Candy Theme Birthday Party

After much deliberation over this very important event, my family decided upon a candy themed birthday party for our 1 year old daughters birthday.

My Mother-in-Law has been a wedding coordinator/florist for many many years, so she had many ideas for us to use. Below, are a few pictures from the event, to help you to gain ideas, insight, and inspiration for your child's Candy Theme Birthday Party:

 The Birthday Cake

                             

           This cake was a take on the Wilton 2012 yearbook as seen below:

We ordered 3 fondant covered cakes from a local bakery. We then purchased the edible fondant sheets from a local party store, and used cookie cutters to cut out the circles and diamonds seen on the cake, as well as the white dripping icing seen on the blue layer. We used a candy necklace to line the bottom layer, the sheet of hard candies for the middle, and sprees for the top layer.

The top part of the cake, seen above, was put onto a small paper plate so that we could slide it off and use it as our daughters smash cake. We bought a large cupcake cake pan from Wal-mart and iced it ourselves. The candle was bought from craftedcandles.com .

This middle part was regular ice cream cones stuck in with icing and wooden dowels. We formed the ice cream with boxed fondant found at our local party store, and let it dry overnight. We then attached it to the cones with royal icing.

The bottom layer was made using the cake pop sticks found at our local party store, and again we just used boxed fondant to roll out worm shaped fondant and then swirled it together. They are stuck to the sticks using royal icing as well.

The Smash Cake Area

This highchair was an old find out back in the family barn. However, many wooden high chairs can be found at antique stores or flea markets. We sanded this one down, and spray painted it pink. We got the script letters in the iron-on department at Hobby Lobby. The jewels were by the craft section, and the tulle on the bottom was gathered and attached to elastic. Tulle was located in the fabric section also at Hobby Lobby. The tray was covered in pink foil wrapping paper.

This is a view of the chair with the backdrop. The backdrop was just a room divider that we painted white and stood up to cover the window behind the chair. I made the banner by hand with felt, scissors, glue, and pompoms. The candy that is hanging from it was made by us, and the tulle was draped, cut, and hug with wire onto the screen.

The Decorations

A close up of one of the candies. They can also be seen below, attached to the walls with tape. The lollipops were made with circles cut from Styrofoam, and then clued to small pvc pipe.  The rectangle ones, seen above, were made with florist foam wrapped in foil paper, and the circle ones, seen below, were made with plastic plates, wrapped in clear cellophane. We tied the ends with curly ribbon for an added flair.

Below are a few more possible ideas that we had, but did not use. However, I will list them for reference.

Balloons with pvc pipe and clear cellophane on old wrapping paper tubes taped to the ground.

A candy land path made with poster boards, scrapbook paper, or even colored printing paper, taped to the floor and/or entryway of party.

Candies made from balloons wrapped with tissue paper, tied on either side.

 Once the smash cake was over, we used the white room divider as a souvenir for our daughter from the party. We got all of the guests to put their hand print with finger paint, and then sign their names.

The Front Door to Party

 Made with different colored tulle draped together, and secured with our homemade candy decorations, as well as a few candy themed Christmas Decorations which could easily be ordered offline. (We bought ours locally at the Christmas shops since the party was in November).

This was the candy store. My Mother-in-Law already had this shelving unit, however, anything with shelves would be suited. We ordered clear candy canisters from Oriental Trading and bought many different kind of candies to fill them.  I printed labels for each canister on the computer and taped them. We also put the harder, more expensive, and choke-hazardy candy towards the top so that the smaller children had to ask permission. We made the candy store sign with foam, and attatched it with double sided tape. We wired on two lollipops at the top. For candy scoops, we used metal spoons from the dollar tree.

The Presents

 We have her party at our family church, so we utitlized the space, and moved the alter to create a present center. The guests dropped their gifts off in the church. We set up some themed balloons behind her, and put her pink recliner chair in the middle to sit in to open gifts.

This gave plenty of room for presents, and had plenty of seating and great view for all of the guests.

Tips, Tricks, and Further Info:

Unfortunately, I did not take pictures of the invitations or take home gifts. However, the invites were boxes of candy we got from wal-mart (the dollar boxes for movies). We printed out an invite on the computer onto colored paper, and cut it the shape of the candy boxes. We then glued it to the box and shipped each guest their own box of candy! It was an amazing idea, that everyone loved, but after $145 just in shipping, we decided to tone the invites down next year! 

We also gave the children mini gumball machines filled with gumballs to take home. Ordered off of dollartree.com.

As always, many different sites such as pintrest.com or keep.com were very helpful for ideas. As well as parents.com especially for this particular theme. 

Also, I do not take credit for any pictures that are not from our party. There are numerous images that I gathered from the internet, and their credit is their own!

I will be posting pictures from her 2nd Birthday party next, so be on the lookout for the circus theme!