I just received some pictures from Princess Pea's birthday party last summer, and they've got me enjoying it all over again. It was such a great party that I thought I'd share it with you, even though it was nearly a year ago.
It was her 3rd birthday and she requested a rainbow party. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but she was obsessed with the idea, so that's what we had - a super fun, super colourful rainbow party!
We stuck to the rainbow theme as much as possible for the menu. We had a rainbow fruit plate (we tried to come up with a fruit in each colour), rainbow veggie plate (same deal), meatballs and dipping sauce, colorful pasta salad (I used tri-colour pasta and threw in colourful veggies like carrots and red peppers), apple juice with rainbow ice cubes (I made them using 3 different colours of fruit juice, frozen in layers), rainbow jelly (this was the big hit of the party, which I'll describe below), and a rainbow cake (also described below).
For games and activities, we started by making rainbow necklaces out of Froot Loops cereal, which they of course then got to eat.
Afterward, we played pass the parcel (my personal favourite!), with rainbow-coloured paper. Inside each layer (yes, each layer had a prize - I don't want to deal with any tears at our parties!) was either bubbles or a mini slinky.
Then we played the Coloured Eggs game - each child chooses a colour to be (they're the eggs), and the Big Bad Wolf calls out the colours of eggs he'd like to eat. If their colour is called, they have to run out of the 'house' (a bush) and run around a tree at the other end of the garden, and back safely to the house without getting caught by the wolf - I think my friend Kathy invented this game spontaneously at our Easter Egg Hunt party last year and they love it!
Next was musical colours - like musical chairs but instead of chairs we taped coloured papers onto different trees in the garden.
A fun time was had by all, but by far the biggest hit of the party was the rainbow jelly! This was quite an accomplishment for me - aside from the fact that it took 12 hours to make it, to allow setting time between each layer, it was quite complicated measuring out just exactly the right amount of each colour to mix up, because I wanted each layer to be the same depth, but it was in a tapered bowl. I had to measure and remeasure 3 times with water, to figure out exactly how much of each colour I needed, then figure out how much water to add to the jello mix to make it, since I wasn't using the whole packets. Anyway, it was well worth the effort, look how yummy it looks! I might just have to make it again this year, even though it's not a rainbow-themed party this year!
The cake was really simple. I made a chocolate-buttermilk cake (um, it's actually the only kind of cake I know how to make from scratch!), then covered it with butter icing. The icing was supposed to be blue (for the sky), but it turned out looking a bit greenish. Oh well. Then I used marzipan in all different colours to make the rainbow. For the cloud, I used 4 big marshmallows, held together with toothpicks then covered with white butter icing, and finally covered with mini-marshmallows to make the cloud effect. The pot of gold was a little wooden pot from the craft store, covered in shiny gold paper, and filled with chocolate coins. It's no Martha Stewart, but who wants to go to jail, anyway? I was quite proud of it for being a complete non-cook/non-baker!
This was such a fun party, and Princess Pea still talks about it regularly, nearly a year later!
For more party ideas, including lots more rainbow-themed ideas, see my Parties board on Pinterest.
This post is linked up at Frog, Goose and Bear's Party Ideas (loads of great inspiration for kiddie parties!), For the Kids Fridays, High Paw, and Tot Tuesdays (see the sidebar for these links), and at
