Rainbow Crazy – Party Overview

I blurred out That Little Girl’s name, but you get the idea!

So I think I threw it out there that we recently celebrated That Little Girl’s birthday. After a lot of discussion, she chose to have a very small rainbow party with a few friends here at the house. In the past, I have really gone a little crazy with decorations and searched all over pinterest for the perfect this and the ideal that. This year, not so much. Maybe it is a new perspective. Maybe it is exhaustion. Maybe it is having two kids now. Maybe it is lack of money since I haven’t been working. Maybe it is all of the above. In any case, I decided to do a few things and be done. I was determined not to make myself crazy. I might have been a little crazy, but it was a good thing. I didn’t venture into bad crazy.

With a Rainbow theme, my first thought was what in the world are we going to do with these little girls while they are here other than cake and ice cream. That Little Girl and I decided on Twister, treasure hunt, and a couple of crafts. I ordered custom designed invitations from Lane+May (see her etsy shop here) with a request to the kids to wear their favorite color to the party. That Little Girl chose a rainbow dress that had an attached tutu, different color leggings, and another color cardigan. Her favorite color is “rainbow” it turns out!

When it came to decorations, I kept it pretty simple. I did a couple bunches of balloons on either end of the room. To keep with the rainbow and balloon idea, I made a Rainbow Balloon wreath for the front door (picture below and more on that in a future post). I used the rainbow scrapbook papers from Lane+May (see her etsy shop here) to make my own pendant banners on ribbon. I have used Lane + May for the last few years. Always an enjoyable experience with great communication! I used the party favors to decorate, as well, and the best part was they went out the door at the end of the day! That Little Girl really liked the rainbow streamers on embroidery hoops we saw on Pinterest so I copied that idea using several different sizes of hoops.

On the tables I just used white nylon tablecloths. We had one table was where the kids ate and did the crafts and the other table was sort of the craft staging, cake, and donations collection table. To decorate the table that we did not craft and eat at, I put down stripes of the streamers in a rainbow, as well.

For the favors, I bought plastic buckets in rainbow colors. Inside I had Skittles, Star Crayons (that I made, post to follow), glitter wands, the treasure hunt item in the matching color, watercolor paints, and a rainbow glow stick necklace. I also had matching balloons tied to each bucket.

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The Treasure Hunt was a bit of an ice breaker game we played right in the beginning. I purchased little dollar bin type goodies in each of the colors and hid them pretty much in plain sight around the living room. Only problem was that after I put the items out, That Little Girl went and moved them all. Unfair advantage to the birthday girl, oh and yeah, she forgot where she put some of them. Inside of boxes. Leading kids to dig through those little hiding places we all have for storage. So ice breaker it was for all to see just how clutter-y we are up in here. Once each item was found, the girls brought it over and I put it up in the favor bucket it matched. Goal was a fun little game to get everyone excited to be here.

Then there was a little while where the kids all just wanted to play with That Little Girl’s toys and I thought all my planning was for nothing. See, the day before the party I came to a realization and then went into panic mode. The craft I had planned just was not working. That Guy, That Little Girl, and I had worked on three different suncatchers throughout the week and each time it was a huge failure. The idea, also from pinterest, was to use diecut wood picture frames and have the girls put beads in and then grill them. There were some directions to use the oven, but melting plastic fumes were not part of the party I wanted to have. If you follow me on facebook you saw a photo of one of the many attempts. It was a bit like Goldilocks and The Three Suncatchers. The first one was too burnt. The second did not melt well enough. The third one was just right, until That Little Girl dropped it on the table and the beads and the frame separated. The idea of little girls crying when That Guy inevitably grilled them too little or too much or it shattered if just right was too much for me. So with less than 24 hours to go, a new craft had to be planned. Musical chairs was a reliable back up!

In the end we had two fun crafts to do! That Little Girl and I browsed some different ideas and decided on beaded necklaces and kaleidoscopes. I will share more about them in a future post and how we made them. A little sneak preview for now!

That Little Girl wanted a rainbow polka dot confetti cake for her party. Again, I showed her some different ideas to keep her focused and then she chose a combination of ideas that she liked. We also had rainbow colored fruit skewers and cookies for the kids.

I used a box (oh the horror!) mix to make rainbow cookies that were admittedly more technicolor than rainbow. Whoops! Also, when the directions tell you to use a spoon to mix the food coloring into the dough, and you do that for the first few colors and decide this is crazy why don’t I just use my hands you should probably ignore your inner voice so your hands do not look like this at your daughter’s birthday party.

All in all, I kept myself pretty in check and not crazy this year for her party! I had planned to make rainbow chex mix (another Pinterest find here) and when the craft fail happened, I sort of decided it wasn’t really a necessary thing to do and my energy and time could be better spent elsewhere. I did not stay up until 2 am hot gluing my fingers together (first birthday party) or wake up at 5 am to finish the food (second birthday party) and maybe we didn’t dress up as a family to celebrate (third birthday party), but I think she and her friends all had a great time! That Little Girl told me it was the best birthday party ever so that is what counts!