My February Resolution??

So, today is the first day of February, and I am way behind in my blogging yet again.  But, who says I can't make a February resolution to blog more.

So where was I when I last wrote?  I was telling you more about the Sesame Street party I planned for my two year old daughter Arianna.  I will say that unfortunately, I learned some of the tips I am sharing with you the hard way.

The Location 
I held Arianna's party in the fellowship hall of my parent's church.  It was absolutely free to use and allowed enough space to easily accommodate our guests. And, clean up was super easy!

The Cake
I had to search several different grocery stores and bakeries before I found the perfect cake for my Sesame Street themed party at Walmart.  The cake was delicious and looked great, despite the Elmo and Abby teeter totter falling over just seconds after I left the store.  The best part for my daughter was that she got to keep the Elmo and Abby figurine.  The best part for me was the $29.00 price.

Hint:  This cake wasn't listed in any of their large cake catalogs.  I told the Walmart bakery employee what I was looking for and she dug a bit and found this kit they had.  If you'd like the same cake, I'd start by asking one of the bakery employees instead of wasting time looking for this cake in one of the books.

The Cake Pops
Even though I've just recently started to ever so tentatively get into cake decorating, I knew I wasn't up for the task yet of creating a cake for my daughter's party.  Instead, I decided to make cake pops.

As I mentioned in my previous post, if you've never made cake pops, do not attempt to start the process at 10:00 at night.  Had I not had the Baby Cakes Cake Pop Maker, it would have been even later.  I also had an issue with dipping the cake pops in the white candy melts I purchased.  I have now purchased the Baby Cakes Chocolate Dipper.  I'll let you know in upcoming posts if it was helpful or not.

Despite the late night and lack of experience, I think they looked fairly decent and they were delicious.  Plus, I felt I had sort of made my daughter a "cake" for her birthday party.

Party Favors
Since there were a number of younger children coming to the party, my husband thought it would be a great idea to get them some toys to play with.  So, we put together these fun Elmo themed treat bags that included a number of inexpensive favors from Party City.  I found the free Elmo artwork at Shery K Designs and printed it on card stock and attached to the plain red favor bags.  The kids loved the favors and it kept them busy for quite a while.


Guest Table

I decided to do simple yellow table cover on all the guest tables with a very simple bouquet of red and yellow carnations as the centerpieces.  I used small vases that I had on hand from previous parties and sprinkled some Sesame Street confetti around them.  If I had to do it over, I would substitute the colorful paper that I decided to add to one of the buffet tables at the last minute (and absolutely fell in love with) instead of the confetti.

I love, love, love this paper and plan on using paper to decorate with again in the future.  I purchased this particular paper from Joann's in the scrapbook paper section.  I loved the raised texture of the dots and the paper was a very heavy and durable stock.  Plus, it makes for a colorful and bold statement and clean up is so much easier than cleaning up little bits of confetti.





Other Decorating
I purchased this inexpensive Happy Birthday banner at the Dollar Store and added paper tissue fans purchased at Party City to decorate the buffet area.

We found these fun Elmo juice boxes at Walmart which were not only decorative but functional as well.

We also found the white serving bowls at the Dollar Store and the white plastic serving tray at Party City.  Plus, what is a birthday party without some balloons.  I selected an Elmo foil balloon with some yellow and red latex balloons.  Three weeks later and they are still going strong!