them out). I bought a whole package of foam sheets from Michael's.
The course was finished out with mini-golf pencils, score cards, balls and plastic golf sets the kids got to take home as favors that I found at Walmart for 5 dollars a piece.
The other activity I provided for kiddos to do (and take home as a favor - I do NOT do goodie bags) was a custom foam visor to wear on the course. When they walked in the dining room table was set with visors that I had written their names on, along with a bucket of foam embellishments for some quick decoration.
The menu & decor
For this party we went pretty simple with the menu. There were gonna be lots of little kiddos who didn't have the best eating skills yet so I didn't want to overwhelm anyone with cutting things and making a mess of food trying to get kids to eat. We made queso in the crock pot, had a bowl of chips, a bowl of pretzels, guacamole, fruit salad, a veggie plate and a main course of Tee Sandwiches (I can't resist a good pun). The sandwiches were made on simple thin-cut white bread and a variety of fillings: cucumber and cream cheese, pimento cheese, chicken salad, and egg salad. We made simple vanillaand chocolate cupcakes, topped with a lawn of green vanilla buttercream, a Sixlet for a golf ball, and flags made from tooth picks and washi tape.
I printed up some label cards for the food that went along with the color scheme and font family, stuck them into my trusty wine cork place card holders and the table was just about done. I decorated the food tables and the craft area with green crinkle cut paper shreds (grass) and orange and white golf tees (a giant bag from Walmart). The floral arrangements were orange and yellow daisies in mason jars with golf tees in the bottom for just a little more color. Then the tables were set and we were ready to party!