The Unicorns and Rainbows Birthday Party

I've been sitting on these photos for more than a month now, putting off posting about them because I knew the post would be a stinker to write with all of the links and photos--and I was right! But I need to get it done before her next birthday rolls around!

Last year, I suggested to Maren that it might be fun to have a Unicorns and Rainbows theme for her 7th birthday party. Full disclosure: I wanted to have a Unicorns and Rainbows birthday party, but that's not really as socially acceptable for a 34-year-old as it is for a 7-year-old. Lucky for me, I have the same taste as a 7-year-old girl, so she went for the idea right away! I've been collecting ideas on my Unicorns and Rainbows party Pinboard for months and I was able to use several of them to make her party really fantastic!

You may remember the invitation we made using rainbow-striped paper from Michael's and a Cricut cartridge. The unicorn even had a glittery mane and tail! We asked the guests to come dressed in their favorite color of the rainbow.

For party activities, we started out making our own edible Unicorn horns, inspired by this pin. I used sugar cones and dipped them into melted white almond bark while the girls were waiting.

We put each dipped cone on a paper plate with the girl's name on it and then they got to decorate their horn. I raided my baking supplies and set out bowls of anything that looked girly or magical. My favorite was the sparkly gold sugar.

The pink sugar pearls were really fun too! One of the reasons I like almond bark much better than Wilton candy melts is that almond bark hardens very quickly. While the girls were outside doing the next activity, my mom put each unicorn horn into a cellophane bag decorated with a name tag and a piece of rainbow striped ribbon.

One thing I repeated from the cupcake party we had a few years ago--we had the girls do their sprinkling over a cheap plastic tablecloth. When they were done, I just gathered up the cloth and tossed it, spilled sprinkles and all.

We sent them out into the front yard for the next activity so that we could get the kitchen cleaned up and the unicorn horns packaged up. Maren saw this unicorn pinata at the party store months ago and it was the thing she was most excited about. She kept saying how cool it was to have her "first birthday party with a pinata."

In my craft stash I even found little paper sacks in all colors of the rainbow for the girls to collect their candy.

After the pinata, we went back into the kitchen for our next project. I purchased these rainbow craft kits from Oriental Trading Company. When we were ordering, Maren actually told me she wanted these rainbow beaded bracelet kits but I screwed up and bought the hanging rainbows instead. They weren't my favorite, but the girls seemed to enjoy making them.

After the craft, we sent the girls outside on the back deck to eat lunch. For lunch we had Unicorn Calzones (inspired by this pin),

rainbow fruit kabobs (inspired by this pin)

and rainbow Goldfish crackers. The Unicorn Calzones were really very good and they ate up every single one! I ordered unicorn and rainbow plates and napkins from Oriental Trading Company as well.

When the girls were done eating, they came inside for cake. I'd been dying to try out the infamous rainbow cake that is all over Pinterest and this finally gave me an excuse! I made mine from two white cake mixes, each divided into thirds. The cake was still tall but not unmanageable. I made the cake layers the day before the party and wrapped them in plastic. I can't even remember how many batches of homemade white buttercream frosting it took--maybe 4?

The morning of the party I decided that the cake looked too plain and sent The Mister out to buy Skittles. Unfortunately the store didn't have the original rainbow color package, but I did the best with what they had and I think it looks fine. The skinny rainbow candles came from the party store and the glittery green 7 came from Target. The girls really did gasp when I cut open the cake and they saw all of the colors! It was quite the showstopper.

For goodie bags I bought plain white paper sacks at Michael's and decorated the tops with a rainbow punched from scrapbook paper. The goodie bags had twisty rainbow suckers, erasers, unicorn necklaces, and unicorn stickers, plus the girls got to take home their unicorn horns, pinata loot and hanging rainbows.

For decorations I used mostly rainbow crepe paper. I had solid colors and then after I bought those (of course) I found rainbow striped paper at another store. It was too much work to take all of the solid paper back, so I just used them both.

I also bought a dozen balloons in rainbow colors and Maren even wore rainbow-striped Hanna Andersson leggings that I found at Costco. I am nothing if not devoted to a theme!

The whole party was so much fun and I'm so pleased with how it all turned out. Maren and all 11 of her little friends had a good time. My parents came for the weekend to help celebrate and I put them to work during the party--it took all four of us adults to keep things running smoothly, and I'm so thankful that I had their help! I don't think I could have done it without them.

Maren rarely gets invited to 'at home' birthday parties these days--the kids in her class usually have their parties at those bouncy places or at little girl salons. It's a lot of work to have 12 little girls in your home; to plan all of the activities and bake and decorate and then clean up all of the mess afterwards. To me it's totally worth it and I hope that someday Maren will have fond memories of the fun parties we planned together! And maybe next year I'll actually let her choose the theme. ;)