Who wouldn't like to go to Busytown for a party? Lisa shares her son's creative party: I've loved Richard Scarry books since I was a wee one and I was inspired by a Busytown birthday I saw here on Apartment Therapy. Since my son Kalím loves anything with wheels, I zeroed in on Lowly Worm and his iconic apple car and went to (Busy)town.

I learned Photoshop to make invites using art scanned from a vintage copy of "Richard Scarry's Biggest Make-It Book Ever." ($15) (The book has a few party crafts, but the only one I wound up making was the felt Lowly doll.) Homemade stickers left over from the invitation envelopes made their way onto paper cups, signs, you-name-it. We also reused red-and-yellow paper polka dot bunting made by friends for my baby shower.

Fulfilling a long-held dream, I commissioned a custom piñata ($75) from Romeo Osorio at Piñata Art Studio in San Francisco. He did an amazing job and we didn't have the heart (or the space with a houseful of toddlers) to break it up!

I served homemade chocolate cupcakes topped with "apples" picked from bags of Runts candies. The cupcake towers were crowned with vintage Lowly figurines from eBay ($4 each). (I spotted the cupcake towers at a garage sale from half a block away while making a left turn and bought them without getting out of my car! $8). The "banana" Runts made their way into a dish decorated with Bananas Gorilla, Busytown's known banana and wristwatch thief.

To drink I served milk in elementary school-style single-serve cartons with retro striped paper straws from Bake It Pretty. ($5), Martinelli's apple cider in the apple-shaped bottles, and coffee.

Throughout the house I put dishes of red apples, red and yellow carnations, red balloons, and paper pinwheels in red, blue, and green.

I had about a dozen more food and craft ideas and no time to implement them, but it's funny how you don't miss that stuff once your family and friends are around you, watching your beloved baby stuff chocolate in his face for the first time!

Thanks Lisa! We bet this will inspire more Busytown birthdays!!

(Images: Shara & Chris Koehler (tabletop) & Sam Powell (piñata, baby))