Ellie's Second Birthday

It is so hard to believe that in just over a month my sweet girl will be TWO!!  

I have been gathering ideas for her party for a while but really have putting things together since January.  Its going to be a small get together but I am loving the theme!  I think its going to be so cute and a great way to capture Ellie's love of being outside and animals!

The inspiration for the whole party came from this cake.  I am going to attempt to make one similar but I am going to use my famous Strawberry Cake recipe (which I still have yet to share on here) and a homemade chocolate frosting.  I love how it looks like a tree trunk and the mushrooms around it are so cute.  It is going to look fab on my new cake stand too!

I used to not be a balloon person, but since bringing Ellie home and seeing her enjoyment of them I have converted.  I love the gold foil numbers that are available (in big and small) so you can bet your bottom there will be one of these.

After hours of browsing the various invitations websites I have finally narrowed it down to my final choice for her invites.  I made hers last year but just don't have that same creative vibe going this year (I think I was trying to keep myself busy from thinking about our last miscarriage and that baby's due date looming at May 17th) and I want to take a more leisurely route this year. Plus I can order through Ebates and get cash back on my purchase!

There are so many cute snack ideas out there and Ellie is currently in love with pretzels and strawberries.  I think these two snack ideas will be super easy to recreate and put on the table.  Twigs - seriously how genius!  And the little snack portion cups are so cute to put a variety of small foods into. Not to mention I am obsessed with paper straws and how perfect would the Birch Wood ones be for this party?

Finally I am so excited to get Ellie's banner out again this year.  I made it for her birthday last year and tried to go with a color that would be usable from year to year...so far I think its doable!!

Make sure to check out all my other inspiration on my Pinterest board - go ahead and follow me while your at it too!!

Do you like planning parties? What are some of your favorite party themes?

♥ Ashley

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