It’s Festive Friday and another summer birthday at our house! When we’re with family over the summer, it feels like there’s a birthday every week, which is so much fun but can also mean that we struggle to come up with new ideas for themes. With Hadley turning 11 last week, she let me surprise her with the theme and I started brainstorming themes that would play off of something personal to her (her name, her age, her favorite foods, her nickname) and was so excited to combine her nickname-The Bear-with her favorite food-gummy candy!

With a few simple items from Amazon and some colorful napkins and placemat, the decorations came together. We wanted to do a cake covered in gummy bears too, but Hadley really wanted chocolate frosting, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. I think the gummy bears would have popped more with white frosting, but it was still very cute with chocolate frosting. Then we had all of her favorite foods - burrata and tomatoes, brie, steak, and Shelby’s Corn and Israeli couscous salad.