Ice Cream Shoppe Party

This next party that I am posting is actually the first one I did that I went all out on.  This was my daugther, Madison's 3rd Birthday Party held in June 2009.  I hadn't started reading the party blogs yet so my inspiration for this theme came from an article I found in Parent's Magazine in 2006...the year Madison was born.  I saved the article for three years just waiting for the opportunity to throw an ice cream party of my own. Now that I read party blogs and am so much more into party planning than I was back then, I realize how ameteur this party actually is.  It is a "real" party though.

I started planning with the colors and decided to go with pink, brown and white (Neapolitan ice cream colors) and mint green.

The invitation was from Tiny Prints.

Madison wore this dressed that I  picked up at Gymboree in 2007 in anticipation of throwing an Ice Cream Party someday.

 

I didn't do nearly as much decorating as I would have liked. I got as much up and out as I could before the party started. Here is a picture of one of the balloon bouquets. I found the big ice cream cone mylar balloons on ebay. Also a picture of the pavilion before too many people arrived. I have since learned to allow myself at least five hours to set up and drive around picking up balloons, food, cake etc. It was very hectic getting everything ready in time for this party since I only allowed two hours to get the park set up and myself dressed. A HUGE thank you to my wonderful husband who fought with getting the balloons untangled and keeping the cake from melting by running the AC in the car for an hour and also to my best friend Brigitte who helped with the set up.

I had the banner made at Party City. It was hung at the entrance to the pavilion.

 

The table decorations were made using a clear bucket that I found at Michaels. I cut pastel colored scrapbook paper to fit inside the buckets and stuffed them with tissue paper. I covered a bundle of lollipops with pink napkins to resemble a scoop of ice cream and I glued a red pom pom on top for a cherry. I placed these on top of sugar cones and put several of them inside of the buckets. Guests took them home after the party. I also attached pictures of ice cream cones to white boxes filled with Baskin Robbins ice cream flavored candies and Marshmallow candy sticks.

 

I also made these rice krispie treats and formed them into a fudgesicle shape and added a popsicle stick. I ran out of time to dip them in chocolate as I had planned. The kids loved them anyway!

I love to scrapbook so I created this picture frame mat out of scrapbook paper and embellished with stickers that fit the theme and a picture of the birthday girl. The mat was displayed on a table for guests to sign. It is now hanging in the kids' ice cream themed bathroom! Perfect decoration.

 

At the party I set up an ice cream bar. I bought some fabric in pastel prints and colors from a local fabric store and made a banner by cutting half circles from the fabric and I hot glued them to a piece of ribbon. The banner served as a back drop for the ice cream bar. I also found pink and white striped fabric which I draped over the plastic table cloth to dress it up a little. I had four metal tins to hold the ice cream containers. I put a little ice inside each to keep it cold. On each tin was an image of the ice cream flavor inside. I had a bunch of toppings available including M&Ms, Gummy Bears, Rainbow Sprinkles, Chocolate Chips, Crushed Oreos, Cherries, Chocolate Sauce and Caramel Sauce. Here is a picture of the ice cream bar and a close up of the tins.

I dipped ice cream cones in melted chocolate and put colored sugar on them for the sundaes. Pink, Green, White and Brown bowls and spoons were also available as well.

 

I found the cups holding the toppings at Kmart. I used the pink and the clear ones.

I found cute spoons at Target that have little ice cream handles. They are adorable! We used them to spoon out the toppings.

And I found a special cup for the Birthday Girl at Kmart as well.

I found paper products that coordinated nicely with the colors and theme from Zurchers.

I had cupcakes made at my local bakery (Cornerstone Caterers). They were a HUGE hit! They are cupcakes baked inside ice cream cones and topped with icing to look like actual ice cream. They did an amazing job on those!

Cornerstone also made her cake. I did my best to explain to them what I wanted and I think they did a fabulous job turning my vision into reality!

 

After singing happy birthday and enjoying cake we were off to make ice cream sundaes.

 

 

I hired a local children's entertainer, Ellen Watermelon, to entertain the kids for the first 40 min. of the party. She was wonderful and even customized her show to fit our Ice Cream Theme. How sweet!

 

I found an Ice Cream Cone Pinata at Party City.

I made a Pin the Cherry on the Ice Cream game. I attached fabric to a wooden dowel and made an ice cream cone from felt. I glued it to the fabric. I attached velcro to large red pom poms to use as cherries. The one who came closest to placing the cherry on top of the cone won an ice cream play set.

  

Since most of the kids were three and under I set up different stations for them to occupy themselves. One of them was a coloring station that included ice cream themed coloring sheets and these super cute crayons I found on Etsy.

 

I also had an ice cream parlor play set from Melissa and Doug and put that out for the kids to play with.

 

The party favors were placed in celophane bags and I made the topper for those that said "Thank you for coming to Madison's Party." Each bag included an ice cream bowl and spoon from Oriental Trading, an ice cream ball popper, an ice cream cone Krazy Straw, an ice cream cone bubble necklace and ice cream sundae stickers.

All in all it was a great party. This was the first one that I really went all out on. Now that I know a bit more about creating printables and things for parties and of course the infamous sweets tables, I would do things much differently.  I may have to reuse this theme in the future so I can go all out.

I hope you enjoyed your third birthday my SWEET Madison.  Mommy loves you! XOXO