Carousel Party!

A carousel birthday for my yee-haw loving 2 year old!

She always remembers horses and has to say good-bye to them when we see them (or even the benches painted like horses at the library!

I contemplated doing a wild horse theme or even a cowgirl theme, but since we had decided her birthday would be at a restaurant instead of at home, I decided the Carousel theme would be great, because we can go to the carousel for rides after!

I have been procrastinating getting this blog post up, so I am just going to post pictures with captions and call it good!

Party Favor bags from Oriental Trading co


I made this favor with a small plush pony, candy stick and cardstock

I was so proud of this cake! My first time working with fondant (store bought) The cake is on a lazy susan so it really spun! I borrowed the wilton carousel kit from a friend, and used candy melts to decorate the horses
The cake stand is a cupcake tree, but instead of using the supports, I covered 2 popcorn tins with striped paper (the back was red polka dots), added ovals cut from a gold gift bag (both were leftover from the Super Mario Party. I used spiral paper straws as posts/added support. Some of the cupcake toppers were chocolate, some were edible paper, and some were animal cookies glued to pretzel sticks with melted chocolate.


I ordered Penny's shirt from Zazzle and it turned out faded (as pictured) but they sent me a replacement which looked MUCH better, (but I failed to check the mail before we left for the party and thought it did not arrive on time, so she wore the faded one).

For table decorations, I found these circus tent goodie boxes on clearance at Oriental Trading Co, they were deeply discounted because the sticky areas used to assemble them weren't any good, I knew I could fix them as I turned it into a tiny 1 horse carousel!

to glue to paper straws, I cut notches in the tip of the straw to fold over for more glue-able surface area

for the top of the horse, I found it worked better to fold some of the tabs in

I cant believe I did not get a good finished picture of these! The prototype was a small candy dish, but then I opted just to make them center pieces. Each kid that wanted one took one home. I have a few leftovers in the attic, perhaps I will add a picture later. 

The pizza restaurant we went to has this and another ride-on toy, I think this alone would have made her birthday fun!



After lunch and playing at the pizza restaurant's arcade some of the guests went to the carousel for rides and popcorn.

The birthday girl wore her horsey boots, skirt made by my mom, and shirt from Zazzle.

Someone had a long tough day!

Putting the ART in pARTy!

I couldn't resist doing a rainbow art themed party for my little artist!

She wanted a rainbow pony unicorn party. We compromised.

Cake courtesy of Pink Princess Cakes

Food:

Paint brush Pretzels and Rainbow Chips Ahoy

\

And to drink:

(get it colorless watercolors?)

Last minute I thought of how to add the unicorn theme to the food:

We had hot dogs (because kids love hot dogs and they are super easy!) 

(you see what I did there? a rainbow of condiments)

These basting brushes were 2/pack for just over $1 at the grocery store

We also had a rainbow fruit tray and veggie tray. 

For the kid's cupcakes, I got little pallets and set out a rainbow of sprinkles and plain frosted cupcakes. 

Kids loved decorating their own. 

I didnt get a picture, but we also had Scribblers popcicles instead of ice cream. 

Besides the cupcake decorating, we had other artistic activities. 

The table runners on the tables were blank papers and the centerpieces were buckets of crayons and markers. 

As each kid arrived, they picked an apron to wear and keep. 

(there were 2 of each color lined up in rainbow order)

We had 3 easels, 3 had paint and 2 had chalk on the back sides. 

Once the aprons were gone/moved over, we hung paintings to dry. 

The aerial view of the room:

You can sort of see the food table back drop in this picture, the paint splatter table clothes were only big enough for the top of the table, so I did a rainbow effect of solid colored table clothes on the fronts. Behind the table is a crepe paper rainbow backdrop. 

a few more pictures of the decorations:

 
t
at first I couldnt figure out how to "hang the paint cans, then I just draped a table cloth over a broom/mop/random stick and topped with the paint can, sort of at an angle:


For a "guest book" I drew the number 4 on a canvas and provided fabric markers for each person to add to the masterpiece:


For party favors, I wrapped rainbow washi tape around a water color set with a thank you tag. Kids also kept the paint pallet from the cup cakes and their aprons.

