The incredibly talented Li-Ann of Ham & Pea Design & Paperie also happens to be the mom of identical twin boys – Hamish & Luca – and for their second birthday, mommy threw a super creative and vibrant Fiesta Mexicana celebration! This birthday party is overflowing with clever ideas for ANY Mexican fiesta themed bash though… drink ponchos, cactus “cupcakes”, & pinata-inspired table skirt for starters! And of course all the different elements were pulled together beautifully with Li-Ann’s signature stationery design flair.

PARTY HIGHLIGHTS to look out for:

• Burro piñata cookies, potted cactus cupcakes, & Aztec patterned cupcakes
• A “decorate your maraca” table activity, “party mustache” stickers, & a chili piñata
• Two birthday cakes topped with adorable fondant muchachos figurines
• Flowers in lime “vases” and real cactus plants safely displayed in pretty glass domes
• Cool “window” invitations featuring silhouettes of the boys’ faces

PARTY DETAILS, as told by Li-Ann…

When it came time to celebrate their 1st birthday, we (my husband and I) decided that for as long as we could, we would celebrate their birthdays with “country” themes. Places that we have travelled and loved and look forward to taking our identical twin boys back someday. Last year we kicked started it with “the orient” theme (China). We put on a ‘yum cha’ party for them partly to celebrate their Eurasian heritage.

This year we couldn’t go past the vibrant colours and energy of Mexico – so a fiesta it was! I put our own twist to this party starting out from the invitations which I designed for it to be a window invitation with their silhouette faces coloured in Aztec patterns. It was fun to create as I wanted to play on them being identical and knew I wanted bright bold, colours and patterns to inform the decoration of the party.

Admittedly I went a little pattern crazy and got the design printed on fabric and had custom made ponchos in the same fabric as the invite, and table runners, buntings and cute bandanas to dress the drink bottles up.

There was a lot of D-I-Y involved with the backdrop and ‘pinnate inspired’ table cloth. I wanted it somewhat to have a slight masculine industrial feel and got some hessian and stencilled their names on it. I also trimmed way too much crepe paper and stuck them together to make a colourful piñata pattern table cloth. I also made some paper fans (yes in the same patterned paper) to add pops of colour to it.

In our household we love spicy. Everything spicy so we couldn’t get past chillies and had them as decoration on the table. We also had real cactuses (but wanted to be kind to the kids) so made sure they were covered nicely in glass domes as displays. The birthday cake was similar but I specifically requested that the muchachos figurines were a little different. We had cactus cupcakes, pinata cookies and a taco stall with some lovely homemade tacos by my husband.

On the kids table, each kid was given a custom made sombrero, and a little goodie filled with all kinds of mexican fun like ‘pick your party moustache’ fake moustaches, maracas so they can ‘decorate their own maraca’ as a table activity and the biggest hit had to be the chilli piñata! Such a fun celebration we cannot wait until we find our next destination for their 3rd birthday!