You’re going to GO BANANAS over this adorable Curious George Birthday Party hosted by Elizabeth of Party In Style by elle! The gorgeous red and yellow color palette set a cheerful tone for her daughter’s second birthday party while creating a display of eye candy yummy enough for any adult to “ooh! ooh! and ahh! ahh!” over. *wink*

I love how Elizabeth was able to tie in some special party elements from a recent visit with family in Puerto Rico, including some traditional syrop de piragua for the snow cone machine.  Her background in fashion design is apparent throughout the party details and seamless integration of fabric, texture and pattern. Don’t be fooled by all of the monkey business going on in this 2nd birthday party either… the color combo and creative details pictured here would be lovely for a fun wedding shower or baby shower too!

CURIOUS about more details from this ridiculously cute party? Then don’t monkey around… read on to be inspired by the simple, creative DIY’s and lots more beautiful imagery!

PARTY DETAILS, as told by Elizabeth…

INSPIRATION

“When I started planning my daughter Sophia’s second birthday party, I began with a cheerful color palette of red and yellow. For toddler parties, I think it’s more personal to incorporate a character that makes the birthday boy/girl smile. We decided on the classic illustration of Curious George because our daughter loves watching the show and often carries around her own stuffed monkey. The monkey/banana theme is also a perfect fit with red and yellow. To create a polished and charming design, I decided on polka dots and swooping/scalloped edges, and I think the combo turned out to be both cute and elegant. Because I’m a fashion designer, I turned to fabrics for color, texture, and pattern ideas and created a mood board to help me pull it all together.

INVITATION

I scanned images of Curious George from a plush book and included one on the invitation and a few others throughout the party. I created two versions of the invite: one in a lovely frame shape to snail-mail to schoolmates and family members (who’ve yet to enter the digital age!) and another one to email to our friends. The invite set the tone for the vintage-modern look that carried throughout the event.

DECOR

We threw the party in Plantation, Florida’s Heritage Park because it has a covered playground for the tots and a shelter with picnic tables. For the overlays, I had fallen in love with a yellow and white striped fabric at IKEA, but it was discontinued. To recreate a similar look, I used yellow fabric with large abstract flowers. We had 6 picnic tables, a sweets table, and a food table. I custom made the table runners with  mini-polka dot fabric, and for the tassels, I added the DIY rosettes from the tutorial by Paiges of Style.

SWEETS

The showstopper of the party was the sweets table. In the center, I placed the striking DIY red cake stand. I made it with a candle holder and a Lazy Susan from Ikea. After attaching them with a long wood screw, I spray painted it red. The bold color really showed off the white fondant rum cake from Edda’s Cake Designs, which I dressed up with a ribbon and yellow orchids.

I baked vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and finished them with wrappers and toppers of my own design. I also decorated a few of them with the DIY rosettes from Paiges of Style’s tutorial. This gave the table a feminine touch. To create the DIY cupcake stands, I attached square dinner plates to candle holders. In the candy section of the sweets table, the color theme continued with pops of bright yellow and red candies accompanied by lollipops I brought from a recent visit to my family in Puerto Rico.

This was my first DIY party, and I wanted to make everything myself. But, as my to-do list grew and grew, I started ordering a few things. Lilly, from I heart Sugar Sugar, created the cute and delicious Curious George cookies and number 2 cookies, which helped to tie the monkey character to the sweets table. My cousin Michelle from Mommy Love made the cake pops.

We rented a snow cone machine and made the frozen treats even more special with traditional syrop de piragua, another find from Puerto Rico. Everybody loved the unexpected tropical flavors.

PLAY

For the youngsters, I wanted to create a comfortable and entertaining environment. Rented kid-sized chairs from Panache Linens and IKEA’s side tables (for the ‘kids tables’) were the perfect fit. I set up a couple of ‘Doodling Desks’ and a ‘Play-Doh Place,’ and these were a hit with the kids (and easy!).

FAVORS

Before they left the park, party goers filled their goodie-bags with candy, Curious George books, bubbles, and punch balloons.”