how we threw a minecraft birthday party!

it’s monday after the party, and i can tell you: i’m still feeling the exhaustion. blame it on the last fifteen months, the fact i am just getting older, or whatever, but 48 hours later and caffeine isn’t helping. 😄 it doesn’t matter though, because our boy had the best day on saturday to celebrate turning eight with a minecraft birthday!

before we get into the party details, i’m going to share a few things i’ve learned along the way with all of these parties i’ve planned…call them:

party life skills!

• plan ahead of time. i usually try to start planning my boys’ parties at least four weeks in advance. (usually.) if you’re going to also hire a baker, stylist, decor artist, or entertainment for your party, you will likely want to get them booked at least six weeks out (depending on the season.)

• make the food easy (if it’s a kids party!) seriously, kids love simple. cut up fruit, crackers, easy pizza, and cupcakes are all they really love and need.

• cake vs. cupcakes. i’ll be honest here: after the last year, it hit me that we’ve had our kids blow out candles on a cake that we then serve to other people (aka germ spreading!) i think from now on, we’ll be doing individual cupcakes just to keep the spread to a minimum!

• never, ever, ever wear thin foam flip flops during a party where you stand for hours on a concrete floor. 😜 let’s just say that my feet hurt sooooooo badly!

alright, let’s get into the fun party goodness! friends, i can’t even tell you how excited i was to work with some of the most amazing friends to help bring this small celebration together! the kiddos were amazing, so excited to just see one another, and they got so creative with their minecraft art creations!

i can’t say enough about my friend chelsea from chelsea mcghee studios! she + i started talking about this idea over a month ago…trying to do something small, something outside, something that just fits what our little boy loves (art + minecraft!) she brought everything to the house and set these kiddos up to be creative for the party!

another one of my tips that is going to be a perma-part of our parties from now on: cupcakes. i was so excited to work with cathy from from scratch baking! she totally jumped on board when i asked if she could do some simple chocolate cupcakes with green icing that looks like grass! and, she totally delivered! (i added a cute cupcake topper for the birthday boy + ordered some super cute minecraft cupcake toppers from younameitimeltit on etsy!

yep, that’s a giant minecraft-themed “8” in our front yard! the super talented mireille from midwest fun factory delivered again this year for our sweet boy! (if you saw last year’s super small “iron man” themed party we did, you saw mireille’s work with iron man!) the kids absolutely loved this addition to the party, and it made for an awesome spot to take pics! those creepers are fantastic!

and, of course it wouldn’t be a party if i didn’t add some flare of my own to the whole shindig! more pics are below of all the details, but here’s a view of the whole party goodness for our little one! (note: i got less than three hours of sleep the night before…which is where my “don’t wait until the last minute” tip came from!)