Ask the Expert - Party Planning with Sweet Stella's

Please welcome Shannon Moyer-Szemenyei, Owner and Designer of Sweet Stella's for Day 2 of the Ask the Expert Series.    She is going to give us some great ideas for a party for a small child.

Dumptruck Themed Party

When Christine and I started chatting about her new Ask an Expert, I got really excited because it meant that I got to talk about my favourite thing…party planning!

Even before I became a mom, you could find me helping my friends plan their children’s parties and dreaming about my future childs’ momentous first birthday party. When it came time to throw it, I was able to set months and months of planning into action.

First and foremost, get a theme, and by that I mean an inspiration for the party. It can be…a colour, favourite toy, game, shape, cartoon character, or even just a feeling.  Once you’ve nailed it down to what you want your party to be inspired by, the rest should come pretty easily. For our purposes here, let’s take a dump truck and build a party around that.

Every party needs a food table, and what better use of a dump truck than to use them on your food table? Go to your local hardware or lumber store and get a 2x4 cut into a variety of sizes. Use these as risers on your table, and place two dump trucks on the planks. Fill the dump trucks with…salad…buns…burgers…really anything can go into a dump truck! Thank goodness for a party without rules!

 

Once you have the main course figured out, think toward dessert. If you want to forgo the fancy cake, consider baking one yourself, and making a wee bit of a mess with it. Fill up the dump truck with the cake, and drizzle over the icing, then sprinkle with cookie crumbs! Guests can take a scoop, and enjoy something a little less traditional, but something that fits so completely with the theme.

Another dessert option would be to take mini dump trucks that you can find at tour local party supply store in the favour section, and fill them with chocolate pudding. Place them out with toppings like cookie crumbs, sprinkles, chocolate candies and nuts (if there are no allergy concerns, of course!). For the spoons, get mini shovels! 

Incorporating elements of your inspiration into every party aspect is important, but it’s also important to not overdo it. You don’t need to have an actual dump truck on everything, but having cute little elements like the mini dump truck pudding desserts, using plastic shovels to serve the food, table linens in colours that match with the dump trucks that you choose…it all goes a very long way and you will notice a difference in the overall feeling of the party.

As a special treat to you party planning parents out there, I’m offering 20% off all custom party orders (as well as instock items in my Etsy shop) to Christine’s readers. Just use coupon code PARTY20 at checkout!

Please take a moment and visit Shannon here:

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Christine

www.christine-company.com