I recently helped a good friend plan a birthday party for her two sweet children, a boy and a girl, who share the same birthday month. The kids were turning 3 (Tim) and 1 (Annabelle), so they are young enough to “share” a party without thinking they missed out by not having their “own” party.
I spent a bit of time thinking up a party theme that would work for a boy/girl party and we settled on a theme of “Rainbows and Race Cars”. I used primary colors to pull the “Rainbows” and “Race Cars” ideas together, with added emphasis on red and purple.
It was a casual, home party designed with the children (and the young guests) in mind. The day included some colorful sweets, a yummy BBQ, lots of water balloons and a pinata.
Here is the colorful table of treats I prepared for the party…
For these cookies, it took me almost as long to make all the bags of icing colors as it did to decorate them! I used the “wet on wet” technique, by outlining and flooding the cookies in white and then adding the lines of color on the still wet icing.
To create these cookies you’ll need…
These cute cupcakes are my Perfect Vanilla Cupcake Recipe with my Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe.
I designed the cupcake toppers, water bottle labels, food labels and napkin wraps using Photoshop (please don’t quiz me too much on that, I’m really no expert on Photoshop and these took me hours and hours to work out!)
I do have a tutorial on How to Make Custom Water Bottle Labels HERE.
Party favors included rainbow ribbon hair bows for the girls (HERE is the how-to on the bows), and Hot Wheels race cars for the boys.
I was able to find a perfect rainbow pinata (from Party City), which of course the kids enjoyed thoroughly! And here is the sweet birthday girl modeling a mini version of the hair bows I made.
It was a colorful and sweet-filled day and I think the birthday boy and birthday girl both felt celebrated. And little Annabelle is a girl after my own heart… she knows how to enjoy a cupcake! =)
So darling! The striped cookies were totally worth the effort! What a fun party!
I featured your cookies on my blog! I love this adorable party! I had to share the super cute rainbow cookies you made with my readers. I love them! Great job!
I must echo everyone's comments! What an amazing party. I am a contributing writer at PurpleTrail.com and I'd love to feature it on PurpleTrail's party ideas blog (www.purpletrail.com/partytrail). If you are interested, please email me: leslieb@purpletrail.com. Thanks!
Hi Glory! Like everyone else, I so love this party you shared! I'd love to feature this party on our blog as I love your gorgeous images and I think my followers (if they haven't already found you!) would love these ideas and all the great tips you have to share… especially for the cookies, icing and hair bows!! 🙂 Please email me if that would be ok. My email address is debbie@tabletopsfortots.com.
BTW… my mom (Gloria) goes by Glory too! 🙂
Thanks for posting about the rainbow curly clips. I made some on the weekend and my daughter went WILD about them! 🙂
Monique- I use PhotoShop Elements 5.0 and the candy jars are vases I got from Michaels craft store for I think around $4 each. Thanks!
mom22- I designed the invites as well. The included both the rainbow and race car designs you can see on the cupcake toppers. If you're interested, I could e-mail it to you, but I need your e-mail address.
What did your invites look like?
What a gorgeous party. I love how you combined the themes. I'm founder of http://www.catchmyparty.com. I'd love to feature your party in our Party of the Day on our homepage. Please email me if you are interested. My email address is jillian@catchmyparty.com. Again, lovely party! Best, Jillian
love the whole set up! bet they had a great time!