This past weekend, we did a beautiful MICKEY MOUSE party for a special little guy who was born at just one pound! Needless to say he and his gorgeous parents had much to celebrate on his first birthday — and we were so happy to join in on the fun! As you can see, we did the big MICKEY airwalker Balloon to welcome all the guests in to the party. It really set the tone and made for quite an entrance! The table was in our fabulous red and white striped runners — and we did branded Mickey plates (Mickey is even holding up one finger to celebrate the milestone BDay!). We did beautiful white and red tulips as centerpieces for the main table — and stuck a cute MIckey face on the vases (theme-ie — but still chic!). The dessert table really stole the show (again….a blue cupcakes masterpiece), with all the yummy treats and the adorable goodie bags. The bags were just red paper sacks — that I customized with sparkly white “Buttons” like on Mickey’s pants. I really loved how they turned out. The girls all got Yellow tutus and PInk light up mouse ears (a la Minnie Mouse) and the boys got red capes and blue or red light up ears…. along with stickers and blowers and a few other little branded Mickey items for all. It really looked lovely — and was such a beautiful happy way to celebrate such an amazing little boy!

Who doesn’t LOVE a STAR WARS party? When Annabeth Gish called to say she wanted to do a Star wars Party for her son Cash but wanted it to be super cool, modern and sophisticated we got really excited – we love cool & modern at the COOP. Rather than use all Star wars theme goods such as tablecloths and generic party favrs we went with a very simple black tablecloth and silver-runner, accented with pretty flowers and details like a standup R2 and a Yodi bucket full of light sabers. The party favors were Darth Vader masks, shinny black capes and a light saber of course. Needless to say the kids LOVED it. Annabeth loved it too and even tweeted about it…
“No better place to have a bday party for kids then #thecoop in Studio City. They did an amazing job!“ Annabeth Gish we love you too!

This mom — I loved! She went through our website — looked at all the pics and knew EXACTLY what she wanted for her son’s train party. Not Thomas. She didn’t want branded (we LOVE that!). Tie dye balloons, yes please – sparklie garland, yes please, blue cupcake cake and cupcakes, yes please — FLOWERS, a resounding YEEEEEEES please! I believe so strongly in flowers to really add impact to a space and to make a party beautiful. If Lucy and I had our way — we would have LOADS of fresh flowers at the COOP all the time. But unfortunately — that is quite costly — and just not feasible. Not to mention the TIME it takes to go to the flower mart, pick out flowers and then come home and arrange them. We make an effort to have at least one arrangement — but we just can’t go as crazy with the flowers as we would love to! That was the main thing I loved about this party mommie! She had seen the photos of our flowers on our site and blog and said — please please please — do what you do with your gorgeous flowers and I will pay for them! LOVE her. Because the flowers were specifically for her train party — I tried to stay in the “train” colors of red, white, yellow and blue. Not always easy for me to limit myself in that way when I am at the Flower mart – but I think I did a pretty good job. To me — the table looks so much more full and gorgeous with flowers….inside/ outside/ gift table — we did flowers all over. And it makes a big difference, I think. Mom was so happy she gave me a big hug and kiss when she saw them. LOVE her. LOVE flowers. LOVED this party.

TOP SECRET INFO….. the COOP is the BEST place in LA to host a birthday bash!!!! Actually — and luckily for us — that secret seems to be OUT! This was a Spy Party we did this weekend. Our BDay boy was a bit older — which sometimes makes it harder to really “pretty” it up. The color palate was mostly brown (runners and Briefcase goody bags) and Black (fedoras, magnifying glasses, and spy sunglasses)– but we managed to liven the look up a bit with some purple and green — and even a little yellow. The flowers that we added really made the table look special, I think. The colors were really deep rich jewel tones — so it didn’t seem too girlie! I made the TOP SECRET signs out of black poster board and Yellow paper cut out letters and laid them out across the brown laminated runners (again — these are actually the BACK of a star print table runner… but we just wanted plain brown so we flipped ’em and voila!) The kids were so excited about the hat and glasses (the goodie bag also had laser finger lights and magnifying glasses and a few other spy necessities!) — and the WAX MUSTACHES!!! They were soooooooo cute. Hilarious — and equally adorable on the boys and the girls! Really fun party… hope you like the pics.

Just did a cute Dinosaur Party last week. Lucinda’s friend had a party the night before at the COOP and left the gorgeous flowers — which added SO much to the table. They were the perfect color scheme — and were just the right size for our Dino centerpieces to “graze” on. Lucky lucky. I also made a new runner for this Dino party — in the past we have sort of struggled with which runner to use — then it hit me! Make a Dino footprint runner. I actually just used the back of our laminated “road” runner — and stuck these dino footprint stickers on them. I think it turned out really cool. And I LOVE the masks on the outside of the bags! I thought I was being so original — and figuring a cool way to “theme-ize” the bags — without buying the cheesy plastic dinosaur treat bags…. then Lucy told me that she had done a dino party the week before and done the exact same thing! I guess that just proves that great minds think alike! Especially here at the COOP….

