I was slow to get going but once I did, it came together. My objective, organise 2 parties for our little guy, who was turning 5. I jumped into the preparations with no direction or theme. Googling birthday party invitation templates for boys I was trying to stay away from trends or superheroes – as I didn’t want to mislead the invitees. I settled on a iPhone ‘screenshot’ of text messages. Link to template here. It was current and generic.
Invitations drafted, printed and sent.
I then decided to go with a theme, our little guy’s current favourite TV shows, either Operation Ouch or Officially Amazing! I googled some images for Officially Amazing and sent it to my sister-in-law and parents. The image was used as a guide for the cake and the piñata. I stumbled across a printable which I thought I could use for the party favours somehow. I resized the images to create the right size for chocolate wrappers. Added a thank you message and had them printed in colour. While I was at it I printed some tiny logos to create a cupcake toppers.
The lolly bags were next. I found a pack of pink, purple, green and blue bags, perfect as we had an equal ratio of girls and boys. The bags were personalised with their names. I found a fun balloon font online. I printed all the names, scanned them and cut them out of cardstock with my Brother ScanNCut machine.
We decided to go with an antipasto buffet for both parties, followed by paella for party #1.
Here are some photos of the handmade elements.
Party #1
Antipasto buffet food labels – printed cardstock held by corks tied with twine
Paella – deliciously cooked by my brother
Cake organised by my SIL – made by the talented Annie from Cool Cakes
Party #2
Lolly Bags – used to collect sweets when the piñata was cracked open
Personalised chocolate wrappers
Cupcake toppers – craft punches and toothpicks
Piñata – made by my dad
Not handmade but awesome none-the-less – the commander obstacle jumping castle.
The parties were officially a hit!
Carina's Crafts 
Looks awesome, Carina. Great attention to detail. The paella looked amazing too. Cheers Lisa
On Tue., 13 Dec. 2016 at 10:59 pm, Carina’s Crafts wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > carinascrafts posted: “I was slow to get going but once I did, it came > together. My objective, organise 2 parties for our little guy, who was > turning 5. I jumped into the preparations with no direction or theme. > Googling birthday party invitation templates for boys I was trying” > > > > > > > > > >
Hi Lisa, thank you we had a great time. Yes the paella was a hit. Only one small bowl remained!