FAQ: Wee Guide

After our last post, we thought you might be wondering about Wee Guides. After all, we haven't published one yet!

A Wee Guide is going to be an outline for an entire party theme covering five categories in five days: invites, decorations, food, favors & activities.

P.S.
We love to answer your questions.
Someday we'll make a proper FAQ to keep them all in one place.
Please feel free to contact us any time.

Inspiring Ideas: Princess Fairy Garden Wand

For those of you looking for princess party ideas, Wee Festivity encourages you to think outside the pink. Flowers, fairies and wands don't need to be pink to be pretty and magical.

Princess Fairy Garden Wand

© Just Tutu Cute

Thirteen bucks gets your little girl the power to be the fairest ruler of them all at her party. The colors shown here will inspire the whole palette for the party. Wee Festivity imagines crisp white plates with orange and yellow linens with orange and yellow wide satin bows on all the chairs.

This wand inspires us so much, we're going to create a Wee Guide for princess parties.

The Xyron 150: Oxygen for Wee-Tails

© Xyron

The Xyron 150 is to a wee-tail as oxygen is to the body: fundamental. There is no easier way to add a personalized touch to every layer of your party.

This Little Sticker Machine is a must-have in your party planning toolkit. It is so important that next week I will have a tutorial on this subject.

A Wee PSA

I would like to make the following Public Service Announcement:

Any Amazon links on this blog are part of Wee Festivity's participation in their Associates Program.

Just thought it was best to be transparent about it!

Thank you and Wee Festivity encourages you to shop responsibly!

Party Planning: Real Simple's Scoop Ahead Tip

Wee Festivity does not believe in reinventing the wheel and we lean on other resources when practical. We use books and magazines for inspiration and knowledge.

So we were reading the handy dandy book Real Simple: Celebrations and had to share this planning tip from the brilliant minds behind that publication.

Scoop your ice cream ahead of time! Of course! Wee Festivity can admit we hadn't thought of that ourselves. They recommend paper baking cups in a muffin tin and scoop the night before. When it's time to serve the cake, pop those puppies right out of the freezer and cups onto the cake plate.

Wee Festivity would like to offer this modifcation to the idea: use silicon baking cups instead.

MIU Mini Size Silicone-Cupcake Baking-Cups, 24-Pack

They can be reused, they're exremely festive and colorful and you know what? Wee Festivity would just put the cup directly on the cake plate. Why mess around with dropping ice cream onto the plate? That's an extra step you don't need during a hectic party with kids. Or demanding sugar fiends aka adults!

Party Favors: Candy Creek Wicked Big Suckers

Kids love little plastic toys, for about five minutes. Kids also love candy, which also lasts about five minutes. At least candy doesn't step on the earth for hundreds of years afterwards.

For all of these reasons, Wee Festivity thinks candy makes a fine party favor (if you are so inclined to give one). The kids are already hopped up on excitement, friends and cake, so what's one more ounce of sugar? And party favors, if done well, are simply another opportunity for one more wee-tail that personalizes your event.

© Candy Creek Lollipops

These Wicked Big Suckers from Candy Creek actually come in at 7/8 of an ounce. See, you don't need a handful of candy to make a kid's day, just a giant lollipop. Pucker up!

FAQ: Wee-Tails

This is a singular FAQ.

A beloved reader* recently asked me, "What is a wee-tail?"

A wee-tail, my fine readers, is a detail that happens in the Land of Wee Festivity. Therefore they are called WEE-tails, not DE-tails. And, UNlike Trix, wee-tails are not just for kids.


detail: (dee-teyl)
-noun;

1. an individual or minute part; an item or particular.
2. particulars collectively; minutiae.
3. attention to or treatment of a subject in individual or minute parts:
4. intricate, finely wrought decoration.
5. any small section of a larger whole, considered as a unit.

In other words, the details (wee-tails) are what make any party shine!

{*That would be my sweet husband}

Inspiring Ideas: Etsy Owl Pocket Mirror

One spectacular way to find inspiration, in this day and age, is Etsy. Etsy can be spectacularly overwhelming too. That's where Wee Festivity comes in, to highlight and suggest things.

Like this too-cute-for-words Owl Mirror in the Madison Made shop.

© Madison Made

This pocket mirror would make a fantastic favor for the preschool or early elementary set and best of all, it is gender neutral. Actually what is best of all about this owl is it made us think of an invitation that reads:

"Whooo is turning _____?"

