Minnie Mouse 3rd Birthday Party

Well, the party's been over for a week but my house is still decorated like Minnie Mouse Birthday Land so it can't be too late to post some pics. The party was super fun although I think the guests had more fun than the birthday girl. She was a bit overwhelmed! There ended up being 20 kids. I'm thrilled that she has such a large social circle but it was pretty crazy, especially since it was rainy that morning so we had the party inside. Fortunately we have a large living room where the grownups could socialize and were also able to use the living space in the attached in-law apartment as an "activity room" for the kids.

I was too busy running the party to take pics so thankfully my daughter's sitter stepped in and snapped away with my camera. Unfortunately she didn't really know how to use it so the shots aren't that great, but I think you'll get the idea. I am a little bummed that the fantastic work of my super talented sister-in-law wasn't documented well, but you can check out her blog at www.eventsthatsparkle.net.

The Decor

So the decor was pretty typical Minnie Mouse Bowtique party. Lots of pink and black and polka-dots. I got some ideas online (check out my Pinterest Board). I made a cute sign for the door but apparently no photos were taken of it. My sister-in-law put these adorable paper lanterns from Oriental Trading Company up on our living room ceiling, which took more time that anticipated but was so worth it. I may keep them up permanently, they are so cute (although this is a bad photo)!

My SIL made this SUPER CUTE Minnie Mouse using Styrofoam balls. This photo doesn't do it justice. She also ordered this banner off of Etsy that we hung over our mantle and we were both annoyed because we knew we could have made it ourselves if only our craft supplies were anywhere to be found.

I also bought this huge Minnie sign at Party City that we planned to put on our fence and use as a photo booth but we ended up just attaching it to the wall. My daughter was one of the few kids that was (surprisingly) cooperative about having her photo taken. As my SIL said, it was pretty cheezy but it did add to the atmosphere.

The Activities
I hired one of my friend's boyfriends who used to do kids parties to provide the entertainment, along with a coloring station (I printed out Minnie Mouse coloring sheets and paired them with Minnie crayons and markers from the $1 section in Michaels) and a temporary tattoo station (this was a surprising hit and gave the au pair that accompanied one of the families something to do). I guess they did the limbo and played with a parachute. I kind of missed that while I was setting up the food.

I bought a Minnie pinata at Party City and the nice thing was that it had the pull strings. My daughter really wanted to smack it with a bat like at the party she went to the day before, but since the rain forced us inside I was happy that no one was bashing down my walls. I did make cute favor bags for the kids to collect the loot in (I'll try to find a photo.)

The kids also played "Pin the Bow on the Minnie," which I made myself. I designed the artwork in Adobe Illustrator the printed it on ledger size paper and mounted it onto black poster board.The bows were a pain to cut out (thanks, Jess!) but I ran them through my Xyron using the re-positionable adhesive and they worked perfectly. I wasn't sure what to use as a blindfold and then happened upon a sleep mask in the dollar section of Michaels that none of the kids complained about putting it on. (Except my kid, who pulled the mask off and totally cheated.)

The Food
We had the regular kind of party snacks out when people got there --  veggie tray with dip, hummus and pita chips, pretzels, and other kinds of chips. Served juice boxes, small (uncustomized -- I just couldn't pull it off!) bottles of water, beer, hard cider and wine. For lunch we had pizza cut into 16 slices each. My husband ordered 10 pizzas which I was convinced was way too much but most of it got eaten!

OK what you really want to know about were the treats, I know. Round 2 of Minnie Mouse cupcakes came out pretty good. This time I made candy bows using pink Wilton candy melts and this bow mold I bought from Amazon. The first tray was a little rough but once I got the hang of it (and realized the mini Oreo ears would cover the ugly backs) it was MUCH faster than the fruit roll-up bow making method. I made two kinds -- pink cupcakes with white frosting and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I added white candy sprinkles to the chocolate ones for a little extra detail. Unfortunately either no pictures were taken of the cupcakes before the party or no one has yet shared them with me, so all I have is this photo of the one lone chocolate cupcake left at the end of the party.

I also made Rice Krispy treats. They were all going to be Minnie Mouse heads (well, Mickey, I suppose, as I realized too late that the candy bows I put on the small cupcakes were actually intended for the Rice Krispy treats) but the cookie cutter got too sticky and the mixture too hard so I just rolled it into balls and stuck them on a lollipop stick. They I dunked partially into melted chocolate and threw on some sprinkles. My husband claims I invented Rice Krispy lollipops but I'm guessing someone out there has already made them. Anyway, there were absolutely none left after the party so I guess they were yummy. Even if the display was a rather ghetto piece of plain Styrofoam.

I didn't get to DIY as many things as I planned to and the rain was disappointing but the house looked cute and the birthday girl seemed reasonably happy. I even got to socialize a bit instead of spending the whole time running around like a crazy person. All in all it was a super fun party.

But next year I'm staying off Pinterest and we're so having it out of the house!

Birthday stuff

So we moved. Exactly a month ago. The new house is awesome. So much bigger, so much nicer and we're really loving the neighborhood. One thing that I really don't love is that the room that's supposed to be my new craft studio is not finished! It's a big semi-finished attic and it needs a panel to be put in to cover a big hole in the wall. Something about access to the heating panel if I recall correctly. I know the workers will likely make a big mess so I have been waiting setting up the room, but now it's been a month and I am getting itchy to craft!

The other problem is that all of the boxes somehow ended up in the wrong place. I felt like like I clearly labeled everything "craft room" that I wanted up on the third floor and wrote "office" on those that I wanted in my little alcove office that I made behind the fireplace. But yet the complete opposite was done. I have slowly been getting everything into the right room, but some of the boxes are heavy! You don't realize how much 12 X 12 paper weighs until you put hundreds of sheets together in a box...

Anyway, this is my main excuse for not having posted in a month. The move. The unpacking. The general disorder. But there's also another reason -- my daughter's third birthday! She officially turned three a few days ago but her birthday party is this weekend. I feel a little badly that it's definitely going to be smaller in scale that last year's party (although with double the guests -- how did that happen?) For last year's rainbow themed soiree I designed a super cute printed invitation in Photoshop:

I did all kinds of extra projects like customized water bottles:

And sippy cups with each kid's name on them:

UPDATED 9/30/13: I just discovered that you can see all of the details from last year on my sister-in-law's blog at www.eventsthatsparkle.net!

This year we've got a Minnie's Bowtique themed birthday party and I did design the invitation, although I sent it out electronically because I was running out of time:

I'm fancying up the treat bags and making Minnie cupcakes but that's about it. I did a trial run of the cupcakes for my daughter's preschool class, but it was before the bow mold I ordered from Amazon arrived and I couldn't find mini Oreos in the store so I improvised with chocolate candy melts and bow made out of strawberry fruit roll ups. They came out super cute but the bows were pretty labor intensive (that stuff is STICKY!) so I'm hoping bow made out of candy melts is a little easier. The party is in two days and I'll keep you posted!