The Paper Truly family shares fall birthdays, so we always plan a themed party. For our daughter’s 4th and our son’s 1st, we took her favorite Disney character and created these practically perfect Mary Poppins birthday invitations!
Mary Poppins is a story about the importance of family, so my invitation concept drew from the end of the film, when the whole family flies kites. What better way to set the tone for an event like this than a unique and playful miniature kite! The reverse features kite sticks secured with photo corners over that great striped pattern from Bert’s fabulous Jolly Holiday jacket. The whole piece is embellished with a cute blue striped baker’s twine tail with bright red ribbons!
I had a lot of fun with the typography of the design. Font selection is a careful process: sometimes you can’t simply use a font as-is when you need just the right look. For this design I wanted to catch the exact character of the Mary Poppins font. I studied the credits from Disney’s original motion picture, and recreated them in Illustrator. It’s very similar to the Century Schoolbook font, which I used for the addressing. The Poppins font is a bit wavier than Century Schoolbook, imperfect and uneven on the baseline of the letters. That little bit of motion gives it such a fun, uplifting feeling; like your kite would sweep you right off your feet!
I also decided to go full-tilt on costuming for this affair. Olivia and James wore hand tailored Mary Poppins and Bert costumes made by yours truly. Aren’t they so adorable!
The dress is made in a white cotton with a delicate white screen-printed floral pattern. It’s a simplified version of Poppins’ Jolly Holiday dress, which is absolutely beautiful on Julie Andrews. We used the same red bows from the kite tail on the skirt, too. She loved it! She still wears it all the time. The jacket for James was an interesting project. I knew I couldn’t find that exact striped print anywhere, so I immediately turned to Spoonflower and digitally printed the striped pattern, designed by myself, using photos of Bert as a reference. I had never made a boy’s jacket before, but I think it turned out great!
After all of that sewing, I made time at the very last minute to whip up a dress for myself in theme as well. I found this beautiful navy umbrellas fabric from the cutest little quilt shop down the street from my house, at Chattanooga Quilts! Not only is the fabric top notch, the shop is such a wonderful place too. If you’re local or visiting, please go check them out!
Our party was set up in beautiful Coolidge Park, downtown Chattanooga, right next to the historic carousel. Just as Jane and Michael did in the film, everyone was invited to enjoy a glorious carousel ride! (Olivia really did enjoy it despite her super reflective expression here. So much magic, it’s a lot to take in.)
We had cake, opened presents and enjoyed each other’s company in great weather!
Each guest received a rainbow kite as their party favor, and the afternoon concluded with a session of kite flying. Which, unlike the film, requires a lot more running than it does standing around smiling with the ones you love while the Sherman Brothers play you into the end credits. But it was an exciting conclusion to a very fun and magical day!
Event photography by Amanda Kar at mandamariephoto.com