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Victoria's Garden 5yr - Historic Gardens

Sept 2002

Terri in Metairie, LA  USA

Special Mention

Victoria's Garden Party    Victoria's 5th birthday party took place on Saturday, June 1st.  The location was a historic home and gardens called Longue Vue Home and Gardens located in New Orleans, LA.  The party room was a nice size room with French Quarter style brick walls and lots of windows that lead out ot the Kids Discovery Garden area.     We worked on the garden theme idea for 6 months. 

I found some beautiful and elegant die cut invitations that had flowers on them and matching flowers on the exterior of the envelope. For the printing, I chose a font that was very delicate and went with the invitation style.  

The color scheme for the party was hot pink and lavender.  We found some beautiful large decorative roses that we were able to use as part of the center piece on the food table and also to decorate some of the other tables.  We also found some adorable oversized sheer butterflies and butterfly bears with tulle skirts that we were able to hang with clear thread from the ceiling of the party room. 

We also found some precious jelly bug shaped suckers that were decorated in great detail.  I took these suckers along with some tulip shaped suckers and put them in 2 pots (clay pot painted white and decorated with clear floral stickers) on each side of the cake.  The suckers were part of the party favors so I attached small computer printed cards that thanked the guest for celebrating with Victoria.  On each card I stenciled a flower and then went back and colored them in with a marker.  

Once the guest arrived, the children went out to the gardens in a designated area that had tables and aprons for them to work.  At this time, the children were given plastic pots that they had to paint. After painting their pots and waiting for them to dry, we went out to the gardens where the children played in a area of soil looking for earthworms. 

Next, we went to a different area of the grounds and played a game.  We had two groups as about 30 children total. We played a game where a child from each group had to place a piece of fruit to another child under their chin. They could not use their hands so it was quite a challenge.  The last one to hold the fruit, got a price which was  child size gardening gloves.   Once the pots were dried, the children then planted seeds and watered the pots.  Each child was able to take their pot home to watch their plant grow. 

As part of the party favors, we gave out some adorable plastic colorful watering cans.  The watering cans are also great for the bathtub.  

As part of the menu, we had the following:   tray of garden shaped sandwiches (daisy for ham, tulip for turkey and butterfly cookie cutters for peanut butter/jelly)  fabulous garden theme almond cookies/decorated beautifully  chicken potato salad humus w/ bagel bites trail mix w/ mini M&M's  dried fruit mix       (put each mix into a clear plastic flower pot and put clear stickers on it for décor/used plastic garden shovel to get the mix out) 7 layer dip w/ chips pico de gallo w/ chips creamy strawberry Jell-O  Coffee punch (yum!)  Birthday cake was chocolate/white doberge w/ white butter cream icing (French bakery)/ used bug suckers on top of the cake to tie in with flower pots with bug suckers  2 white wooden mini wheel barrels (Capri sun drinks in one and mini water bottles in the other)covered with ice to keep cool like an ice bucket  Used a few over sized clear buckets for ice and wine; put clear flower stickers on them as well which tied in to the floral theme.  

Everything went great and looked beautiful. I received lots of compliments on how everything was put together.  Since the grounds are so beautiful, the atmosphere was perfect.  It was our best party yet. We had close to 80 guest attend the party.    My recommendation on party planning is to plan your party in advance.  If you have enough time, you can find more things that work well with your theme.