Have a slice!: Rainbows Rainbows Rainbows

Every few months or so I resolve to blog more. Yeah, I've never been good with resolutions. So here is my first blog post in nearly a year and it better be good because I probably won't have another one for at least 6 months, ha!

Right about the time Lauren turned 3 and a half, she became interested in rainbows..no, wait, OBSESSED is more accurate. Everything was and is still all about rainbows, from underwear to Barbie outfits.

So, SURPRISE! She wanted a rainbow 4th birthday party. I scoured the internet and found tons of ideas and came up with a few of my own as well. I did the best I could on a full-time working mom's schedule. In the end, all that mattered was that my Rainbow Girl was the happiest girl in the world on that day!

We had also just come off a Hawaiian vacation so the party was actually a Hawaiian Rainbow Theme and this was the original invitation idea:

But I ended making each invitation by hand after I was struck by inspiration while doing some scratch off art with Lauren one afternoon:

Lauren actually made the rainbow (using a stencil) and the rest was just my goofy handwriting. It wasn't much more work than writing all that information down on a store-bought invitation and it was nice that each invitation was unique. I bought a couple boxes of the rainbow scratch art kit (with 20 5x7 sheets of the paper and stencils) at Michaels for about 4$ each (yay for those 40% off coupons).

I used the rainbow scratch paper for everything from the invitation to signs to an art activity for the kids.

For an activity we did more of the scratch art and I got these scratch art plastic mugs at Michaels too. The kids also made some rainbow pinwheels from a kit I found at Target.

Hats were leftover from previous birthday parties. Yes, I am a hoarder.

The kids each made a rainbow scratch art mug.

Rainbow pinwheels.

We set up a photobooth with brightly colored backdrop and fun rainbow props. Some of the other props were from past halloween costumes. I got the idea to use a bedsheet from Ikea for the backdrop here.

Food was a mix of Hawaiian and Philippine cuisine. Hawaiian BBQ chicken, Kalua Pig, Pancit, SPAM musubi, and Lumpia. We had a variety of desserts, these pics are only a small sample of all the food we had. Yeah, we're all about the food. I didn't get any pics of the food, but believe me...it was all GOOD!

Mini Cupcakes, Rainbow Cake, TimTams, Chocolate covered Macadamias, Haupia

Rainbow TimTams (dressed up with a drizzle of melted chocolate and a sprinkle of, well, sprinkles.)

Dressed up Rice Krispy treats

Rainbow Fruit

What rainbow party would be complete without a Rainbow Cake. It turned out great (except that I misplaced the orange and yellow layers....ergh! bugs me every time I see the pic! It was 2 in the morning when I built the cake...that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Lauren noticed..but didn't care. I used this recipe for the frosting, cake was made from white cake mix. It was yummy and the frosting held up well. Some guests commented that the cake tasted like Fruit Loops.

We decorated with rainbow tissue poms and rainbow streamers. Lauren and I made rainbow paper chains over the summer with a kit from Daiso (got the smaller pom kits there too).

The mantel had pics of Lauren from her previous birthdays

Party favors were surprise balls, which were a great way to use up leftover toys and bits from Easter, birthdays, and valentine's days past (everything from rings, bouncy balls, stickers, to tattoos). The feedback I got about these balls was that they were a beautiful mess when the kids opened them up at home. They had as much fun with the colorful streamers as they did with the little prizes inside.