Small Beautiful Things: Rainbow Magic
Ideas and takeaways from my daughter's 5th birthday party
I’m someone who dedicates time to silly things. I’ve always been like this. As a kid, crowded rooms with awards and trophies were alluring, but not alluring enough to pull me away from my scrapbooks, or puzzles or my forever favorite: “a project.” My almost 5-year-old daughter is the opposite in a lot of ways. She loves a crowded room. She just won her first award. Throwing a party for her people is pretty much her dream. At least once a week since January she’d stop and say: “should we talk about my party?” Her ideas were big and wild and fun and the things childhood memories are made of.
To my delight, each one of her ideas presented me with an opportunity to indulge in a silly thing, a project. I got to get lost in balloon and fruit skewer color combinations while she got to dance and sing and squeal in a sea of rainbows. I got to spend a silly amount of time quietly placing big, medium and small balloons in just the right place while she got to yell “welcome to my party!” to all her friends under the finished product. Sometimes the pieces of who we are individually as a mother and a daughter click together in a way that feels like it was designed.
As I definitely spent a silly amount of time on this party, I thought I’d share some ideas and takeaways to keep in mind the next time your kid asks, “should we talk about my party?” Enjoy!
Balloon Arch
I found this shop on Etsy that will create any color combination (you can even send them your invitation or another piece of inspiration and they will color match it) + they use biodegradable balloons. The whole thing came in around $100, which felt like a win.