When I recommend Julie at Blue Cupcakes to people — I always say “She’s French…. and as gorgeous as her cupcakes LOOK — they TASTE even better!” It’s hard to believe — especially when you look at how gorgeous they are — but it is absolutely true. I am a lover of treats and sweets — too much of a connoisseur to maintain the girlish figure of my youth, unfortunately! I looooove cake and cupcakes — and I have tried and tasted too many to count. And Julie’s are truly spectacular. Her treats are the kind it hurts a little to share! She is amazing and lovely and talented — I can’t say enough wonderful things about her. And she doesn’t just do cupcakes — she does cake balls, cookies, macaroons — the whole nine yards. The gorgeous pic that is the header of this blog — all her stuff! Above are just a few pics of things she has done here at the COOP — go check out her blog to see much more (www.bluecupcake.com). We love her…. even if my waistline suffers because of her buttery fantastic French ways…

We are about to do our third Lego party this week…. so I guess it’s time for us to share some photos of this fabulous theme. Nothing get’s little big brains turning like a bunch of legos!!! My kids adore them — following the instructions to create cool things and – better yet — just letting their imagination run wild by building something from scratch. Legos are amazing! And they are gender neutral — one of our favorite things at the COOP! For the Lego theme party — we did some cool tall cylindrical vases filled with Legos (well– they are actually the larger Duplos….) as the centerpieces on the main table with red and white graphic tablerunners, primary colored balloons, lego plates and hats for everyone…. we also used wall stickers of legos and put them on the table runners to make it super Lego-ie! Very simple and clean looking — another COOP favorite! My FAVORITE part of the party were the super adorable lego goody bags — which were custom made to look like the little yellow Lego heads. Aren’t they fab!! I really loved how they turned out. The bags were filled with a small lego, a primary colored punching balloon and these great crayons in the shapes of legos and lego people. At the party pictured above — we also hired the “Lego guy” — who came with loads of legos and tracks and all sorts of cool stuff which kept the kids creating for hours! Bravo Lego — almost 70 years after they were founded kids are still building parties around this fabulous toy!

Every once in a while, people ask us when a kid is too old to party at the COOP. We stand by that you are NEVER too old to play and party at our fabulous space! We have done 50 year old parties, 30 year old parties, cocktail parties, 16 year old parties, 13 year old parties — and on and on down the line to baby showers (I guess that would be considered a 0 year old party!!) While we may not be the first place you think of when you are thinking of an older child — it’s a great choice for the tween set. Our space is really special at night (the lighting is amazing!)… and we don’t think anyone is too old for a bounce or a dive into the ball pit! This is a good example of an “older”party we did recently. We did this lovely chic Disco party for a gorgeous little 12 year old and all her fabulously fun — super high energy — friends! The birthday girl LOVES purple (had a purple dress for the occasion, in fact!) , so we used that as our jumping off point. Everyone got purple boas, silver wigs and “elvis- style” silver glasses with purple lenses. I actually spied one of the boys wearing his shades at school the following Monday… that’s a sign of a good party favor!! The birthday girl is NOT very into pink — so I didn’t use the bright multicolored “disco” table runners — and instead went for a simple chic burlap table covering. Also on the table are the gorgeous flowers I did for the occasion, and a couple of vases filled with mini mirrored silver and purple disco balls, and 2 small vases filled with flashing light rings (that the kids also got to wear and take home!) it was such fun — all the kids really had a blast (and my shy little 3rd grader actually got to hang with the cool 6th graders for a bit before I left the party in our fabulous COOP staff’s hands!) Win/ win all around!!!

When this client first came to us — she wanted a Mickey Mouse theme party for her young daughter. We decided on Red tutus for the girls, and red capes for the boys as the “main” part of their gift. Then everyone would also get white gloves (just like Mickey himself), a Mickey Sippy Cup and Mickey ears for all! Such a cute and chic way to do a mickey party… I mean, who DOESN’T want a red tutu or cape, right!? We were all set to go when — 3 days before the party,mom hit us with the fact that she wanted to incorporated PINK into the mix ! Enter MINNIE!!! We added Pink and yellow accents — balloons, hanging paper balls to “girlie” up the party for her…. and I actually think it turned out quite nicely. The Jumbo balloons really help welcome everyone into the main lobby…. and how can you not ADORE that little Birthday girl’s outfit! Just darling. We had a wonderful musician (Melissa Green) outside on the patio playing for the kids… and again — our fabulous Julie from Blue Cupcake provided the wonderful cake and cupcakes. Mickey — gone girlie at the last minute! It turned out really cute… and everyone was VERY pleased!

I couldn’t resist posting pics of this one. It’s not one of our theme parties — so we didn’t do any decorations or gift bags for this one. I basically am posting just to show how amazing — once again — the fabulous Julie from Blue Cupcake is at making super gorgeous cakes and cupcakes. She did this Hello Kitty tower for our client and we think it just turned out beautifully! So gorgeous — very chic… and the BEST thing about blue cupcake is that – no matter how gorgeous presentation, everything she makes actually tastes BETTER than it looks. No small feat for such gorgeous looking goodies! I also love how our gorgeous purple arrangements compliment the table so nicely for this party…. How lucky was Maggie’s mommy to find THAT gorgeous surprise when she waltzed into the COOP!!