my themed party obsession

Updated on 5/29/09: This party was featured on Creative Parties & Showers & One Pretty Thing.

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For Works for me Wednesday, I want to share something that definitely works for me...themed parties! I love themes! Birthday parties, baby showers, you name it and most likely I'll create a theme for it. I even enjoy giving themed presents for birthdays and baby gifts. It gives me a chance to get my creative juices flowing and I have so much fun in the process. One very important thing to know, however, is that I often put more TIME than money into creating themes. I like simple, but with some extra special touches. My sister would say I'm an overachiever! I just call it crazy.

TODAY is my daughter's 3rd birthday and last Sunday we had family over for a fun celebration! So, what was the theme you might ask?

~ Lollipop Sweetness ~

The invitation (pictured below) was shaped in the form of a lollipop. I also made a birthday collage of pictures of Mikayla from this past year and I sent one to each of the family members with their invitations. At the party, each of the cousins received their own lollipop with their initial on it.


At the end of the party, I took out the "lollipops" and had little baggies for the guests to put some of the candy in and take home with them. It was great to use this not only as decoration, but also for a little treat for the guests at the party!


At every birthday party, instead of cake, I make cupcakes (see here for more). This time I wanted to do something simple and bright, so I used lots of sprinkles and made some fun cake toppers with Mikayla's initial on them. So easy, so cute!




I've seen this idea floating around in many different places, so I just had to try it! These are strawberry marshmallows dipped in chocolate and covered with sprinkles. I then put a lollipop stick in them...they were a hit with the kids!


You know you can't get enough sweetness and I thought it might be fun to throw in some fruit roll ups just for fun and to add even more color to the table.


This idea was originally done by my friend Andrea when we co-hosted a baby shower together, and I just had to recreate it for Mikayla's party. Of course the matching paper is on purpose!


The completed table. If you look closely I have candy necklaces hanging from the light fixture. The rest of that idea was to have pictures hanging from the necklaces, but I ran out of time! For lunch we had a sandwich bar, chips, veggies, and fruit salad.

For some simple decoration, I found these bubble wands at The Dollar Tree and turned them into lollipops with some cellophane and ribbon. I loved how they turned out and it gave just the right amount of decor that was needed.

Near the end of the party, I took them all down and I had Mikayla give them to her cousins as party favors. Again, I loved being able to use these for two things...decorations and favors.

We then broke out the bubbles and the kids played with their wands in the backyard. It was a hit! Cheap entertainment works for me!

At one point during the party we also had a lollipop hunt. I had purchased some small lollipops and stuck them all over the yard and the kids ran around looking for them. It was so fun to watch them find them and put them in their bags. This was pretty much the only "organized activity". The rest of the time was spent eating and playing outside in the sun. Ryan had found some oversized blow up sports equipment on clearance last fall, so we got those out and the kids enjoyed having something to play with.

Not surprisingly if you know me, there are still lots of pictures to share of the party, especially of opening presents, blowing out candles and such. But, I'll save that for another post! On Friday, we're having 3 of Mikayla's girlfriends over for a tea party/dress up party, so I'll be sharing some more fun pictures if you want to come back to see!

And...if you want to see some of my other "themed obsession", check out the following:

Monkey Birthday Party
Flowers & Favorites Birthday Party
Pink & Green Icecream Sundae Baby Shower (aka Pickles & Icecream)
Themed Baby Shower Gifts

Head on over to We Are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday!