This Chick Is Eight | Girls Birthday Party
Can you even believe this chick is eight!? Will there ever be a year when it doesn’t feel like they are growing too fast? We are right around the corner from double digits and I am not sure my mama heart will be able to handle that! Planning Reese’s 8th birthday party in the midst of this weird post-pandemic, but still stuck in a pandemic life was different again to say the least. We decided on another year of keeping the party limited to our family, but the creative bug was itching so I did something new this year by hiring a photographer to come *before* the party started and that was the best idea I’ve had. It was a crazy whirlwind of a day, like always, and the rain held off for the photo shoot, but when “guests” aka family arrived, we loaded the “party” back up into the trunk of my car to move it inside for fear of rain. Little bit of real life for ya’ mixed in with this beautiful, picture perfect day.
We got chickens this year, and Reese is beyond obsessed with them. She promptly earned the nickname Chickie Mama and has been up before the sun hanging out with her chickens before school. When I proposed the theme, This Chick is Eight, it instantly stuck. Her eyes lit up and we were both in love. This was a party theme I could envision every detail of the second she said yes. There is an old abandoned truck at the end of our road, and I immediately pictured placing our dessert table in front of it with Edison lights draped over the truck. As the ideas were flowing, I knew I needed more than an iphone to capture these moments so I reached out to my photographer friend Siri Smith Photography, and when she had the date open and said yes to capturing our wildest chicken dreams, it was on!!
Chicken Love
The first details I always start with is an invitation and banner, I spent longer than I care to admit scouring the internet for chicken clipart to build the theme around, and finally found these adorable chicks. I then went on to spend even longer meticulously recoloring them to match our chickens in real life. I’m 50% embarrassed, and 50% DGAF.
I cricuted out a zillion chickens and Reese and I hot glued them to every surface. I think it’s quite clear I am officially now “that” chicken lady.
This was a fun play on “chicken eggs and straw” for the kids to take home and snack on, obviously the burlap bag was bedazzled with a chicken.
Drink Up
One of our chicken's name is huckleberry, so coming up with a drink was a no brainer to serve Huckleberry Lemonade. We carried over the black and white plaid with tied ribbons on the mason jar glasses, and of course, added chickens and red 8’s to the glasses. The farmers market flowers were everywhere at the party, and I upcycled Starbucks frappacinos and milk jugs from a local creamery to use as vases.
Setting the Table
These red Daydream society barn plates were one of the first purchases I made for party decor. I wanted to incorporate touches of red, but not go overboard and these were perfect to set the table with. Plus, crazy chicken lady detail….they match our chicken coop perfectly 😂
I made the seating area a focal point with this custom banner from my shop, and we used old bed railings that I legit found on the side of the road to complete the dessert table to stick the banner into the ground.
We used our kids art table from our playroom for their seating area, and covered the top with a roll of “wood” wrapping paper. That $5 hack was perfect to give the rustic look I wanted to their table. Decorating the kids table was so fun when we had fresh chicken eggs to build this table runner with! I’m happy to report, no eggs were broken the entire day which is shocking.
If you saw my Instagram reel, you know what a labor of love these hay bale benches were. I wasn’t sure what to use for seating as we only have 2 chairs in the playroom and didn’t want to spend money on seating. I considered using log rounds, galvanized buckets or trying to build or borrow chairs, then had the idea to use haybales as we could reuse them for the chicken coop after the party. Funny story tho, our local farm store was out of regular size hay bales and the only option was this GIANT hay bale that was way too big to fit by the small table. It’s worth going back and watching my reel to see how we made these work. Let’s just say, I am glad I married a farmer.
I got $5 of fabric from the quilting store that I planned to use as a table runner for my Halloween tablescape after the party and used that to cover the hay bales with. If you’ve followed my parties in the past, you know how important upcycling, reusing and borrowing are for me to stay on budget with parties!!
Snacks and Activities
For the adults, I created a “to go” charcuterie box. I have seen so many of these filling my news feed this past year during the pandemic and loved the idea. I had so much fun putting these together for each family and it was a fun spin on the charcuterie spreads that I usually serve.
I also wanted a special snack for the kids and had such a cute idea for this trail mix style bar, I had to make it happen. They each filled their own egg carton “snack trays” and it was the perfect low key activity to keep them occupied in between running around. This table also featured one of my favorite party decorations which is the 100 year old egg scale that my amazing friend mailed to me when she heard our birthday theme was chickens. ❤️
We also served farm fresh lunch boxes with some of the ingredients harvested right from our own garden!
The Best Part
While I absolutely adored every detail of this party, this dessert table was unstoppable. I’m pretty proud of this beauty and I still swoon every time I look at the photos as it came together even better than I pictured. I pondered this table and how I wanted to set it up for a month and as I was sifting around my party boxes in the garage pulling out decor, it hit me that my husband's garage cart was the PERFECT dessert table. We had fun staging this table in the garage for a few weeks before the party day, and then I hit the jackpot driving to my mom's house where I saw this rusty old bed on the side of the road in a trash pile. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. I promptly pulled over to snag it up, and when it didn’t fit in the back of my SUV, the kids and I walked it the half mile back to my moms to leave it in their carport until I could get the truck to pick it up. That is dedication. The whole time as I was walking carrying this bedframe down the road I was thinking to myself, “what is this life?!” My hubby helped me attach it to the back of the table, or I should say I helped him!
Tying the mini red balloon garland to the bed frame was like tying the final bow on a package and added the perfect pop of red.
It was so hard for me to wait this long to share the details of this dessert table that knocked this out of the park. I couldn’t have done this one without my go to baker Natalie of Natalie Marie Bakes and this chicken cake and cookies that matched our real chickens. Literally and figuratively. You know you have a good friend, when you text her pictures of your chickens with a request to turn them into buttercream cookies and ask for a “chicken feather cake” obviously using frosting colors that match your chickens too.... I PROMISE you guys that I used to be cool. Seriously.
The beautiful red cake stand was from my friend Jackie at Sprinkles and Confetti and was the perfect focal point to set this gorgeous cake on.
My friend Tanatha of Ohh Macarons also made my cookie dreams come true with these stunningly beautiful macaroons that tasted heavenly and looked adorable served in egg cartons.
I supplemented the homemade treats with store bought goodies, and dressed them up by cutting paper bags to make cupcake wrappers, tying them with twine and topping them with DIY farm cupcake toppers.
To end the photoshoot party, our chicken Huckleberry made a cameo and as you can see, I think that may have been Reese’s favorite part of her birthday.
Happy Birthday sweet girl, and thank you for being so uniquely and awesomely you that you let me throw you a chicken themed birthday party. I am the luckiest mom in the world.
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