Morsel's Cookies & Milk Party

With a nickname like Morsel - was there really any way around a cookies and milk 1st birthday?! I didn't think so. I know what you're thinking, "what kind of nickname is Morsel and where did that come from?!" Maybe this will help... (also printed on her invitations)

All of these describe sweet Brie, I just love special nicknames. Especially when they inspire great parties!

This party took place a really long time ago and I realized I hadn't shared it on the blog while looking through pictures for my recent series of "sunny" parties. This party was *very* sunny... that glistening, melty and leaning chocolate cake up there? Let's just say it slumped over in a major way about 15 seconds after that photo was taken.

This was the first time I had worked with Kristen at Just Iced Cookies and she did not disappoint. Kristen's cookies are gorgeous and delicious - I have said it before and I'll say it again - check the girl OUT!

I had the idea of having milk bottle shaped cookies and even though she didn't have one on hand, Kristen went out and found one just for me! She is that good. 

I used frappacino bottles for the milk bottles which works well for two reasons. They are much easier to find than "real" vintage-inspired milk bottles (especially in bulk!) and because they are so inexpensive, it's not the end of the world if one is trashed on accident or broken.  I came across the idea a loooong time ago while searching for milk bottles and came across Mama Urchin's blog and flickr stream. One of my recent clients who hosted a cookies and milk party for her son found the "Frappe" version at Costco/Sams and said they were even cheaper. Score!

The bottles had a cookie wedge (also incredibly melty, did not want to stay put at all) and the cupcakes, topped with a mini cookie from those 100 calorie snack pack things sat on a bed of...morsels!

I found the most awesome chocolate milk straws. Those little chocolate beads turn regular milk into chocolate milk as you suck the milk up the straw! Mom said they were a hit with the kids and I'd be lying if I said I didn't try one the night before the party... so cool! In addition to the milk in (actual) vintage milk bottles we had individual serving milk cartons - because really, unless you have like 4 people sharing each bottle, there aren't enough there to go around.

Which leads me to my next point. Let's get real about kid parties people. While everyone loves a beautifully styled party, they also like to not be constantly reminding their children "you break it, you buy it". It's important to me that the focus of any party I help with be L.O.V.E and the celebration of another great year of life. This is hard to do if everyone is walking on eggshells and doesn't feel comfortable grabbing a cookie off of you perfectly styled dessert buffet (especially if it looks like there may not be enough to go around!).

I use plastic. There I said it. I also use wood. You see those pretty ruffled boxes up there? Cardboard. Children are children and hyped on sugar children are nightmares. You're crazy if you think a kid is going to have fun looking at dessert. They are going to eat it, things are going to hit the ground and if your party is outside like this one was - you want those things to bounce. Not shatter into a million pieces, embed themselves in the bottom of tiny feet and warrant a trip to the ER for shard removal. As event planners, let's know our audience, shall we? Let's stop pretending that we throw parties for 4 perfectly behaved blue-eyed robots.  I'll take looking at pictures of real parties for real children over a "styled" photo-shoot any day of the week.

end of rant.