a candyland party success

Well the big Candyland party that we have been brain storming for, planning and anticipating is finally over!  And we've got one very happy and content 4 year old in its wake.  We have a lot of family and friends who live halfway across the country and could not be here, so this post is essentially for them, while also passing on some of the great ideas I came across in blog land for anyone looking to throw their own Candyland extravaganza!

Let's start at the very beginning - invitations!  I knew I wanted to make my own, but ideas out of the blue is not my strong suit.  I usually do pretty good at recreating someone else's ingenuity, however.  The problem is, I forgot to take pictures of the ones I made, and I didn't make any extras.  So I will have to settle for the original from which I got the idea in the first place: Gumball Invitations These invitations look much better than mine, but I was pleased with how they turned out anyway.

 


My vision for the outside came to life.  It really did.  It was exactly the way I wanted it to look.  I had another peppermint lollipop at the end of the driveway too.  Then the balloons at the end of the driveway shrunk.  And a few posterboards blew away, and the sign would not stay in it's place for anything.  I'm so glad Josh got a picture of it before it fell apart.  At least we know what it looked like, even if our guests only saw one or two squares!  :)

The peppermint lollys were fun to do.  This idea was all over the internet.  The one I referenced is HERE.  I made it with paper plates, craft paint, cellophane, thread and a wooden dowel.  I was a little hesitant on the peppermint design at first but once I got going it was pretty easy.  I painted the outside of two plates and then used hot glue to stick them together.  I bought a roll of cellophane at Target and the wooden dowels I swiped from the kids' windmills (sshhh! ;)  Then I just tied the balloons on with some ribbon.

We almost lost this puppy.  At just a few minutes before the party was supposed to start, we realized the white part had come off and blew away.  Josh found it on the neighbor's tree.  Several pieces of packing tape later we were back in business.  

 


The Birthday Wreath!  I think I am probably most proud of how this turned out.  I originally made some candy in different colored fabric because I was using what I had.  But then I went to JoAnn's and found this purple and pink fabric in the remnant section and picked it up.  I'm so glad I did because it looks so much better!  The candy idea came from this blog post at Small Fry & Co. For sake of time, I switched it up a little.  I cut my wreath circle out of cereal box cardboard, and painted it red so it wouldn't stand out against the red door as much.  I cut up toilet paper rolls and stuffed them with polyfill.  I cut the fabric into rectangles and sewed up the long side making a cylinder shape.  I stuffed it all in there, twisted up the sides and tied it with white thread!  It was really pretty easy.  I do think I would have liked it better with the cellophane like this blogger did originally, but I just didn't have much time.  I really like how this turned out though!  Oh, and I got the idea to put the 4 in there from a picture on Pinterest, but it was an Etsy listing and no longer exists so I couldn't link to the original post.  I just cut it out of the cereal box cardboard, painted it white and then painted different color dots all over.  I love it!

This paper plate candy was pretty easy, yet a little time consuming.  Sadly, it's the only one I made.  I wanted more, but just didn't have the time to make them.  

Candy on the walls and lollipops on the mantle.  The lollipop sticks were supposed to be painted white but again...ran out of time!  I blame it on moving two weeks before the party.  Link for lollipops.  I don't have a link for the balloon candy.  I found it on Pinterest and my computer won't take me to the site due to a suspicious link.  Weird, but you really don't need instructions.  Just wrap a balloon in cellophane!  I tied it with white thread so you couldn't see it.  

I lied.  I said the wreath was my favorite, but I think this garland is my favorite.  I didn't really have any instructions for this because the link I found was to an Etsy site where someone was selling it.  But it didn't look too hard to me so I gave it a whirl.  I did it a little different in that I left about 4 inches of space between circles rather than sewing them right next to each other.  I think I like it better because you can see into the next room very easily and it gives such a nice "pop" to the decor.

The sugary treats display!  I put some boxes under the table cloth to make it a little different.  Now that I'm looking at the picture I would have arranged it a little differently but at this point in the set up I was feverishly piping and decorating the cake while quickly spouting off to Josh where I wanted everything.  More on the cake later - whew!

