Sending Love Two Henry

Hello and welcome to yet another episode of: I tried to be chill but ended up throwing a whole ass party for my child.

Anyway. Henry turned 2 last month! And as I figure this might be the last year that I get to decide his party theme, I wanted it to be something unique that we had never seen before. Enter: mail. Enter: post office. Enter: “Sending Love Two Henry!” Henry loves to check the mail every day (he has a little ‘mail mail mail’ jingle that he sings when we’re walking to the mailbox) and also loves to say hi to our mailman, whose actual name is Ray Charles. But also…I just love mail. + we got him a tiny mail truck and Mr. Zip’s Windy Day as themed gifts, obviously.

The one thing we did decide was that the party couldn’t be at my house, because if I throw a party at my house I am just going to be so incredibly extra about it. I can’t help it. So our house has been banned from Henry’s future birthday parties, and we instead decided to gather at one of our favorite spots, The Camp, located next to The Works. It’s essentially just a green space near all the action but with a perfect setup for food and drinks in the sunshine and for Henry to play. WIN 👏 WIN 👏

let’s start with those invitations…

This is where the fun began for me. I knew I wanted the invitation to * look * like a stamp — and when I realized our printer had a standard scalloped die cut it all clicked into place from there. The stamps pattern on the back decided the color scheme (so bright and happy!!!), and obviously I spent way too much time on the tiny details: the postal stamp return address, the tiny mail icons on the back of the invitation that matched the front of the envelopes, + obviously lots of mail-nods, like ‘special delivery’ and ‘first class mail’. I wish USPS still let you custom design actual stamps but alas, they discontinued it. Oh well, I shall persevere!

and now: all the party details.

The first thing I did was turn the postage stamp into a one-color logo for the napkins. The teal foil matched the theme perfectly! I also repurposed the postal stamp (from the return address on the envelopes) on the acrylic snack cups, + another ‘special delivery’ detail on the other side of the cups. While we’re here I’m just going to note that I am apparently terrible at reading and certainly did not know these cups were going to be so tiny…but I did an Instagram poll and everyone voted that they were a good size for kids and I didn’t need to order new ones! They actually did end up working perfectly for trail mix and puppy chow at the party (and we will be using them at home for snacks too!)

I knew I had to have an actual mailbox, because reasons. To personalize it, I used Henry’s birthdate as the ‘address number’ and then made a custom-shaped sign to go in the inside flap of the mailbox. We asked family and friends to not bring a gift, but to bring a physical copy of a photo of their family for a photo album we made for Henry as his birthday gift. He LOVES looking at pictures, so we knew this would be a perfect gift for him (we currently do the Chatbooks Monthly Minis, and he pores over them every day). The mailbox was for people to drop in their photos! (and the occasional gift, because sometimes people break the gift rules but that’s okay).

For some reason I was most excited about the take home party favors. I knew I wanted to included a pre-stamped postcard for people to send out to someone (More Snail Mail 2024) and I wanted to make them look like little tiny packages themselves. I designed a zillion different stickers for the outside and got this red and white striped ribbon, and voilá! Party Packages coming at ya. Inside I included an extra snack cup and two of Henry’s favorite things: chalk and bubbles. I intended to put the postcard inside too, but I once again am bad at reading (or maybe measuring) and they didn’t fit inside the tiny box. Alas, we improvise!

I found these adorable baking cups at HomeGoods the week before the party, which inspired me to bake these lemon blueberry muffins (I didn’t want to have to make icing look good on a cupcake…hence a muffin). You’re likely not here for recipes but if you are, this is a good one!!! And where there are baked goods, there are toppers. I reused some of the Party Packages sticker designs, and also decided we needed to include our dog, Lila, in the same colorful style as Henry. I also ordered petit fours from our little local bakery, where they were able to print the stamp logo onto edible icing too! And of course, everything was displayed on some authentic priority mail boxes (did you know that the boxes themselves are free? Free party decor is the best party decor).

A framed photo of Henry from his birthday shoot, the tiny mail truck, this perfect balloon, a Mr. Zip tshirt, lots of snacks, and here we are! A low-key (by Jenna standards, at least) mail-themed birthday to celebrate my favorite little buddy. Happy birthday Henry, I will never ever stop sending you allllll the love. xo