Rainbow Unicorn Birthday Party

Honey Pot and Sweet E's birthdays are just a week apart. With family traveling in from out of town, we decided to have them share their themed party this year. Honey Pot first had some friends join her at a local skate park, then family followed us back home for this little celebration. Since unicorns are all the rage for young tweens, and Sweet E is obsessed with colors, this was the perfect shared theme for them!

Decorations

I had nearly every color of streamers leftover from other parties, so I made a simple rainbow background on the mantle, with some clouds that I cut out of poster board for a banner. I also scored this sweet rainbow unicorn balloon on clearance at Michaels.

Here are the birthday girls in their matching dresses that I found at Target. And there was a simple welcome sign taped to the door, but I didn't take a close-up pic of it.

Unicorn headbands for all! Found on Amazon.

The Food

Coming from the skate park, we kept the food pretty simple. I made a few things in advance, and we just ordered pizza for dinner. But here is a rainbow fruit platter I arranged.

Some homemade chocolate cake pops, which were to die for!! Recipe from my go-to baking blog, Sally's Baking Addiction.

And I also made a unicorn cake (don't tell, but I totally cheated with a box mix).

And have a look inside!

And you can't have a rainbow party without Skittles:

The plates and napkins were in theme, and I made water bottle labels.

Not pictured, we also had pizza and chips with dip.

The Party Activities

First, we had our classic balloon pop. There were rainbow unicorns hidden in four of the balloons. There was a tack taped behind each balloon, so the kids only had to throw bean bags at them to pop them.

Here is Honey Pot, mid-game.

Rainbow lollipops for the winners!

Pin the Horn on the Unicorn

I don't have pictures, but we purchased this set on Amazon that matched our theme.

Rainbow Color Throw

We participated in a Color Run several years ago, and it was just a ton of fun. I had the idea that the kids needed to get colorful during this party. So we provided a white tee shirt from Michaels for each of the kids. And they ran around the backyard, as the adults shot color powder at them with squeeze bottles. The kids had SO MUCH FUN getting messy and colorful. It was a bit chaotic, and the adults ended up covered in powder too, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. And, with so much leftover powder, we can! 90% of the powder brushed off of our clothes easily before we walked inside.

After the bottles had been emptied, we gave each of the kids a handful of powder, so we could do a color throw picture. I think I'll frame it. 💗

Thanks for looking at our latest party! It was small, but special. 😊

Winnie the Pooh Birthday Party!

Little M&M had a Winnie the Pooh party this year! He wore a shirt I made for him for our Disney World trip six months ago, using iron-on transfer paper.

He's just obsessed with Winnie the Pooh! He has dozens of Pooh books, and he reads them every night before bed. We tried to keep the party simple this year. Take a look at what we did:

Decorations

I used a couple yellow lanterns to make bee hives. I printed the bees onto cardstock, cut them out and taped them onto the lanterns. We also used our seemingly never-ending roll of craft paper to make some trees, and leftover green crepe paper to make the leaves.

I painted a flower pot to represent Pooh's honey pot, and filled it with honey sticks (found on Amazon). The honey sticks would then be passed out as prizes after the party games. They were a huge hit, with kids and adults alike. I was so surprised at how they hoarded them!

I hung a banner that I found for free at Bugboo City. And I also painted some wooden letters from Michaels to look like Pooh characters. Little M&M loved this, and has them up in his room now.

So here are all of those details from afar, complete with a Hundred Acre Wood sign I taped up there.

And finally, I created this open book in Photoshop Elements, and hung it on the front door to welcome our guests. I tried to make the text float across the page, as it often does in the original. Chapter Seven, obviously, because Little M&M was celebrating his seventh birthday!

The Food

Before we get to the food, let me first show you the tablecloth we made to look like dripping honey! Super cute, and all we did was cut out a yellow tablecloth and lay it onto a red one.

Tigger Tails - Cheetos.

Eeyore's House (some assembly required) - Pretzel Sticks

Rabbit's Garden Veggies - assorted vegetables with a yummy dip.

Piglet's in a Blanket

Owl's Wings - two types of chicken wings, honey garlic and buffalo.

Kanga and Roo's Tails - large subs from the deli.

Heffalump Droppings - Little M&M's three favorite types of cookies: chocolate crinkles, iced oatmeal and mini M&M.

And finally, Pooh's Punch. And I don't have a close-up picture, apparently, but as you can see in the punch picture below, I also made Pooh water bottle labels!

The Party Activities

The first activity was to guess how many Haycorns (this is what Piglet calls acorns) were in the jar. The person who guessed the closest won an Amazon gift card.

The next activity was a type of scavenger hunt. Little M&M loves math of all kinds, so I incorporated it into this scavenger hunt. Each child received this checklist with the answers, and they had to go and find each of the equations, hidden on honey pots around the house.

For example, when they find this honey pot, they can check off the 160 honey pot!

Little M&M loved this game. It was quite a challenge for our little party-goers, but no one gave up, and they all received honey sticks upon completion!

We printed a little game of Pin the Tail on Eeyore from Disney Family.

This game is always a lot of laughs; the kids were hilarious playing this.

And our last game is one we've been playing at most of our birthday parties, a balloon pop! We placed pictures of heffalumps and woozles into four balloons, and the kids had to pop the balloons to find them. Anyone who found them received honey sticks. Of course we played the song from our phone while the game went on.

We used craft paper and green balloons for this game to make a tree, because the heffalumps and woozles were hiding in the Hundred Acre Wood. As always, we taped tacks to the wall behind each balloon, and had the kids toss bean bags at them to pop them. Love this kid-friendly way to play!

