Josiah's Mickey Mouse Party- Mickey Ears

One of the biggest hits of Josiah's party were the Mickey and Minnie headbands I made for each kid. I was in constant contact with the invited guests to make sure I knew who was coming and who wasn't. I LOVE making customized favors/gifts for friends and guests. Who doesn't love something specially made with their name on it?!?!

I got the tutorial from The Suburban Mom. This tutorial is perfect, and I can't think of anything noteworthy that I really did differently. One tiny adjustment was that I assembled the bow a little differently by wrapping the bow in the same ribbon and gluing it in place, rather than using ribbon to attach the entire bow to the headband. (You may be able to see the subtle difference in my picture compared to her's.) And the only other exception is that I also made tiny headbands for the newest little babies that were coming to the party. I found out the approximate size of the babies' heads, cut a piece of elastic accordingly, and used black felt to cover the elastic band. Then I glued the ears the same way I did the older kids' headbands.

Finally, for my own personalized touch, I used pink or red fabric paint to paint each kid's name on the ears. I tried my best to match the Disney font. And I made a few extra ones that were blank in case someone showed up that I wasn't expecting or in case an adult wanted one as well.

All of the guests enjoyed the headbands, from young to young-at-heart. My mom even insisted on having her own with "Nana" printed on the ear. Several adults took a blank one for them, and I even had a special request for some headbands for people who weren't even at the party. Two of my cousins had just returned from Disneyland weeks earlier. I was most worried they wouldn't appreciate the headbands, being the oldest kids at 7 & 9 years old. However, they were thrilled, saying that it was a reminder of their trip. They even helped model the headbands while I was still in the midst of production, helping me to ensure that everything was the right size for all ages.

Gender Reveal Party

In June of last year (2011), I was facing the half-way point of my pregnancy and eagerly anticipating the discovery of whether baby #2 was a boy or a girl. I had seen previous examples of gender reveal parties and knew that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a special party, especially to celebrate my newest little one. Most of the parties I'd seen consisted of guests slicing open a cake or biting into a cupcake to reveal the hidden colored filling or batter. While this is an adorable idea, I'm always trying to find slightly new ways to do an event.

I started with pink and blue of every decor I could get my hands on!

We had pink and blue balloons, and some of them said "It's a boy" or "It's a girl" on them. I made signs to hang everywhere. I bought decorations for each gender. There were even pink and blue daisies on each table. Pink and blue was everywhere- down to the tablecloths, silverware, plates, and napkins. We even had kool-aid in both pink and blue for everyone to drink! I considered serving the foods that I had been craving, as a personal pregnancy touch, but I didn't figure that everyone wanted to eat salsa, pickles, and oranges. So, we ordered pizzas instead.

I strung the ultrasound pictures across the wall, but made sure to hide the gender revealing ones:

I asked all of the guests to wear pink or blue to showcase their guess for the baby's gender:

I, myself, stayed neutral and tie-dyed my own tank top blue an pink (didn't turn out as great as I hoped) and painted my toenails for the special occasion:

Finally, rather than having guests bite into cupcakes, I decided to have them bust open cupcake pinatas! I bought one girl pinata and one boy pinata. I filled each with lots of candy, and then one candy bar in each pinata had a sign taped to it revealing the baby's gender. This way, even when the pinata was opened, the guests still had to search for the right candy bar- more suspenseful in my opinion!

Surprise! Baby #2 is a boy!!! And we surprised everyone even further by announcing that we decided to completely change his name from the one we had been announcing all along! 

(Jaydon, my cousin, wearing the pinata as a hat.)

"You mean I'm having a baby brother?"

(Oh! How much of a difference 9 months makes! Josiah has grown so much!!!)

My best friend was just 3 months ahead of me in her pregnancy and she was also having a little boy:

Less than 5 months later, my baby boy, Micah James arrived! 

Josiah's Mickey Mouse Party- Banners

Oh man! I wish I had better pictures of these banners because they turned out so great!

This was one of my favorite elements of the party!

I started with cutting out white cardstock into the size rectangles that I wanted. Next, I cut the black to go over it, cutting a wider stripe on the top and bottom and thinner stripe on the sides. I cut white squares and glued these over the black paper to make the film strip look- this was much easier than trying to cut out squares from the black with an x-acto knife or scissors!

Next, printed out pictures of each character from the computer after cropping them to be the right size for the rectangle. I made sure to print them in black and white and color them myself. This was so they would appear more uniform, rather than some color printed ones and some hand colored ones.

Then I printed out the phrase from Microsoft Word using the Minnie font and cut each letter out as well as some yellow stars. Then it was just a matter of gluing it all together and attaching the rectangles to each other with brads.

This picture is not very good since the banner was too large to photograph head-on. So, here are the 3 photos pieced together. At least you can see how it all hung together...

Oh! It was so cute!!!

