The Big Birthday Party

Okay, I am finally sharing the BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! Olivia, our middle child, was turning three, and I was going to be out of town. Feeling just a tiny bit guilty about her Daddy being gone and Mommy leaving town too, on her birthday. I went all out for her birthday party! Not being a huge fan of character themed birthday parties, and her not really putting in much input. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said, "cupcake". I asked her what kind of party she wanted and she said, "a girl party". Okaaaaay. So, I went online and gathered some ideas and came up with a pretty neat party, if I do say so myself.

I was lucky enough to find the pink tablecloths and some pink plates on clearance at Target a couple of weeks before the party, and I also found some adorable little dolls on clearance in the toy area to use as party favors. Naturally, my cute little girl themed birthday party grew and grew and I ended up with 18 children, so Liz had to run out to her local Target and ship me some more dolls! Yes, you read it right, 18 children at a three year old's birthday party. We wanted to invite all of our neighborhood friends and there are alot of them!

In the back of the picture, I made the fabric-covered panels to hold little bags of little pink candies. I used these as prizes for the games we did, and gave them away as party favors.

Most of our decorations were of the edible variety. I set everything up outside and just used a selection of white and clear glass dishes that I had to dress up the table. I used my Michaels coupon ages ago to pick up the cupcake stand and have been waiting for an excuse to use it.

I bought the cookbook, "Hello, Cupcake" and let Olivia flip through the pages and this was the cupcake design that she chose. I spent HOURS making them. If I ever did it again, I wouldn't use Starburst or Now&Later candies for the blankets, they wear a bear to work with. I would use fondant instead. The blankets were the only part that took sooooo long. If it weren't for the blankets, I could have finished the cupcakes in about an hour. To make the little flags, I printed them on cardstock and they were glued to lollipop sticks (thank you Jayne!).

These pretzels were a HUGE hit with all the kids! The ate them all up before anything else! They were super easy to make! We melted white chocolate chips in the microwave, used the gel food coloring to color white chocolate pink, dipped pretzel rods, and then sprinkled them with sprinkles. Without realizing it, one of the containers of sprinkles we bought were peppermint flavored, and they added just the right subtle hint of peppermint.

I took alot of my Southern Living at Home containers and dishes and used them for the tablescape. I was lucky enough to find that October is breast cancer awareness month, and as such a lot of the candy makers do pink wrappers and pink candies in honor of that. I layered different pink candies in the jars.

I bought the vanilla marshmallows from Trader Joes, and used more of the lollipop stick flags. Behind you can see some round brownied I found that I made into brownie pops with lollipop sticks, and you can just barely see the square vase full of pixie sticks. The kids LOVED those. They were also gone almost right away!

The party favor bags were the lunch bag style and contained a doll for the girls, and some bubbles and such. The boys bags contained little dinosaurs for the younger boys, and little pinball games for the older boys. Their names were written in marker and each name had one letter that was in a pack of polka dot letters I found in the scrapbooking section.

I printed out water bottle labels that said "Thank you for coming to my birthday party, Love Olivia" and had each child's name on it.

This birthday banner and some balloons were all I did in the way of traditional party decorations. Sweet Funky Vintage sells this banner! (shamless promotion) It is fabric and can be reused again and again! Sadly, we are currently out of stock, but will have then again in a few weeks.

Here is the birthday girl! I used the iron-on transfers that you can use with an inkjet printer, and used the same graphic I used on the birthday party invitations and other decorations. Then I stitched it to a square of pink polka dot fabric, and then stitched it to a t-shirt.

Here I am with my sister, Kim, who was in town, visiting. I could never have pulled off the party without her help! She did EVERYTHING while I was working on those cupcakes!!

Olivia was a little reserved and seemed a little uncomfortable at being the center of attention. It was interesting to glimpse this little view of her personality. She loved the idea of a birthday party, and loved that all of her friends came over, but was a little embarrassed that they were all looking at her!

Here we were playing pin the nose on the pumpkin.

Olivia had to bring her favorite bear, "gigi" to the party.

I had extra cupcake batter, so I put it in a small round bowl and baked it to be a little cake that Olivia could blow the candles out on and the adults could have a little cake without all the candy on top!

Sophia enjoyed her cupcake!

Olivia, like many of the kids, ate the candy and frosting off of her cupcake, and left the cake part!

Georgia

We played two other games at the party - we did a musical chairs type game, modified so it was a mix of a cake walk and musical chairs. And we also played with a play parachute.

I think the birthday was a success. Every couple of days, Olivia has been asking to have another birthday party!