Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Blaire Middleton, left, and Rachael Waters create lawn signs that residents can rent a variety of occasions.
It all started with a cupcake.
That was the first yard sign Blaire Middleton created for Bham Lawn Party, a company she co-founded with friend and fellow Homewood resident Rachel Waters.
“We’re both stay-at-home moms, and we have young children, but they were getting older, and we were looking to do something,” Middleton said. “We’ve always been big in celebrating our kids’ birthdays and doing parties, and it’s just so much fun.”
Based on a love of birthdays and a few ideas they heard from friends, the pair, along with their husbands, launched Bham Lawn Party.
The company is centered on celebratory yard signs, which are ordered and put up in front yards overnight. That way, the individual being celebrated wakes up to a fun, surprise decoration in the morning.
The signs come in a variety of shapes — from cupcakes or cakes to sports equipment or animals — and can be customized with a name, age or short phrase.
Because the signs are meant to be a surprise, Waters said their husbands will go out after dark, which sometimes makes for a funny sight.
“Once we get our families settled into bed, our husbands leave and go do the deliveries,” Waters said, adding that they ask individuals who order the signs to let someone in the delivery house know about the surprise, that way no one is scared of a stranger lurking in the front yard.
“You try to be as quiet as possible so they wake up to see the signs on their birthday,” Waters said. “We’ve had a lot of funny stories over the year of deliveries.”
“And we’ve yet to put the signs in the wrong yard,” Middleton added.
Bham Lawn Party celebrated one year of business in October 2018 and has grown its inventory from that first cupcake to more than 30 signs. In addition to the birthday celebration signs, Middleton said they will post anniversary, graduation and Disney signs. They have also created custom orders for the holidays, although she said those signs are normally purchased, rather than rented.
While they started the company on a whim — the same weekend they heard the idea, they built the cupcake and launched a Facebook page — Middleton and Waters said they’re glad for the success they have seen.
“We didn’t know how it was going to take off,” Middleton said. “Like any business, you just start it, and you don’t know if it’s going to be 30 orders a month or five orders a month. We’ve been lucky that Homewood gave us such a good start, and we continued grow from there.”
Their reach has expanded into Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills, and they have had individuals from other communities ask about starting up their own yard sign business.
Bham Lawn Party serves as a creative outlet, Middleton said, and because they get to hang out with their friends as they work, it almost doesn’t feel like a job.
“I think it’s just fun because we do it all together,” she said, “and we’re all best friends. Our husbands are best friends, like we are, and our kids are. So its’ great to do something we enjoy with people we enjoy.”
For more information, search for@bhamlawnparty on Instagram or go tofacebook.com/bhamlawnparty.
