The first thing I did in order to commit was to make sure my husband was going to support me in spirit and with all the heavy duties (moving furniture, etc)! After I confirmed my husband support and we had a budget established ha ha, we decided on the theme.
Carla is such a girlie girl that 'Hot Pink' was the way to go, hence Hello Kitty was the perfect symbol to represent Carla’s happy and outgoing personality. After the theme was decided we settled on a date (a Saturday afternoon of course) I made sure I could take the Friday before off from work and we ordered the invitations from tinyprints.com (I love them..). Now with the invitations printed out I had to deliver the perfect party!
I’m a visual person (I’m an engineer) so here is an outline of the birthday party from decorations to food. I hope this will inspire and provide some structure to your festivities.
Decorations:
- We bought the majority of the decorations from party city locally. Oriental trade has a great selection but we were only 2 months away and I was afraid some things will not get on time. Of course we went to 4 different party city stores in order to find everything we wanted! We are talking balloons (latex and resin), posters, happy birthday banner, happy birthday hats, piñata, table arrangements, etc.
- In order to make things less expensive we decided to buy the generic hot pink plates, napkins, cups and silver ware instead of the character ones. That saved us probably one hundred dollars as we bought them on bulk.
- I made hot pink, pink and white tissue paper balls. Since the party I’m in love with the tissue paper balls, they look gorgeous and it was a super easy and inexpensive project. My husband that is totally a guys-guy helped me with the tissue paper balls. For instruction Google “tissue paper balls” at u-tube they have step by step instructions with video and everything.
- In order to make a stunning food table, we used crystal clear bases wrap with ribbon to store kids treats like cheerios, fishies, animal crackers, etc.
- We rented hot pink table cloths for the cake and food table, added another crystal clear base filled with pink ribbons (different shades of pink and designs, they sell them like that in a plastic container at Hobby Lobby, for a great price you get 15 ribbons). I used the ribbon to decorate some of the food platters and the remaining was arranged on the food table as a cute detail.
I made the majority of the food so it needed to by easy and delicious!
- I made a pastina with cheese, carrots and pees, I took the idea from Giada de Laurentis program in the food network. She did the pasta as part of the menu for a kid’s friendly menu. The pasta was super easy to do, for directions search the food network website.
- I also did meatballs sandies, with SAMS meatballs J and Hawaiian king sweet buns! Just the perfect size for kids, a quick suggestion to make the meatball stay in place add a little bit of ketchup and remove some of the inside bread from the bun and finish with a tooth peek. In order to make the toothpick more glam I ordered some hello kitty “happy birthday Carla” stickers. I order the stickers from etsy, unfortunately the stickers took 3 weeks to get home so they also missed the party. So make sure you ask the etsy provided for an estimate time of arrival before you pay just in case.
- We are in the southwest so of course we had salsa & queso with tostadas.
- Just to make sure everyone was cover we added some fruit, cheese and vegetables.
- The birthday cake…a great lady did an almond cake on the shape of Hello Kitty for everyone, she also did carrot cupcake with all natural ingredients for the kids, and sugar cookies for the ones that just wanted a little sweet to complete the celebration.
- It was a hello kitty party but I didn’t want to make it to silly with a hello kitty custom, so we used a pink onesie Carla had, we bought a tul skirt with a hot pink bow, and the 2 best accessories in the world. A hello kitty bow from etsy and white squeaky shoes from “Cherrie squeaks” (I love these squeak shoes, they encouraged Carla to walk and now is just a great conversation peace plus I also know (hear) where she is at all times ha ha.
- For the big cake part, we put Carla a “Happy Birthday” bib to save the outfit, and then she had sugar for her first time. She had fruit before and maybe an ounce of juice but she had her first cupcake with frosting and all. Carla was SUPER happy!
- We added the hello kitty balloons in different corners around the house including her high chair.
- I made a Happy Birthday sign at the front door, with scrap book stickers and a picture of her. We also added happy birthday balloons at the courtyard gate in our attempt to guide our friends to our home.
- The birthday mommy and daddy wore hello kitty pins!
- Believe it or not I couldn’t find a clown, I know a lot of people think they are creepy but my husband and I grew up in the Caribbean and clowns were a must in a kids birthday but apparently the profession is extinct. So we decided to bring a guy that sings and plays the guitar. He played children songs, the kids dance and had a great time. A total hit!
- Because is so young and most of the kids games do not apply to her, we rented a kids long table and chairs and put toys on it, so kids played to their hearts contect! This was a hit!
- Make sure your cutie pie takes a nap before the birthday party. This is the most important thing!!! We had to wake her up earlier that day, and encourage her to take a nap (whatever it took…in our case it took a car seat and a 30 minute drive around the down town but it worked). Carla took her 2hr nap before everyone got home and she had an amazing time, no crying, fussiness or whining! Thank God.
- Great friends, which arrived 30 minutes before to fix all the loose ends, and applied my make up!
- A talented and very patient photographer, in our case we a friend of a friend took the birthdy photos…he did an amazing job. This is going to be a memory for the rest of our lives so photos are a must!!!
- During the party just go with the flow, things will happen. For example Carla had all sorts of toys and friends but during the majority of the party she decided to play with a 'maraca', It was her loyal companion! Also, during the party one of the bathrooms decided to died, thank God there are 2 additional ones but it wasn't a pretty site when my lovely husband fix it (after the party of course...).
Thanks:
We are a three cord family so when I found this verse in the Bible I jumped with glee…”A threefold cord is not quickly broken” Ecclesiastes 4:12
