This whole crazy idea started when I spotted some colourful serviettes in Pete's Emporium a few months back. I thought 'why not create a kid's crazy colour party instead of a rainbow party' for my three-year old boy.
It got me thinking how you could easily create a primary colour birthday theme, incorporating musical statues on Twister, a coloured dot treasure hunt, pass the parcel with coloured wrapping paper, a punchbox, a multi-coloured layer cake topped with M&Ms and other fun food ideas.
And can I just say before I go any further how much I love Pinterest?! It was such a great source of inspiration (or should I say Pinspiration) for so many of the ideas that came to fruition for the party. I'll admit it's hard to know when to stop though when there's so much fun you can have in the creating. And me? Well let's face it - I kinda have this habit of going all out! Just ask my hubby, I think it drives him a bit bonkers at times!
Anyway, since we had such an awesomely fun-filled day, it's only fair you get to share it with us too!
The cake
The cake was awesome fun to make, although pretty time consuming by the time you've baked four different coloured cakes, layered and iced it and then bought enough bags of M&M's for decorating the outside to create an M&M shortage in Wellington! Can you tell I was lacking in yellow M&M's - they were very strategically placed to make sure I didn't run out - ha ha!
My original inspiration for the cake was found here (Paisley Jade's rainbow layer cake), and there are also great step-by-step instructions on how to make a layer cake here at Count It All Joy.
I bought the gel icing colours to colour the cakes at Moore Wilsons ($4 a pot) but I'm guessing places like Spotlight would also sell them. You don't need to use much and they'll last for many more funky cakes and cupcakes too so weren't expensive considering how far they'll go.
The Party Table
Hanging above the party table were 4 punch ball balloons kindly given to me by Faye, one of Noah's friends' mum who had a few going spare after making a pinata for her daughter's own party earlier in the year. At the back of the table was the punch box (but we'll get to that later).
The plates and cups were so easy to decorate. I bought half a dozen 140pc multi-colour dot packs from Uncle Bills Wholesale Club at about $1 each and just stuck them on the plates and cups. We also used the dots in pass the parcel and the dotty treasure hunt games and as take home goodies for the kids.
The finger painting messy place mats were a hit with the kids, again a Pinterest find via The Hippie Housewife. They were able to play with them whilst eating and chatting to each other. All you do is put a white piece of paper on the table, then put down a large freezer bag, open it up and put some dabs of paint inside the bag, seal the bag and tape it to the table. Voila. Fun fun fun!
As well as the usual Cheerio sausages and Cheezels that are a given at any kid's party, we made rainbow fruit kebabs, inspired by this pin from Pinterest.
And these marshmallows dipped in chocolate and topped with an MnM.
And this fairy popcorn (coated in white chocolate and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands) was also a Pinterest find too. It was a smash hit.
I will admit to having one failure on the party food front, which were the jelly oranges I attempted to make. They didn't set properly and must have had a few holes in from me digging out the orange segments so all the liquid oozed out before they could set, so they were a total non-starter - oh well you can't win em all - I'd much rather a jelly orange fail than a cake fail!
The other thing I did which the kids loved was serve them up lemonade and then had some coloured ice cubes on hand and let them choose what colour they'd like to make their drinks. I held my breath throughout proceedings, thinking someone was bound to tip their drink on the carpet but phew! we escaped unscathed.
The party decorations
After yet another fun Pinterest idea, I recreated a balloon wall with rows of coloured balloons, hanging streamers and some fun oversize confetti out of tissue paper. I'll admit I spent a fair few hours cutting out streamers and confetti last weekend in preparation. The kids loved wandering through the streamers, and look who I caught under there eyeing up another slice of cake!
Even if he did then only really eat the icing and M&Ms. So typical!
The party games
No matter what theme you have for your party, you can always adapt old favourites to suit. For us, this was making up some crazy colour variations on Pass the Parcel, Musical Statues and a Treasure Hunt.
For Pass the Parcel, I'd wrapped up tissue paper in between the treat layers. And all the kids were given a coloured dot to wear. This meant that once the music stopped and the person opened the coloured layer, they then had to pass the parcel onto someone who had that coloured dot to open the treat layer.
For the next game, we played Musical Statues and when the music stopped they all had to jump on the colour of dot I called out.
Then we held a treasure hunt looking for coloured dots around the house. We gave each kiddy a piece of paper and they each had to find all four different colours. One room had 6 blue dots, another room 6 green dots etc. The kids all helped each other and did well - as well as 3-year old limited attention spans can do that is!
A few weeks back I made a punch box as the finale of the party, for the kids to punch their fingers through and get a little pack of M&M's and a sticker sheet to take home.
The kids were all quite gentle doing the punch box which was sweet - much more so than if older brother Noah's mates had been doing it I think! They were able to add these treats to a few other themed take home goodies I'd put together for them, like these coloured playdough balls. The gel icing colours came in handy making these too, though I was half expecting to get RSI in my hands after spending nearly an hour kneading the colours into the playdough!
The other two goodies were a fingerpaint/stamper set and some water beads (you can see how these work here).
And that was that. We came, we danced, we ate, we drank, and we played. And I'm pretty sure we we kicked colour's crazy butt!
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