April Showers Party! (EleStory turns FIVE!)

This month, EleStory turns FIVE. You guys...I honestly never imagined this day would come. Five years ago, I was sitting on the floor of our living room with a few rolls of upholstery fabrics that had just been delivered earlier that day, semi-determined to start a tote bag (or diaper bag) company. My husband was on the plush chair, excited for this new unknown adventure...hours later (long story short), by the end of the night we decided to launch a children's clothing company instead (and I was kind of freaking out).

Fast forward five years, we are truly grateful to be celebrating our FIVE years with an April Showers themed party and fun giveaway--think rainbows and clouds, and sweets!

My beautiful friends Vanessa (@elyse_and_aurora) and Kelsey (@hammon.avenue) let me coax them into getting all dressed up with our girls in our matching EleStory mommy and Me pieces and let the girls play. My friend @jennysoifoto captured it all with her crazy skills. It was SO much fun to see the April Showers theme come to live, with the generous help of our small shop friends!

I knew we couldn't have an April Showers Party without some cute rainboots to boot! ha! @Londonlittles generously supplied these cute wellies for the girls, and they matched perfectly with our Ballerina dresses in pastel shades! We only wish they made mommy versions too. We totally could've all played like kids in puddles (or pretend ones here in California, at the moment).
Vanessa's youngest, sweet little Aurora (the one with the lollipop we bribed her with) was having a rough day with being sick, so she made a few special appearances for us. It's hard to party when you're not feeling well!

The vision came alive when the girls got into their elements, and it was SO darling! Us mommies couldn't stop gushing about them. Not to mention the girls couldn't stop dancing in the rain!

The decor was so simple and fun to make, not to mention June enjoyed helping mommy! For the clouds puffs, I used white tissue paper, folded them accordian-style, rounded off the ends with scissors to create the scallop effect, tie a string onto the middle, and fan out into a ball! Then just tape the ends of the string to the ceiling at the desired height. I only had to make six of them to cover the width of the wall. If you ever want to try, I think putting a cake table under the raindrops would also be a great idea for your party.

For the raindrops, we used some colored cardstock (you can also purchase some glittery cardstock at your local craft store) and cut out raindrops in your desired size. For ours, we made it 3.5"tall x 2"wide and it felt like a good size in relation to the cloud puffs, the diameter that of a standard tissue paper. Then string them through with fishing wire and a sewing needle (you can poke holes through and have your child help), tying a knot at the bottom one so it can stay secure.

Tip: we made different raindrop tiers to add a little variety - 4, 3, and 2 felt like a good balance, but you can feel free to create your own version!
The girls and mamas were also gifted @juneandpenny's beautiful array of mommy and me bracelets that the girls were over the moon to get to wear! Their candy collection may just be my favorite.
For a fun party decor idea, I put some tulips inside the rainboots and thought they were the cutest things, balanced on some little white stools I picked up from Ikea!
We did a handful of fun photos inside with the raindrops, and opted to go out to the backyard for more space and to continue our "cocktail hour" (not really, just some milk and rainbow/cloud treats outside ha!).

Our gracious hostess Vanessa made the cutest and most delicious rainbow-cloud cake that was incredible! And inside is actually a chocolate cake (my favorite!), and Vanessa shares her recipe with us too below!

The rainbow felt ball garlands @pearlandjane added so much to the party decor with its pops of vibrant rainbow colors. And the handmade wooden rainbow stacker toy @flora.and.peg was not just pretty to look at, but became an instant hit with the young ones.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake

INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup Hersey's Cocoa
• 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Vanilla buttercream
1. One 2 lb bag powdered sugar
2. 2 sticks salted butter (softened)
3. 1/4 cup milk
4. dash salt
5. 1 tsp Vanilla extract

Mix all in mixer and beat on high until smooth. Add more milk or powdered sugar if too thin/thick.

Decorate cake! Vanessa's version uses fondant to create the cute clouds and raindrops. Elyse gets in on the action too, putting fruit loops on the cake (that's an idea!) :)

I re-used some milk jugs I had from previous parties and opted for cute cloud face cut outs made out of glitter cardstock and then a simple sharpie marker and colored pencil filled in eyes, mouth, and blush! Then I stuck them on the jugs with double stick tape.

I picked up some wooden utensils (blurry in the foreground sorry!) and tied them with little snippets of rainbow colored ribbon just for fun. Cloud napkins and pretty plates from party company Meri Meri added the final touch.

We also came up with a simple food/art craft that entertained the children for a bit. They were happily eating fruit loops (Elyse loved them, as you can see!) and making rainbows out of them almost at the same time (not eating the glue of course!). 

Oh, and in case you're wondering what's in the milk jugs, I thought it would be pretty to have pastel-colored milk, and asked Hubby to put a tiny bit of food coloring into the milk and it turned brightly colored...hmm...we'll have to test out that concept another time. Hehe!

Here June is looking pretty pleased with her fruit loop rainbow art! Cotton balls became the clouds! 
And, to sweeten the deal, our friends @lebonmacaron shipped us a couple dozen macarons all the way from Michigan! They were a huge hit at the party! They tasted as heavenly as they looked. We may have had a few too many...


After everyone is full of sugar, we hung out and let the girls go exploring in the garden. :)
P.S. All the ladies (mommies and littles) got to play dress up in our Little Gems Collection, launched last week!


We had such an incredible time, and I just love these girls! All the girls ended with some alone time with mommy (only I couldn't carry June!).

We hope you feel inspired to have your own April Showers inspired parties too! Please tag #EleDIY when you do!

Lastly, our April Showers Giveaway on Instagram is going LIVE at 10am PST on 4/19 until 4/22. Go to our IG page to find out how to win $380 worth of goodies from all the shops involved!

If you've managed to read the entire blog post up until this point, you are my new favorite person. :) We are grateful for all the support out there for EleStory. Truly, it's been an amazing five years.

Cheers! Here's to many more birthdays!!!

xoxo,
Judy