The babies got a little horse and the toddlers got finger paint in leftover gift bags from the curious george party.

Buggy First Birthday

For Penny's first birthday, I decided to do a Bug theme. I didnt want it to be too cutsie, but I also didnt want it to be too realistic or yucky looking.

I made low sugar banana bread frosted with mashed banana and PB2 to hold kiwi slices on to make a green caterpillar with blueberry legs.

For cupcakes I went with super simple dirt cups (cake, pudding, gummy worms, chocolate rocks and green coconut grass)

One activity was building bugs out of craft supplies. 

At this table we also had some headbands and fuzzy sticks to make antennas. 

We also had Digging for Bugs

And bug jar decorating

this little fella felt right at home

For food I made a variety of buggy foods:

 

the ladybug bowls were leftover from the Ladybug Birthday

 

I was disappointed that this package of butterfly pretzles were nearly all broken :(

I love that I got another opportunity to use my Ant dip bowl! (normally it is only used on Aunts Day)

 

some of them are on bendy straws to be safer for kiddos, 

the rest are on skewers because they were much faster. 

 

A great tip if you cannot find or don't want to spend money on special themed cups, stick a themed sticker to the cups! I had bunches of these stickers super cheap leftover from party favors. 

To drink your beetle juice, you need:

(which is the curly sucking tongue on some bugs)

 

These were Twinkies with white yogurt pretzels as wings. The antenna and eyes were in a kit meant for bumble bee cupcakes I had picked up on clearance. 

These were nestled in some BitOHoney candies

The chocolate bees were just yellow candy melts striped onto pre-made chocolate pretzels. 

To avoid too much sweet, half had cream cheese and diced ham

I used a random collection of buggy stuff for decorations and supplies:

On the tables I laid out astroturf and plastic bugs and flowers. 

(we reuse this astroturf for Superbowl parties, which justified the cost)

I didn't get a picture of the favors but I had bug themed rattles and bee bibs for each of the babies. The bigger kids got a bag of random buggy stuff from Oriental trading. 

Blueberries for Sal 3rd Birthday

I love the book Blueberries for Sal so even before Ellie's 2nd birthday, I knew I wanted to do a Blueberries for Sal Party for her 3rd.

For anyone who doesn't know the book, here is a quick run down.

Once upon a time a little girl name Sal and her mom go out to Blueberry Hill to pick blueberries to can for the winter. Sal has a little tin pail and manages to get 3 berries in before getting distracted eating berries. Meanwhile Little Bear and his mother are eating berries on Blueberries to fatten up for winter. I wont ruin the rest of the book for you.

In addition to the obvious blueberries and bears in the theme, I decided to go with Mason Jars, tin pails, and blue gingham for the decor.

The plan for the cake backfired because my cake girl's daughter was in the emergency room the night before the party and couldn't finish the blueberrry cream-filled cupcakes and large tin pail cake. I bought plain green frosted cupcakes from a local grocery store bakery and put 3 fresh blueberries or 2 teddy grahams(one small one large) on each one.

We also had cheesecake with blueberry pie filling served out of a mason jar. 

(I failed at getting a picture)

Blueberry yogurts on ice in a tin pail.

Blueberry Lemonade

The recipe was literally "Simply Blueberry Lemonade" with a bag of frozen blueberries floating on top. 

I found these adorable little chalkboard mason jar signs at Craft Warehouse. 

You can see the blue gingham in the background, I got a huge piece of fabric at a yard sale for $1. 

Under the cupcakes on on the favor table I put some circles and blue gingham designed scrapbook paper I had bought for the invitations that I didn't end up using. I got the little tin pails at various thrift shops and a bunch from Oriental Trading. 

Teddy Grahams and fresh blueberries (of course)

And for a break from all the blueberries, fresh fruit salad.

For activities, we had teddy bear shaped wooden picture frames to paint:

And a water table full of "blueberries" and tiny pails for scooping. 

(water beads)

The party favors were a variety of second hand teddy bears with blue ribbons and little jars of blueberry jellybeans. 

Everyone enjoyed the party!