Unicorn Birthday!
Happy birthday to my September girls!
We celebrated our daughters’ birthdays Saturday with an Unicorn theme party. Our daughters are obsessed with unicorns and rainbows, so when I suggested some options for a birthday theme this year (between a unicorn theme, Just Add Magic theme, or an emoji theme) they jumped at the idea of an unicorn party.
So.. where to begin with creating such a colorful party?..
The Invitation
Making the invitation ourselves is always a fun part of the party brainstorming. As I have mentioned before, having an artist in the family makes creating things like invitations or decorations a lot easier. I have a lot of ideas swirling in my mind but am not talented enough to do them on my own, so something that would take me days or cost me a lot, ends up being made in an hour and basically costs pennies using our printer.
We knew this invite had to have at least one unicorn on it and the kids caricatures. I always like to incorporate them into the invite, it brings me joy and giggles. So this is what we came up with. The kids LOVED IT!
The Cake and Sweets Table
The first thing I bought for the party was the Unicorns are Real cake topper by Meri Meri. Their designs are swoon worthy. So when I found the cake topper at Marshall’s for $3.99 at the beginning of the Summer, it was just too good to pass up and became the theme of the party. It was a huge score because that brand is uber expensive. The pack was perfect, it had two unicorns, a rainbow and a sunshine, it was literally the party theme all in one packet. The best was the following week when I swooped up the same theme Meri Meri party supplies at Homegoods…cupcake kit ($5.99), paper dinner plates ($3.99ea) and dessert plates ($3), gift bags ($5.99 for 8) and lunch napkins (2.99) and dessert napkins (same). I had looked online to see if anything else was part of this collection and bought the I Believe in Unicorns banner to match off Ebay for $15. I paired everything with coral/orange colored paper cups and rainbow striped table covers.
The cake itself was real pretty with the theme. I ordered the cake from our go to bakery, Modern Pastry in Boston, and had it shipped to Medford to pick it up easily. I ordered a chocolate cake with chantilly cream center draped in a light yellow whipped cream frosting that had a lavender ganache drip. It matched the cake topper kit perfectly. I did use the sunshine pick from the kit for the cupcake holder, it all worked out great.
Along with the cake, I had made some unicorn colored chocolate pretzels, fudge and ordered colorful donuts for those with food allergies. After we served cake (I don’t have any photos of it) I set up the table full of colorful candies. You can see a few of them behind the cake, but the table was insanely stacked with candy. I think I went a bit overboard with the candy this year. Noted not to do that for the next one.
The girls (and their friends) loved it all. The tables were wrecked in minutes, and snacked off of for a long time.
The Craft
The party craft idea came to me when my kids were watching YouTube videos on making slime at the start of Summer. It made sense to incorporate that into the birthday, it’s glittery, colorful and can be played with over and over.
The girls and I started by making sample slimes to see what recipe made the best one in a group setting. We tried the fluffy kind with shaving cream (smelled great but the color wasn’t pretty), the adding glitter to white glue kind (the glitter kept flaking off during play), and the glitter glue kind (color was vibrant). We found that the simplest one using three ingredients (glitter glue, baking soda and contact solution) was the best one to make. And once I saw how much slime we would be making per child, I got to work on what type of container could cart it home…jelly jars!
Decorations and Photo Background
For some reason when they decided on the party theme fluffy clouds were on my mind. Idk why. But I ran with it and started crafting fluffy cotton clouds for the main entrance and the photo booth/background. Making the clouds was so much fun and so easy. I bought foam boards from my local dollar store, along with cotton and crafting paper. The clouds were drawn free hand (by me) and then cut out with a utility knife. While watching some TV one night I glued on all the cotton balls in as uniform a way as possible..starting at the outside and lining them up and down on the inside. After it dried, I cut out some fun Kawaii inspired faces to glue on top.
For the photo background I wanted it to be shiny and cheerful, and I also wanted to make one unicorn because I didn’t have one anywhere yet! My husband traced out the unicorn form for me on foam board and I took the reigns for the transformation. With various paints, glitter and tissue paper the unicorn turned out pretty cute. I bought two lavender plastic table covers and two opalescent door curtains for the background. Then I painted a foam board with a rainbow and their names. My husband assisted me in tacking up a huge scrap bead-board panel to the fence. We adorned it with the covers and screwed it all together, which worked out real great.
This annual birthday bash is a pretty big one. With it celebrating two kids at once, it has to be! It is an all day affair with a ton of food, drinks and alcohol, foods and sweets, AND PEOPLE. This year we had 24 kids and 21 adults, which can be overwhelming at times, especially with all those little hands and feet everywhere.
My top recommendations for parties large like this is:
- set up variety of hands on food and drinks; things they can grab and go and can easily dispose
- stage the party as spread out as you possibly can; space out games or jumpy house locations so there is a clear grouping around each activity
- play games or activities that are easy to make and fun for all age groups
- remember people roam around your house and yard when they are free to, so remove anything you cherish from around the house/yard that you don’t want broken or are easy to grab with tiny hands
- plan for anything and everything; have band aids on hand, ice packs too, and make sure there are boundaries for the kids..like no wee lil ones in the bouncy house at the same time as the bigger kids
- lastly, JUST HAVE FUN!
Having fun is key! 🙂
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We had a wonderful day celebrating these two cute kids Saturday, and I am so thankful the weather cooperated better than we had figured, the food was super good and the cake was delicious. I’d say that it all went off without a hitch. Which is always a good time!
Here are some random photos of the day!
I still can’t believe I now have a ten and almost twelve-year-old here. These girls are the best part of my life, and I love them more than anything in this world. Happy Birthday, girls! 🙂
Thank you for reading!
xoxoxox
Valeria Out Loud 