Well, as you may know, I recently turned twenty-three. To celebrate, I threw a birthday party themed after the best book series ever. Based on my last few posts you might be guessing that I'm taking about Harry Potter. Well, if that's what you're thinking...
You're wrong.
Clearly I'm talking about Nate the Great.
Great is an understatement.
Anyway, this blog post is going to take you through the planning, preparation, and execution of my shindig. Does that make it sound like a boring post? It's not going to be boring. Just keep reading.
Some things (guests, date, time, etc.) shouldn't really matter to you. My mom decided the date and time because my original plan was "avoid everyone in order to also avoid any potential disappointment" and she decided that was unacceptable, so she stole my phone and contacted a bunch of my friends. (I'm really glad she did.)
First things first, I'm a realist. Wait, no. That's not where that was going. Oh! Right. The most important thing is... probably location. But our location was just "our house." It's important to decide a location because your location can be impacted by other parties, time of day, weather, and etc. AND your location can impact the number of guests you can invite and the activities you host. But assuming you aren't throwing some super special party and you aren't being filmed by MTV and planning on throwing a fit because your parents bought you a car painted the wrong shade of silver... then you probably don't have that many options for venues.
Anyway, the second most important thing to consider is food. Obviously.
So, if you aren't familiar with Nate the Great, you might not know this, but... Kid detective, Nate the Great, gets a bit "stumped" every book and has to go home, eat some pancakes, and think. Pancakes are his favorite food. So for my shindig, we had a pancake bar!
Now, we could have done it where there was mixed up batter and guests just made their own. But I have a very lovely mother who offered to make all the pancakes. We had two batters, one from a box buttermilk and one homemade whole wheat, and blueberries and chocolate chips as additives. On top of that, we had a whole spread of things (strawberries, syrup, butter, blueberries, chocolate chips, whipped cream) that guests could top their pancakes with.
And we had some non-pancake things (like watermelon and deviled eggs) in case I somehow invited any pancake-hating heathens. (I didn't. Yay.)
Now, onto activities. This was a kind of hard thing to plan. First, I wanted to pick stuff that somehow fit into my theme. Second, I wanted to pick stuff where I wouldn't ever have to go, "All right, guys, it's duck duck goose time" or whatever. I also really wanted activities because as fun as sitting around and chatting is... sometimes it gets boring just sitting around and chatting.
So, I did a little research, (seriously I spent about a week reading Nate the Greats), and picked up a couple loosely-related activities.
In the first book, Nate the Great, Nate must find Annie's painting of her dog. She only paints in yellow, and her little brother only paints in red. (Spoiler alert: Nate figures out that her little brother painted over the dog painting because one of his paintings is an orange, three headed monster.) So, I set up a paint station with three shades of yellow and three shades of blue. (Then, my dad who hadn't realized the only-reds-and-yellows-thing was intentional, added some blues. But these things happen.)
My final "station" was inspired by the book Nate the Great Where Are You? in which Nate has so many cases that he goes to a costume shop and tries to disguise himself so that he and his dog can hide from his friends. So I set up a photobooth with props that my guests could use to disguise themselves with. I used some props that I already had--bunny ears that I made for a costume a few years ago and some funky hats--and I also created some props with a little help from Oh Happy Day and Make A Wedding Blog. Then, I set up a tripod with one of my cameras and a sheet. My thinking was that people could use the timer, but most of the time we ended up just having someone else snap the photos.
Post party, I used ribbet to put together multiple photos in true photobooth fashion!
Anyway! I also created an awesome "birthday brunch" party playlist that is mostly comprised of calming music that would mesh well with the brunch and not disrupt conversations. But there are some dance-y sorts of songs thrown in there, as well. You can listen to it here on spotify!
Finally, no party is complete without properly thanking your guests. So my brother and I developed an "activity booklet" as a party favor. I wrote a page of anagrams and riddles, and Nash wrote a seriously intense logic puzzle. If you want to play along, then it's your lucky day! It's free to download right here!
It was a pretty spectacular birthday. So an extra special thank you goes out to everyone who made it possible. <3
Anyway. Those are all the tools you need to create your own Nate the Great shindig!
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