The Decorations | The last few years we've had a lot of pink popping out for Mila's birthday parties so it was way fun to play with all colors of the rainbow for this one. I only decorated the dining area, transforming it into Mila's dance studio with a big balloon garland and this cute paint sample wrapping paper from Mr. Boddington's Studio. The balloon garland may look difficult, but thanks to my brand new electric pump purchase I would have liked to turn the house into one big balloon garland. Easy, fun, and truly transforms any space into a festive party!
I added in some $4.99 daisies for a little January cheer, and turned the table into a creative space for all the littles. I purchased most of this at Hobby Lobby - the little canvases and easels, the matching cups and 12x12 cardstock sheets as place mats, as well as the polka dot table runner and plates.
The Food | The food was the most fun to plan for this party. The spread included a Be A Sandwich Artist sandwich station, a Sloppy Slaw salad, Paint Chips, and Creative Juice. Mila helped me make the cutest rice krispie paint brushes (bought store bought rice krispie treats which made this treat super easy), I added the rest of our candy melts to a popcorn mix to create a "paint splattered" munchie mix, and ordered the cutest paint palette cookies from Lynne's Special Occasion Cookies (find her on Facebook). She is so talented and my mom actually thought her Christmas cookies were from William Sonoma!
But I think the crowd favorite for the day was this rainbow platter of goodness! I had a lot of fun going through the grocery store scoping out all the colorful additions and people pretty much congregated around this bad boy all afternoon.
The Cake | I knew without a doubt I wanted to try my first rainbow layer cake and let me tell you, it looks much harder than it actually is! I went the easy way, purchased two box mixes and three extra 8" cake pans to add to the three I already owned, and had fun picking out just the right gel food colors at Hobby Lobby. The only challenge was this cake required a lot of frosting! And next time, I probably would have substituted shortening for butter because my buttercream had just a hint of yellow.
I may have geek'ed out a little when I cut into it and it looked like this! "Almost" too pretty to eat!
The Fun | Instead of games this year I stuck to a simple craft at the table. Thanks to our cute downtown store, Hatchling and Hens, I found a collection of simple ceramics for the kids (and Papa Curt) to paint. The little rainbow trinket boxes were perfect for the party, and the big kids loved the baseball piggy banks. I used acrylic paint which was cheap, easy to paint and reapply layers, and then bought a can of spray varnish to make them glossy and durable. I also had little canvases for them to get creative in whatever way moved them. They were so quiet while they painted and everyone commented that they're never like that when they get together! I may need to get out the paints more often!
We sure had a great week celebrating our newly crowned six year old!
