Birthday Fun

Last Saturday was J's birthday so I tried to plan a few simple things that would make him feel special. I think once we get older we start to lose that giddy feeling that used to accompany our childhood birthdays, and I think that's a shame. Our dining room may have looked like there was a four-year-old celebrating his birthday that day, but J felt important and like it was his day and that was the goal.

I made a bunch of yellow and white tissue paper pom-poms, blew up a few yellow and turquoise balloons, baked a to-die-for chocolate cake and put up the fabric Happy Birthday pennant flags I made. I also made a special breakfast and wrapped up the gifts in pretty old maps.

The pennant flags definitely made the room look much more festive and were pretty easy to make. Although, I guess it would depend on the length of the message you were spelling out. I bought a few fat quarters of cute fabric and cut them out using a triangle template. Then I used chipboard letters as a template for the felt letters and sewed them onto the fabric using embroidery floss in bright colors using a blanket stitch. The last step was to sew them closed using a sewing machine, catching two loops of bias tape to use for hanging.

Here is a closer view of the pennant flags. I plan on making more letters so that they can be re-used for my birthday and for other events for years to come.