Creations for Madelyn: Rainbow Party

From Easter until August, I'm on hiatus from life. Which is really difficult when you have a full time job, a little girl who is growing up way too fast, a husband, a household to take care of, family and friends who want attention (sorry guys). I had a little over 12 weeks of planning. And I still didn't get through my 'wish list', despite countless hours spent making and remaking lists and timelines.

Invitations. This is where 32 of those hours were spent. That's a part time job! I cut all the pieces on the Cricut. I used the Once Upon A Princess cartridge for the rainbow and the Sentimentals cart for the 'you're invited'. I glittered the sun and clouds, used glitter puff paint for the letters, glitter painted the rainbow and put everything together, using glue dots for a little pop.

I designed this on a road trip, using Pages for iPad. Pretty nice program for little projects like this.

The decorations. The poms alone took 12.5 hours, not in the same sitting, obviously.

I made the banner using the Cricut, easily a 2 hour project.

I made these pinwheels pretty far in advance and then didn't know what to do with them. Next time I will plan the decorating phase a little better. The morning of the party I boxed everything up, carried it downstairs and just threw it up wherever it made sense. I did have lots of Jones Soda bottles with pinwheels and star batons strewn about, but I didn't get good pics of those.

I cut out all these extra little stars that I then sewed together to make garland. I draped them over everything!

The husband made the balloon arch. He spent a couple hours the night before, blowing up balloons (and was STILL full of hot air). We used a balloon arch strip from Party City to tie the balloons to, then anchored it to the wall with Command hooks.

A close up of the 'Treats' table. The kids got to fill up their treat bags at the end of the party.

The food. I didn't get a lot of pictures of the food. Here's the line up: red velvet cake pops, vegan (kind of) red velvet cupcakes, red velvet brownies, lemon cheesecake bars, cake batter rice krispie treats, chocolate dipped Oreos, cupcake kabobs, sprinkle dipped marshmallows...

The activity. I didn't get a good picture of the favors. I cut out favor boxes using the Cricut and had the kids decorate them. Here's a picture of the adults doing the dirty work for the kids (which ALWAYS seems to happen). Pretty sure this was when the kids were running figure 8's through 2 very large rooms. Did we care, or try to stop them? Nope. We were too busy crafting!

We made glitter play dough for everyone to take home, using this recipe. It was pretty quick and easy and made a lot. Be careful not to under-cook it though or it wont form, and will turn into a gooey mess.

The Cake. The 6 layer cake. I LOVED these girls standing there holding hands, waiting for the cake cutting.

I practiced this cake 3 times and at the last minute, I completely changed it up. I used a coconut cake recipe I've had for years, I have no idea where I got it. I used the 7 minute frosting recipe mixed with coconut, for the filling, and iced it with cream cheese frosting. It was pretty delicious. Next time I'll find a different base for the coconut filling. I used the gel food coloring set in basic, it really did make great colors.