You've got an invite and a favor. Now all you need is a birthday to celebrate.

Wee-Tails: Safari Animal Cookies

© India Tree

Wee Festivity is not a huge fan of artificial colors on the food our wee ones nibble. Luckily India Tree offers an alternative if you are a fan of color, but not petroleum.

And with cute inspiring cookies like these Safari Animals, we're wondering whose birthday is coming up so we can plan a safari party.

Inspiring Ideas: Birthday Candles

An obsession of any kind is an obvious place to start thinking of themes. Is your little guy (or girl!) obsessed with tools, construction sites, big trucks and machinery? We've found the perfect set of candles to top that party cake: the Tool Candle set from Birthday in a Box.

© Birthday in a Box

If your child is turning more than 5, you could order two sets. If younger than five, you could do cupcakes and put one candle per cupcake. For example for a four-year-old, invite four guests and use one set of candles total. (We know it's not always possible, but a good rule of thumb for the younger set is one guest per year of age of the birthday girl or boy.)

There are lots of possibilities and these cute tool candles are one more way to use a wee-tail. Remember that you don't need to buy the entire party pack from any commercially available theme! It's your party and you can decorate your way.

Dreamy Invites: a Paper Source Green Ready-Made Invite

Trust us, this is truly just the beginning of the conversation about invitations here at Wee Festivity. Invites are a passion among passions.

Paper is a world unto itself in the Land of Creativity. With all of our experience and love for paper, we are but newbies in the grand history of paper products. While we truly advocate getting inspired and creating a vision for your party from start (invites) to finish (favors), in a rare case we will approve of a {gasp!} ready-made invite.

Behold such an item:

© Paper Source

This Curry Party Kraft invite 10-pack set is part of their "environmentally friendly line of stationery and paper, these invitations are silkscreen printed with water-based inks on 100% recycled kraft paper with an impressive 30% post-consumer waste content."

What kind of party theme goes with this invite? We imagine an outdoor garden party under a giant oak tree with an old picnic table for starters!

Inspiring Ideas: Etsy Stuffed Felt Letters

© MiChiMa

This is the kind of party favor that Wee Festivity favors...not a bag of plastic doo-dads that barely engage a child for the car ride home from the party.

Etsy seller MiChiMa says about her letters, "Sew a pin onto the back and use them as brooches.. Glue names onto a picture frame or onto banners and hang them on the door.. Attach magnets and display the letters on the fridge.. We have so many bright and colorful letters available; the possibilities and combinations are endless!"

We agree wholeheartedly!

At only a dollar a pop, it doesn't matter whether your budget allows for a single felt letter or an entire name. For your next party, you can give a favor that will last and have the satisfaction of supporting a handmade business.

Inspiring Ideas: Star Lanterns

You only need one inspiration piece to get your creativity flowing. You don't need night-time to have ambience and a star lantern will always provide a festive atmosphere no matter what time your party starts.

© PartyLights.com

Choose a color that makes you feel giddy inside and then use that color to your advantage. Today we're fond of this Mango lantern.

One word of caution: don't overdo it with utensils, plates, napkins, bags, favors, balloons AND stationary unless you're sincerely crazy for it. Then go crazy with it because you can't put a lid on passion, that's an ancient Sicilian* secret.

* Mrs. Wee Festivity is a Sicilian-American and proud of it.

Cake Wee-tails: Cowboy Theme

We could argue that aside from the invitation (which sets the tone you know), the dessert is the most important element of any great party.

If cake is the dessert, don't be afraid to decorate it yourself. Pick up a sheetcake from a local bakery if you run out of time to bake your own (as this happens often when we are focused on other more important wee-tails for our parties).

For example, with a cowboy theme, you can pick up a Wild West Toob and place it strategically on your cake.

Pick up some lollipop sticks and build a corral for the ranch hands to wrangle their bulls.

It doesn't matter if your scale is wildly off and your cowboys are in a corral as big as a skyscraper because it doesn't have to be perfect to be magical & pretty. It's only three months after the party when you're looking at your pictures that you realize how oversized you made the corral. At the party, all anyone noticed was how adorable it was!

Wee Festivity 101 (or How We Party)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Wee Festivity, a land full of little tips, tricks and things to make any child's party magical and pretty.

The main beliefs that rule this land:

1. The secret is in the wee-tails,

2. Perfection isn't needed,

3. You might grow up, but you can never outgrow a magical, pretty party!