I thought these marshmallow pops were a perfect addition, and being a bargain shopper I was excited to find them at the dollar store.  Daisy tasted one yesterday and said it was yucky!  Oh well.  At least they looked good.  :)  I stood them up in a goblet-full of marshmallow ice cream cones.

Having the party just a couple weeks after Easter came in handy this year as I was able to save a lot of extra jelly beans as well as get some on a major sale after the holiday.  I love the idea of displaying the cake pops this way.

Here are the original candy pieces I had made and decided I didn't like for the wreath.

These might have been the biggest hit with the kids...or maybe it's because they were closest to the edge of the table, but by the end of the party there were only a few left!  I took locations from the game and put up signs next to candy that resembled it, just to add a little cuteness.

Sweet Tart gummies!  I originally thought these would be fun on skewers and then I thought, "what am I thinking?  Skewers at a toddler birthday party?"  Yeah.  Glad I thought that one through.

I've been wanting to try these cake pops for a while and just never took the time to.  This was the perfect opportunity and they turned out great!  SusAnna's Sweets will definitely be adding these to their site!

One of my favorites: Laffy Taffy!

Marshmallow sticks!

Another fun pop display.  These cupcakes were a lot harder than they looked! 

I like how the black basket turned out with the ribbon threaded through it.  Unfortunately this is the best picture I have of it.  Cupcake cake bites and marshmallow cupcakes along with some very large dot candy!

Now...the cake!  I was very happy with the crumb coat.  It was the best I've done on corners, I think.

Here it is iced up, before attempting to smooth it out.  I made a mistake and stuck it in the fridge before smoothing it.  I didn't think it would make a difference, but with my time crunch it definitely did.  When I pulled the cake back out to smooth it and decorate it, I had very little time to work with.  I like to use the hot knife method when smoothing cakes but with it being hardened in the fridge it just did work.  So I just tried to cover up the really bumpy parts as best I could.

I could sit here and tell you everything I had planned to do that I just couldn't because I didn't have time, but I think I will just show you the cake and leave it at that.  :)  I think it turned out cute, even if it wasn't totally what I had originally planned out in my head.  The ice cream accident on the top is my favorite part.

I also like the cake bite cupcakes on it.

Okay, I will tell you one thing I was going to do different.  I wanted the letters in her name to be all different colors, but the white on white is okay too.

Red KoolAid?  At first I couldn't figure out if this was really smart and cute because it was a Candyland party, or just really stupid to have at a toddler's birthday party after just moving into a new place with nice carpet.  Thankfully it was a nice day and the kids were able to be outside a lot so we came out unscathed with zero spills!  I missed getting the plates, napkins, forks and spoons in the picture, but they were all different colors.  I loved that part of this theme.  And as you can see, part of my garland became a table decoration when Jesse decided to high-tail it through the hanging circles over and over at lightening toddler speed.

I can't believe I didn't get a better picture of these.  I made some candy beanbags out of felt for the kids to play games with.  The idea came from this post, although I think I actually like mine better.  :)  For some of them I painted on a peppermint and spiral design, and I used white thread to sew them so you wouldn't be able to see it very well.  The only thing is, I didn't have small beans, I only had lima beans, but I'm a big fan of using what you already have on hand if at all possible.  So I used the lima beans, and they worked great, but probably would have been even more fun with little beans.  

The kids had a blast with it.  We had them try to toss them into the bowls.  Fun times for all.  :)

I thought the treat buckets were fun.  I had a different color bucket for each kid.  Each bucket held an ice cream lollipop, a toothbrush, and then before leaving they got to pick whatever candy they wanted from the table to fill up their bucket.  I'm sure the mommies appreciated me.  ;)  It was a great party, our girl had fun.  That being said, if ever we have a birthday during a time when we are going through a major life change (like, oh say moving, for example) I will never do this again.  Haha!  I think if this ever happens again we'll be doin it up Chuck E Cheese style.