Mickey and Minnie Birthday Party

A couple of weeks ago, we went on a little trip to Bristol, Tennessee and had a joint birthday party for our kids. Originally, we wanted to have the party at our house, but Bristol is a more convenient location for a lot of our family. I had to switch gears from most of my original ideas since the party ended up being at a park. I thought the park would be a fun location for the kids, but it definitely had some decorating challenges. The rules of the park restricted us from hanging anything from beams, trees, fences, etc., so that really put a damper on my plans. I decided to mostly focus on the table decor since I really couldn't do much else. I didn't take the wind into consideration when planning things out, though, and all my decorations were getting blown away. I tried to at least snap a few pictures first.



For the kids' table, I made place mats by cutting the Mickey Mouse shape out of felt. Each child got a party hat covered with wrapping paper that had mouse ears added and a pom pom for the top. I also made Mickey and Minnie favor boxes out of toilet paper rolls to hold coloring pages and crayons. The labels for the bags came from some free printables that you can find here. I also used them for the banner, the labels on the bottles for the centerpieces, and the toppers for the fruit-kabobs. The favors included stickers, candy, mickey mouse fruit snacks, a book, and necklaces for the girls.

 

And of course no Mickey and Minnie party would be complete without bows, so each girl got a hair bow and the boys got bow ties.

I kept the centerpieces for the kids' table very simple and just used materials I already had. I took a bamboo skewer and inserted it into a paper straw. Just put a dab of hot glue on the end to hold them together. I cut out a Mickey Mouse shape from cardstock and used a glue stick to glue wrapping paper to it and taped that onto the paper straw. I should have made 2 Mickey Mouse shapes (one for the front and one for the back) so it wouldn't look ugly on the back, but I didn't. I put a foam block into yellow pails, stuck the skewer in the foam, and covered the base with red paper shreds. Then, just tied some ribbon to the stick. I love projects that are simple and free! 

I made windmills for the adult tables, but the wind kept blowing them over. I eventually gave up on trying to keep them up.

 

Even though the park rules would not allow me to hang anything, I wanted to find a way to hang a banner without breaking the rules. I found 2 shepherd's hooks at Jo-Ann on clearance for less than $2 each and they were perfect. Notice the wind blowing the balloons -Yikes!

 

I wanted to keep the food simple, so we had chips, fruit, a sweets tray, and of course hot dogs (the song is stuck in my head now).

 

 

 

The poor cupcakes melted. They were making a big mess.

 

 

The park where we had the party had this cute train for the kids to ride. It was a big hit!

 

I can't forget about their birthday attire. I'm sure it's no surprise that I appliqued a shirt for my son and made a pillowcase dress for my daughter (since that's pretty much the only thing I know how to make).

 

I think I learn something from every party that hopefully will help me when I plan parties in the future. At this one, I learned that I need to keep the wind in mind for outdoor parties and I think I spent too much time working on little projects that weren't even very noticeable (like the toilet paper roll favor boxes). I will probably get this party thing down about the time they outgrow these little cutesy parties, haha. Oh well, as long as the kids have fun and they feel special, I am happy.