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Finding Neverland ~ Part I

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I have been teas­ing you with the invi­ta­tion to trans­port you to Nev­er Nev­er Land for a cou­ple of months now… and now I am final­ly keep­ing up my promise! I was beyond thrilled when the par­ty for my daugh­ter, Anabelle, was fea­tured on the fab­u­lous Host­ess with the Most­ess a few days ago! I am now shar­ing some new details and pho­tos of the par­ty, which I will break up into two posts due to the numer­ous images and descrip­tions! So gath­er up some pix­ie dust and enjoy your flight!!!
Anabelle was turn­ing four this year and when we were decid­ing on a theme for the cel­e­bra­tion, we want­ed to find one that appealed to her and also would work for a co-ed par­ty since many of her friends and their sib­lings are boys! Thus, we final­ly set­tled on a Nev­er­land premise, which would appeal to all the guests – male or female… young or old! The Peter Pan sto­ry pro­vid­ed so many ideas, but also required a lit­tle bit of nar­row­ing because of the vast array of pos­si­bil­i­ties! To aid me in focus­ing my thoughts, I drew inspi­ra­tion from one of my favorite movies: “Find­ing Nev­er­land”. The movie fol­lows Peter Pan’s author, J.M. Bar­rie, as events in his life in the Vic­to­ri­an era moti­vate him to write the enchant­i­ng play. From there, I con­cen­trat­ed on the over­all Vic­to­ri­an feel with ornate, black décor in the Dar­ling children’s nurs­ery, con­trast­ed with nature and trees at the party’s loca­tion to rep­re­sent their jour­ney to Nev­er­land. I also uti­lized numer­ous sil­hou­ettes, cor­re­spond­ing to this time peri­od, and also rep­re­sent­ing Peter Pan’s search for his shad­ow. I want­ed the chil­dren to feel as if they were being trans­port­ed to this mag­i­cal land and encour­age them to believe…

In cre­at­ing the invi­ta­tions, I uti­lized a scrap­book paper back­ground that depict­ed London’s land­marks (most notably Big Ben) and added a sil­hou­ette of Peter Pan fly­ing, along with the word “believe”. The images and green, black and cream col­ors set the mood for the par­ty, while the word­ing inside invit­ed guests to “…come with us where dreams are born and time is nev­er planned… just think of hap­py things and your heart will fly on wings for­ev­er in Nev­er Nev­er Land.”

The par­ty took place at a local park and the focal point includ­ed two “beds”, anchored by a dress­er, to set the mood of the Darling’s nurs­ery. The beds were actu­al­ly kids tables where they would dine and inspired by none oth­er than Jenn from Host­ess with the Most­ess! The fab­rics came from Joann Fab­ric and Craft Stores and I tried to pick pat­terns that com­pli­ment­ed the time peri­od, but also con­veyed a nat­ur­al, out­door feel to make both envi­ron­ments come together.

The beds were made to look like they belonged to the Dar­ling boys, John and Michael, and both the décor on the bed and the respec­tive night­stands cor­re­spond­ed to their acces­sories and roles in the sto­ry. I found the black shades in the clear­ance sec­tion at Ikea and paired it with a low-priced base to make the lamps. They did­n’t real­ly fit togeth­er, so I hot glued them togeth­er and adorned the shade with an adhe­sive embroi­dered let­ter (also found at Joan­n’s), as well as the green and gold but­ter­flies seen through­out the decor.

The small chairs were dressed up with black and green tulle with a Peter Pan sil­hou­ette. My moth­er was a tremen­dous help with her remark­able sewing skills! I was only able to find stark white chil­dren’s chairs to rent and since the col­or scheme includ­ed more beige/off-white shades, I want­ed some­thing that would mask the bright­ness. I had already pur­chased green and black tulle in attempt to make my own tutus for the girls, but after fail­ing, I was able to make myself feel bet­ter by find­ing an alter­na­tive use for it!
At the beds, the young guests were offered green pix­ie juice in vas­es from Ikea, as well as a lunch served in kraft gable box­es from Whis­per­ing Pines, includ­ing small sand­wich­es, cheese sticks, green grapes and of course, some Pirate’s Booty pop­corn! The box­es on the chil­dren’s table were dressed up with a quote from the sto­ry warn­ing of the inevitabil­i­ty of the pass­ing of time and again, com­bined a more for­mal “frame” with a piece of nature.

We had addi­tion­al lunch box­es and pix­ie juice for the adults at a sep­a­rate table, but the offer­ings were exact­ly the same as the meals offered to the chil­dren. After all, the entire par­ty was meant to bring them back to their child­hood and encour­age every­one to fly!

The anchor of the “out­door nurs­ery” was a dress­er that came from my home and includ­ed the dessert, as well as dec­o­ra­tions, includ­ing sil­hou­ette cut-outs of Anabelle, my hus­band and myself that we had done at a trip to Dis­ney­land! Some oth­er pieces includ­ed a peri­od alarm clock (actu­al­ly found at Ikea!), small Vic­to­ri­an chairs, ornate num­ber “4“s and of course, Tin­ker­bel­l’s lantern!
I debat­ed on an entire dessert table selec­tion, but decid­ed to focus on my spe­cial­ty: cup­cakes! The choco­late and vanil­la cup­cakes were gar­nished with fon­dant top­pers rep­re­sent­ing all the roles from Peter Pan. They also mir­rored dec­o­ra­tions found through­out the par­ty, all ref­er­enc­ing the sym­bols for each char­ac­ter with­out actu­al­ly por­tray­ing their actu­al images. I inten­tion­al­ly avoid­ed Peter Pan and Tin­ker­bell and Cap­tain Hook illus­tra­tions to encour­age imag­i­na­tive play.
Above the dress­er was an ever-so-pop­u­lar par­ty frame from Ikea pos­ing the ques­tion to all the guests, young and old: “Do you believe?”.
Well, do you?! Whether you do believe or not (yet!), please stay tuned for Part II to see addi­tion­al par­ty decor and favors, mag­i­cal activ­i­ties, and our pho­to booth!
Finding Neverland party ideas ~ Lynlee's

Merci Beaucoup!



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Comments

  1. This is just so beau­ti­ful. I love the tablescapes. Adore the tulle detail on the backs of the chairs. The cup­cakes are sim­ply amaz­ing. So fab­u­lous and utter­ly charm­ing. Love.

  6. Lyn­lee, you’ve total­ly out­done your­self with this par­ty! Love so many of the details includ­ing the green pix­ie juice in vas­es! And how did you move the dress­er? 🙂 Would you add this par­ty to our site so I could show it off? I’m dying to. 🙂

  7. Thank you so much, Jil­lian!!! I end­ed up hook­ing up a small trail­er because we could­n’t fit the dress­er in our cars! I will def­i­nite­ly be adding it to the site! 🙂

  10. Adorable!!! Our kid­dos are a week apart :). Mine boy is April 15th 🙂 Hap­py Birth­day to your lit­tle girl! I’m sure your par­ty is going to be even bet­ter this year.

  11. Love this! we have a boy and a girl with a year and 6 days between them and plan to do a joint 1&2 yr par­ty and have been look­ing for some­thing that was not to much either way or Mickey/Minnie 🙂 this would be amazing!!!!

    • Thanks so much, Mon­i­ca! The pix­ie juice was sim­ply lemon­ade with a tiny bit of green food coloring! ♥

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