My Party Planning Book

I love to entertain and throw parties. At one point several years ago I even considered a career as an event/party planner.  I had a business plan and a registered business name, No Surprises Event Planning.  I joined some professional organizations and was ready to go.  I planned a few events for some friends and family and I liked it enough but after those few events and doing more research and talking to other professional planners I decided that I would much rather be entertaining and planning parties for myself.

When Bug-A-Boo was born and we joined the MOMS Club I was afforded a plethora of opportunities to host parties and playdates for the little ones and their moms.  Last year, I decided that I was going to try to throw a themed playdate/party for Bug-A-Boo and her friends once a month.

The parties were so much fun to plan.  I had a Winnie-The-Pooh party, Valentines, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Tinkerbell and Friends and more.  It also includes Bug-A-Boo's birthday parties.  Each party had themed decorations, music, food, craft and favor bags.  The kids had fun and so did the moms.

Because of the number of parties as well as the amount of "stuff" (ie. recipes, crafts, decorations) that each party produced I decided to put it all in one book that would be part reference book and part scrapbook.  I wanted something that I could have in case I ever wanted to replicate something from a party as well as a book that Bug-A-Boo could look back at and see how much fun it was and how important it was to me to do things for her.

The easiest way to create the book was in an 8-1/2" x 11" three ring binder, which I got at Target.  I also got page protectors and section dividers that matched the binder.  I then gathered all of the things from each party and started putting them in the page protectors.  This was such a quick and easy project and it is a wonderful reference.

My Party Planning Book is an ongoing project and as I continue to throw parties, whether for Bug-A-Boo or for grown ups, I will keep adding to it.  Maybe one day Bug-A-Boo will be a mommy and she can use the book to help her show her little one(s) how much she loves them.

Title Page

Dedication Page

Section Tabs

Photos from 1st Birthday Party

List of Things to Do for Party

Decoration for food table for Magical Mystery Playdate

Rules and photos for bounce house from Magical Mystery Playdate

Bubble Recipe and Octopus's Garden from the Magical Mystery Playdate

Evite from Winnie-the-Pooh Party

Photos from the food table along with the food markers from Pooh Party

Thank you note from guests of the Pooh Party

Photos of some food and favors from Tinkerbell and Friends party

Party plan from 3rd Birthday party

Recipes and photos for the Princess and the Frog Birthday Party

Photos and recipes from the Halloween Party

Photos and recipes from Halloween party

Photo from Halloween Party

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I'm On A Roll

One of the things I wanted to accomplish in this New Year was to focus on me (I don't like to say New Year's Resolution because nobody ever sticks to those).   The "outer" me (my appearance), the "inner" me (my overall physical health) and the "creative" me (which equals a mentally healthy me).

Well after only one month, I am on a roll.  I got my haircut and I already have an appointment to get it maintained.  I only have four more weeks until my Half Marathon at Disney World and creatively I am most definitely on a roll.

I started the year taking Darci Dowdle's Decorate Life class at Big Picture Classes and got 14 layouts done and a mini-album.  While taking the class I also worked on some of my own personal scrapbooking.  Since I know that in September of this year we will be taking Bug-A-Boo to Walt Disney World for the first time I want to be sure to have all of my pending projects done.  Why would I undertake such a thing you ask?  Well, I know myself and I know that I will probably end up with thousands of pictures of that first amazing trip to Disney and working on that theme album(s) is going to be an enormous undertaking and I want to be able to creatively focus on nothing but that.

So here is my list of theme albums and other projects I want to complete before that September trip:

1.  2009 California Anniversary Trip
2.  2010 Lexington, MI beach vacation
3.  a book about our Kady
4.  a book about our Josie
5.  a book about my running experience, including the Half-Marathon and the days at Disney surrounding it.
6.  a book of the parties I've hosted
7.  a favorite recipes project
8.  the Decorate Life bonus mini album - Ornaments of Ordinary Life
9.  Bug-A-Boo's 3rd birthday to add to our birthday book

Seems like a lot, I know but get this... I've already finished four of these.

#6:  My Party Planning Book was almost completed to begin with, so I was able to finish that off pretty easily.

#8:  The Decorate Life bonus mini-album, Ornaments of Ordinary Life, was also a pretty easy project to complete during an afternoon naptime.

#9:  Bug-A-Boo's 3rd birthday took a little more time since I had a lot of photos, but I adapted several layouts from past birthdays and it was kind of easy and quick.

#2:  The last of the projects that I've completed was our 2010 Lexington, MI beach vacation.  Again, I had a lot of photos from this fun little 5 day trip and since I didn't have a lot of money in my budget to buy supplies I decided to use my stash.  By using my stash I was able to use an idea that I got from my Scrapbooking Guru, Stacy Julian...the PAS-Photo Album Scrapbook (more to come on this in a separate post). It was so much fun and so easy and quick to do.  I will definitely be doing more of these types of books, in fact I think I will be using the PAS (only in a 12x12 size) for our 2009 California trip.

Look for future posts to highlight each of these completed projects.

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