Real Parties~ Family Friendly 40th Re-visited

Who could ask for a better location for a Family Friendly 40th Birthday, on the beach on Balboa Island, California. My client wanted a fun and fabulous 40th birthday party, but she also wanted it to be child friendly, because their family is so important to them and their friends. They wanted the adults to be able to relax and have a good time and the children to have fun and be entertained during the party, so the adults could relax and have a good time.

I wanted a fresh and clean ambiance to the party with colors that popped. Even though this party was on the beach it wasn't meant to be a beach party. My client lives on the beach so a nautical theme wasn't as important as creating a fun and vibrant back drop for the event.


Because we were on the beach in the middle of July it was important that there was shade coverage for all areas of the party and the tent gave us just that. The paper lanterns were a fresh pop of color to the space to break up all the white of the tent and they moved nicely in the breeze. When working outdoors in a space like this you have to be careful with fabrics that can blow away. Regular paper lanterns do not have a true solid color and can sometimes get lost in that much white of the ceiling, so we spray painted all of them so that the colors were bold and vivid.


This party definitely had a grown up feel, with the awesome live band, great food, full service bar and dancing for the adults. There was also a smoothie bar and wheatgrass bar, which was a great hit with everyone.




But after that, the amount of activities for the children was a huge focus of the party.

We created a craft activity tent on the sand off the large tent and offered children a large variety of crafts to keep them entertained during the party.

As with all of our craft activity stations, it was staffed with our friendly staff; ready to assist all the children with whatever craft they wanted to do.

There were bears to stuff and dress in board shorts or adorable bathing suits.

There were sunscreens and sunglasses to protect the little ones from the sun.

There were sun visors to decorate and wooden surfboards to paint.

There was sand art bottles to fill, with wonderful colored sand.

There were frisbees to color and decorate.

And when the children needed a break from all the crafts there was a face painting station offering awesome face painting for the children and glitter tatttoos for the adults.

This was the most popular face painting choice of all the boys that day.

There was a strolling magician entertaining the children and adults with slight of hand tricks.

But the best entertainment of the day was when the sons of the birthday girl got on stage and performed a special song for their mother for her birthday and then led everyone in singing Happy Birthday! It was absolutely priceless.

There were large pillows for crashing on and listening to the band.

There was a juggler teaching the children how to spin a plate.

who also entertained the guests with moving furniture as needed..........

and juggled a few balls, that quite perfectly matched the decor.

This was a FUN party for everyone and not bad for two weeks notice.