The kids stood farther back, but here is Sweet E having a try. She loves Pooh too!

Little M&M mid-game, running up to see if he found a heffalump or woozle.

Thanks for stopping by to see our party!

Harry Potter Party!

Honey Pot and Little M&M have read the first two illustrated Harry Potter books. As big fans ourselves, my husband and I were thrilled when Honey Pot chose this as her birthday party theme this year! Kids and adults agree: this has been our favorite party yet! Take a look at the details:

The Invitation

We had a small party with just family and close friends, so the invitation went out on Facebook. I quickly made this in Photoshop Elements and included it on the event page.

The Decorations

First and foremost we had to make one of these super cool entryways that I kept seeing on Pinterest. We ordered the brick backdrop from Amazon, and cut it to fit in our doorway. Notice Honey Pot is also wearing a Gryffindor shirt for her party (also from Amazon)!

Throughout the house we also had a few nods to the first two Harry Potter movies:

The "third floor corridor is out of bounds" sign, a giant balloon spider, a trail of magnetic spiders and a simple banner made from the four house logos and a couple of floating candles...

Hedwig (Amazon), a jar of floo powder (stones from Michaels), "the chamber of secrets has been opened" written in watered down red paint on the mirror, a framed Daily Prophet sign, the two books the party was based on and a Moaning Myrtle printed on vellum paper that we hung in the bathroom.

Snack-time

We made some green punch called Polyjuice Potion, and also offered water bottles with Skel-Gro labels.

We offered subs, chips, salads and fruit for our afternoon party. And we served the fruit up on these neat broom skewers that we made. 

Party Activities

First we stopped at Ollivanders, where the wand would of course have to choose the wizard. To make the wands, we followed the tutorial here.

We had the kids sit in a circle, and spun around one wand at a time on a lazy susan. This way the wand decided to whom it would belong! As each wand chose its owner, that child would leave the circle, and we continued until everyone had a wand.

Defense Against the Dark Arts Class

For our next game, we had hidden and taped up 36 images of Cornish Pixies around the house. The kids had to "round them up" and bring them back to their cage (our fire pit lid). They used their wands to stun them before bringing them to the cage. They loved this game--scavenger hunts seem to really be a hit with this age group (5-7 year olds)!

Charms Class

Next we headed to Charms class, where the professor first instructed everyone on how to perform the levitation spell. They learned the proper pronunciation of wingardium leviosa as well as the swish-and-flick motion.

Then they had to use what they learned to keep their white balloons up in the air! This was so much fun!

Free Dobby the House Elf - Egg Relay

For this next game we headed outside. The kids went in pairs from the starting line, around the cones, and back again. They had to balance a plastic egg (wrapped in a baby sock) on a spoon in order to free Dobby. (Remember he's freed when presented with clothes!)

Quidditch Practice

The next game was a favorite. My husband created a quidditch pitch out in our backyard, using hula hoops and wooden stakes. He spray-painted them gold and they were just beautiful!

Using sticks from around the yard, brown paper bags and Dollar Tree hula skirts, he also created a broom for everybody! The kids all worked together to score points with a large ball (the quaffle) while a few grown-ups threw two smaller balls (the bludgers) at them! So many laughs, and such a great time was had by all!

We played this for a while. And how does every game of quidditch end?

By finding the Golden Snitch, of course. So we headed inside for dessert to find it. We made chocolate cakepops, dipped in peanut butter candy melts. (We followed the basic cake pop tutorial here.) They were perfect, because they were gold and also because Honey Pot is a huge peanut butter fan! We only put wings on hers, but they were a huge hit! We served them with a variety of ice creams and toppings.

And finally, to conclude the party, we had one more activity:

Potions Class

This was deemed the favorite by all the kids. We made a few bottles of ingredients just for show: Dragon's Blood (flour + water + food coloring), Gillyweed (water + grass), and Infusion of Wormwood (water + food coloring + sesame noodles leftover from the previous night's Chinese food lol). I created a recipe for the kids to follow, using the ingredients that we left out on the table: Wolfsbane (dish soap), Lethe Water (vinegar + food coloring), Dried Nettles (glitter), and Powdered Root of Asphodel (baking soda). 

To begin, the professor read the recipe, which everyone followed carefully.

But then we left the students to add the ingredients in their own way. There were so many glorious, bubbling cauldrons and such sparkle and color!

The play went on for a long time like this. So glad we got some cake pans from Dollar Tree to contain the mess!

They really could have stayed here all day. When the Dried Nettles (ahem, glitter) started to run out, I told them all it was time to open presents. So they retired to another room, and we quickly cleaned up.

Party Favors

For our party favors, we recreated the Honeydukes Express. You remember, the trolley that comes around on the Hogwarts Express to offer sweets to all the kids? I transformed my small table into that trolley, and it came out super cute! I printed the blank labels from this website, and added the titles of the candies I was recreating: Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans (Amazon), Acid Pops, Liquorice Wands, Chocolate Frogs (mold is from Amazon, and we melted Ghirardelli dark chocolate into it, with a sprinkling of Rice Krispies cereal for crunch), Droobles Best Blowing Gum and Jelly Slugs. At the end of the party, each of the kids put together their own bag of goodies. They had such a blast trying out the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. And even some of the adults gathered around a table later that evening, with a deck of cards, to create their own tasting game. It was hilarious!

So there is our Harry Potter party, based on books one and two. Thanks for stopping by!

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