This is post 3 of 3 on the candy themed birthday party I put together for my daughter’s 6th birthday. The two previous posts show some of my planning and pre-party preparations, post 1 (here) shows the invitations and favor bags, post 2 (here) includes some of the games, prizes and decorations.
About six months ago I decided I would love to do a candy themed birthday party for my oldest daughters next birthday. I began collecting pretty jars that I would use for the candy buffet, I decided on the color scheme, and began scouring the internet and all of my local stores for anything candy related… ideas, decorations, invitations, etc. I really enjoyed every step of the planning and preparation (except the cleaning my house part!), but I am also a bit glad to say… it’s over! The party was held this weekend, and I think I can safely say it was a success. We had 23 children and 16 adults in all… did I mention the party was at our house, oh and that our house is under 1500 square feet? Needless to say we were very thankful to have beautiful sunny weather so that we could make use of our backyard for all of the games. In the end, all of the children headed home with smiles… I hope that was because they had fun and not just from all the sugar… but either way, they were smiling!
Now, please join me for a tour of the sweet party…
The candy buffet was one of my favorite things to plan, and set up. (Inspired of course, by the amazing work of Amy Atlas) See this post for the sources of the jars. I bought a lot of the candy from OhNuts.com, and the banner and flower arrangements were made by me.
Here is our sweet birthday girl admiring the candy table.
The food and dessert table included a small cake, lots of cupcakes (with cookie toppers), cookies (in the shape of candy), as well as some pinwheel sandwiches and fresh fruit. All of the food was made by me. I accented the table with paper lanterns from Luna bazaar.
Below is a close up of some of the cookies I made. There were lollipop shapes (that I used as cupcake toppers), cupcake shapes and candy shapes. I’ve shared the sugar cookie recipe I use HERE, and all the how-to’s for the lollipop cookies are HERE.
We served strawberry lemonade to drink, as well as water bottles with custom labels that I designed and attached. How-to’s for making your own custom water bottle labels HERE.
Inside the house I had several of the pillows I showed you in this post, and I also made several arrangements of various sizes of lollipops (that I’ve been collecting over the past several months from a variety of stores, including Target, Wal-Mart and Party City).
Below are a few more of the decorations, including a sign I made for the front door and lollipop decorations I added along the front walkway (how-to’s HERE). Below you can also see a game my husband constructed for a bean bag toss game (my mom made a set of bean bags using the same cupcake and sprinkle fabrics she made the pillow covers with). And we also had a jar of jelly bellies to guess the number of.
Other games included a version of musical chairs using the songs Lollipop, Sugar and The Candy Man and a bingo game I created using images of sweets in place of numbers (you can see it in this post).
I’ve posted all the instructions on making the large lollipop decorations (like above) HERE
Some of the sweet and gorgeous guests. Lots of smiles and happy tongues =)
Grace enjoying a cupcake.
Our other sweet pea, Joy.
Some shots of mommy (me), daddy and Grace on her special day.
One of the best decisions I made when planning the party was to realize it would be near impossible (and very stressful) to be trying to photograph the party and host it at the same time. I asked a photographer friend if he would come take photos during the party, and he agreed. What a gift I gave myself! He did such a beautiful job capturing the smiling faces… I may never try to photograph my own parties again! Any photos in this post marked with a NC in the corner are from the very talented Nathan Chilton. In fact, one of my goals when planning this party was to get at least one gorgeous shot of Grace (ideally holding a lollipop). When I first saw the photo above, I knew the party was finally complete. Thank you Nathan!
All other photos by me (Glory Albin).
Everything looks fabulous! You did an amazing job with the party. I was wondering if you could share how you made the banner behind the candy buffet–Grace's Sweet Shop and where did you find the candy cookie cutter?
thanks!
Thank you for the how to about the lolipops tht line your drive way–i made a few already–i cant wait for my daughters party in august i hope it turns some what like yours im taking most of your ideas hope you dont mine..:)..if you dont mind could you tell me where you got the cookie cutter shape like the candy???–well ill be stalking your page weakly incase you add more ideas.LOL..really Awesome job on your daughters party i love every detail!!!!
Jessica- Thanks for the comment! The drink dispenser I borrowed from my sister, but I think it's from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I've also seen very similar ones at Target.
I'm not sure what you're refering to as tatoos?
-Glory
Where did you find the drink dispenser that you put the strawberry lemonade in? My daughter is having a candyland party and that would be cute to put her drink in. Also where did you find the tattoos?
Thank you
Jessica
"Just the two of us"
Thanks! The lollipop cookies (that I used as cupcake toppers) were made by me. I have a post on making mini cookies for cupcake toppers here, http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/2010/04/spring-cupcakes-with-cookie-toppers.html
i'm having a sweet shoppe party soon, where did you get the lollipop cookies! i love it!!!! Any sugesstions???
http://www.meandyougirl.blogspot.com
Katie- Wow, thanks all your kind words!! I'd love to see your daughter's party after you have it.
I'm so glad to hear you're checking in regularly. I feel a bit of pressure that you're checking daily! I plan to post only my own work and photos, which makes it tricky to keep up on posts, but I plan to never go longer than a week between posts. I have lots of fun things planned for this blog, and I'll be so happy to have you along for the journey!
Glory,
I have scoured the internet looking for ideas for my daughters "Sweet Shoppe" party and yours is hands down the MOST ADORABLE party! I am going to copy many of your ideas! Her party is 4 months away, but I've already started collecting items that will be used in the decor!
Thank you for your terrific ideas! I check your blog almost daily now for new ideas!
Chris B.- The label on the jar of strawberry lemonade was made by printing the wording onto white cardstock paper from my computer. The the pink frame was made on my Cricut machine (if you dont' have the Cricut, I'm sorry that this answer wasn't all that helpful!). You could certainly still print out tags on white paper and then cut a second color of paper (slightly larger) as a backing. You could even use a corner rounder or some scissors that make a decorative edge to finish it off.
Then, I put the ribbon around the jar (using some double sided tape), and added the label (also with double sided tape.
Wishes and Whimsy- Thanks! I stared planning the party about 6 months in advance =) I started collecting jars for the candy buffet, decided on the party colors and started searching on-line for ideas and for the best prices on candy.
Love, love, love the details of this party! I have to know, how early did you start everything for this party?