Que bella!! Li-Ann Scott of Ham & Pea Design & Paperie always throws her boys phenomenal country inspired birthday parties (like last years Fiesta Mexicana), so of course this “La Dolce Vita” Italy Inspired Twins Birthday Party is remarkable and full of unique ideas. With a beautiful venue, hanging cookware, pasta + tomato can decor and classic Italian eats, I am completely transported to Italy – and I am in total amore!

PARTY HIGHLIGHTS to look out for:

• Creative uses of tomato cans, pasta noodles, herbs & cookware as party decor
• Italian cannolis & tiramisu cake + gelato and beverage bar
• Amazing fondant spaghetti & pizza cake toppers and tomato macarons by Kiss My Cakes
• Pasta & custom tea towel adult party favors and pizza box trivia games for the kids

PARTY DETAILS, as told by Li-Ann…

To continue on from our “Country” theme tradition of countries that we have visited and loved, it was actually my husband’s idea to take the party to Italy with the twins’ 3rd Birthday this year. I think it is safe to say that anyone who has visited Italy would have fallen madly in love with the architecture, food and people be it the coast or the inner regions! We held the party in our own backyard and tried to re-create a little taste of the Italy we remembered so fondly for our guests

Invitation

Being a graphic designer, the invitation has always been one of the most exciting expects of planning my kids party. I wanted the invitation to double up as a souvenir/ keepsake yet be something practical so the idea of a ‘tea towel recipe’ came about. I wanted to keep the colours very traditional – red, green, white with hints of black and kraft. Picking the recipe for the tea towel was easy as Quattro Formaggio is one of their favourite dish. The tea towel was then printed in linen fabric and presented to the guest in a box wrapped with kraft paper and a little insert with all the details of the party. The box was finished and lined with an assortment of vintage Italian posters and of course red and white twine.

Decor

We were lucky that already had somewhat a perfect Italian looking backyard with lots of green ivy leaves and vines to help create the rustic look I was after, so that was already taken care of.

Drinks and Gelato Station’ with a beautiful assortment of drink dispensers purchased from Leo&Bella and a second cart hired from Vintage Sew and So for all the sweet treats. We wanted it to be a relaxed atmosphere, nothing too curated or structured so I collected (and ate lots of lots of canned tomatoes) and hired props along the way and threw it all together the morning of the party. The heart of the party was all about bringing in the essence of ‘La Dolce Vita” – living the sweet life and I wanted food to be a huge focal point of the party so we hung out some of our pots and pans, garlic bulbs, kitchen utensils all around the savoury food table to bring about that notion of food for the soul. We even had a mini fountain in the backyard (which was our version of Fontana Di Trevi) which the kids loved putting the wooden cutlery boats in it and watched it sail.

Fresh flowers were purchased a couple of days beforehand and arranged in various tomato tin cans, and vases to create texture and height. We also placed quite a number of potted herbs all around the little carts to help create a little green oasis. Lemons! Lots of it – they were all over the Amalfi coast which we loved , had to re-create that! The best thing about this is we sent our guests home with bags of lemons and herbs- all reusable, nothing was gone to waste!

Food & Drink

• Keeping true to the theme, our guests were served an assortment of pizza of course! We had a selection of Italian cheese and with the sweets we served tiramisu, a selection of biscotti’s tiramisu macarons, cannoli, bocconcini cake pops. tomato macarons, and a selection of Italian chocolates purchased from our local Italian deli.
• We served an array of San Pellegrino drinks and of course the tasty lemon gelato went down a treat on a very hot summer’s day! We make a point to ensure each twin had their own cake, and we left it to the capable hands of Kiss My Cakes who did a stellar job with a pizza detail (note cute baguette and bottle of wine to match) and a bowl of spaghetti meatballs on the other cake which got all the kids excited.
• Noo from Dessert Menu Please designed and baked the cookies for the theme with such precision and detail, everyone was in awe! My boys love bikes and cars so the Ferrari and vespa with matching number plates (from a photo we took in Italy) was so perfectly created, it was certainly one of highlight of the sweets cart.

Party Favors

• We purchased a box of Trivia which was packaged like a Pizza Box with slices of trivia – it was such a complimentary gift to the theme.

Activities

• The piñata is always a hit with the kids, we had a Ferrari piñata to go with the theme.
• We also had a section where we place an assortment of dry pasta in large jute bags and the kids could create their own pasta pack to take home.
• This was a good way to teach the kids about the different types of pasta.