Next, I used the same pattern as I did for the invitations and made a bunch of Mickey/Minnie heads. I left the Mickey ones blank (no pants) because I thought they'd be too busy looking if I had letters and pants. On the Minnie ones, I made a bow to top each one. I then printed out the phrase "Oh Two-dles" and glued each letter to the heads. I punched 2 holes in each ear and ran red ribbon through the holes to string the entire banner. The only pictures I have of the process and of close up are terrible ones from my phone:

At the party, I strung this banner on the opposite side of the table from the other banner- right where everyone could see it upon entering the party!

Josiah's Mickey Mouse Party- Food

In addition to cupcakes, we also had a cake. My mom found the cake pan and decorated it herself using pictures online as a guide for colors and details.

(It looked great! I wish I could've gotten a picture of it more straight on so you could see the whole thing.)

When it came to the rest of the food, we needed to have lunch food since the party was from 11am-1pm. And, when you think of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, you know that hot dogs are a must! Hot dog! Hot dog! Hot diggity dog! So, we grilled up hot dogs for all of the guests with a special label:

(These were framed and posted by each item of food.)

With the hot dogs, we also had individual bags of chips:

"Mickey Ears" (Oreos):

and Mouska-Cupcakes:

 

Josiah's Mickey Mouse Party- Cupcake Toppers

One of my favorite things to make for any party is cupcake toppers. They are SO EASY and add in an additional personal touch to any event. I use punches to cut out these circles (scalloped and not) and they are a lifesaver!!!

I punch the outer layer with this punch, on any color cardstock of your choice:

 

(This is not the same size as mine- I think mine is 1 3/4" to 2"- but is the same style and brand)

Then I cut a slightly smaller circle with a circle punch, and finally cut my picture out with an even smaller punch  (both like this) :

 

My designs are created on Microsoft Word, by adding any clipart or word art to my page and outlining it with a circle the same size as my punch. Then you just turn the punch upside down (I'm not sure why they make it that way!) and punch it along the lines. You can glue the papers on top of each other or use scrapbooking tape. Then, the papers are glued onto a toothpick, sucker stick, or popsicle stick. All done and super easy!

For Josiah's party, I made 3 different Minnie themed toppers, 3 Mickey ones, and 2 generic ones. 

Josiah LOVED his cupcake...

... to put it mildly...

Josiah's Mickey Mouse Party- Centerpiece #2

While browsing ideas for Josiah's birthday party decorations, I was inspired by this site. Coincidentally, it was another Mickey Mouse party for another little Josiah! I used their idea for both the centerpiece of Josiah's name and for the hot air balloons centerpieces I am about to show you, as well as some signs that are still to come. Of course, I added my own personal touches!

I tried to make mine as much like the cartoon's version as possible. So, I used ceramic pots and painted them all red. I then used wire and twine to make the strings holding the balloon. The balloon was cut from a glove shape I found online, sewn up, and stuffed with cotton batting. Then black felt was glued on to create the accents on the glove. I also wrapped the twine around the edge of and created sandbags out of brown napkins and batting. I filled the pots with marbles to weigh them down and to have something for the toys to sit on. However, I learned later that they were not heavy enough! They kept falling down with every gust of wind at the party! EEK! So, for anyone replicating this (especially outside), I highly recommend making sure your centerpiece is heavy enough to withstand the wind! Finally, we used the extra batting underneath each balloon and spread out to create the look of clouds. I loved the look of them! Ready for pictures???

And, finally, these are the centerpieces in the midst of being made, but shows all 5 characters that we had:

Josiah's Mickey Mouse Party- Favors

One of my absolute favorite things to incorporate into birthday parties and baby showers are candy bar favors.

The process is pretty easy. I buy regular-sized Hershey bars in bulk. These don't have the foil wrapping and the extra paper around it. Instead, they just have a plastic wrapper around them.

  

I leave them wrapped in their original wrapper, but cover the outside in white wrapping paper. This hides the brown plastic and gives my bar a nice, clean packaging. Wrap it just like a present, and I highly recommend using white wrapping paper from the $1 store. Then I cover the candy bar with the wrapper that I designed, fitting the theme of the party. Because I've done this so many times, I've got the template saved to my computer, and I just customize it according to the theme of the party, printing it out on cardstock paper from my printer. You can use scotch tape over the edges but I prefer double-sides tape beneath the edge to have a cleaner look.

For Josiah's party, I couldn't resist creating these adorable candy bar favors. I made Mickey Mouse for the boys and Minnie Mouse for the girls.

You can't see the buttons or polka dots when the wrapper is folded, but they're an extra cute element when the bar is unwrapped.

 

 

These were a big hit with the party guests and turned out great.

*Template is available for sale at my Etsy shop.

My Favorite Things Party- Invitation Preview

These will be mounted on cardstock and have additional info on the back. But I'm still narrowing down a venue, so they can't be printed out just yet...

Here are the pictures of the front side, though, in all their wonderful, colorful, chevron glory:

   

Back of Invite: