another soccer birthday party

What do you do when your kid requests the same birthday party theme two years in a row? If you’re me, you plan another soccer-themed birthday party! I figured that either Hayden loved his soccer birthday party last year so much that he wanted to do it again… or he wanted to give me another chance to get it right. Ha! I didn’t want to just repeat last year’s party, so I came up with some new ideas for celebrating a birthday with a soccer theme.

Hayden loves cupcakes, and they’re easy to serve at a party, so I designed some new cupcake toppers featuring his new age. I printed them on cardstock and glued them to toothpicks. (In case you’re curious, the cake plate is from Pier 1. Several years ago, I looked all over for the “perfect” cake plate until I finally found this one.)

To avoid having to write names on cups, I made custom water bottle labels with the names of each of the kids at the party. I designed a simple label and printed it onto regular white paper. Then I secured it to the bottle with wide, clear packing tape so that it wouldn’t get wet with condensation or destroyed by energetic boys! The font is Letterman-Solid.

Every year I make a new giant number that we use for a birthday photo shoot with friends and family, and this year I painted it to look like a classic referee jersey (even though that’s not what soccer refs wear). I cut it out of foam core with an X-Acto knife, then used blue painters tape to mark the guidelines for painting the black stripes. You can see other numbers here: 6, 8, 9, 10.

I loved the water bottle favors we gave out last year, but this year I managed to come up with something entirely different. I literally wandered the aisles of the dollar store, trying to come up with a good idea! I found these generic-looking bags of M&Ms that happened to be black and white, and bought a couple packs of paper clips with soccer balls on them. Then I purchased a bunch of $1 gift certificates for ice cream cones at a local grocery store, slipped them into little white envelopes, and clipped them to the M&Ms.

Decorating for an outdoor party can be tricky, so I kept two goals in mind as I planned my decor. TIP #1: define your space. I wanted the area for food and gifts to be the focal point, so I needed to decorate in a way that would call attention to that area. I blew up three packs of balloons, strung them up, and hung them from small shepherd’s hooks along the edges of our patio.

Large spaces need large decorations, which leads me to TIP #2: go big. The actual party area seemed small compared to the big backyard and tall trees, so I made a long bunting out of black and white felt and hung it between a tree and our house.

Do you have any tips for decorating for outdoor parties? Every space is different, of course, but I’d love to hear your ideas.