June 2: Pink Lemonade Birthday Party Details

Whew!  We all survived the Pink Lemonade birthday party.  I often question whether all the effort I put into these parties is worth it in the end.  I get stressed out, and right now I am so exhausted, but deep down, it is still fun for me (despite outward appearances to the contrary, at times).

I rarely have a good idea of my own; pretty much everything I come up with I found somewhere else on the internet.  I'm going to try to give credit to all the original sources for these ideas.  (Thank you Pinterest for making this much easier for me!)

If you are interested in all the details of the decor, favors and food for Isla's party, keep reading.  I love reading about party details on other blogs, so I thought I would share mine here.

If you are interested in reading about the birthday girl and her big day, then come back for tomorrow's post!!

I checked the weather this morning, which said there was a 10% chance of rain and predicted partly sunny skies and highs in the low 70s through the morning and early afternoon.  Sounded perfect...so I decided to continue with our plans to have the party outside.

Everything was set up outside, it was 15 minutes before the party was supposed to start, and it started to rain.  It was a pretty good downpour that only lasted for three minutes, but that three minutes was plenty of time to soak everything.  Not good news for all the printable signs and fabric table coverings!  Aaugh!  I almost lost it at that point, but the rain stopped.  Daniel and his mom worked to get everything dry, and we were ready for the party to start on time.  The rain held off through the rest of the party, then started again as we were cleaning up.  It was a close call, but it worked out in the end.

Okay, onto the details!  I bought a printable pink lemonade birthday party kit from this Etsy shop for $10.  It was totally worth the money, as all I had to do was print and cut out everything.  Much, much easier and quicker than designing it all myself.

 For favors, I made these cute jelly bean bags.  I originally saw the idea on this blog.  I had to do some searching to find the bags, as the original poster didn't give any details about them.  They are 1x8 clear cello bags, if you are interested!  I ordered mine from here.

I also decided to make Pink Lemonade Playdough for favors for the kids, using pink lemonade Koolaid.  The lemonade scent wasn't very strong though, so that was kind of disappointing.

For dessert, I made these pink lemonade cupcakes.  I have not been super successful in the past at making my own buttercream frosting, but this frosting was pretty good....super sweet and lemony!  

 I also made Marshmallow Pops, partly as decor and partly as dessert.  I didn't think these tasted all that good; they were too sweet for my taste.  But they did look pretty!

 For Isla's smash cake, I just made a cake with a box of strawberry cake mix.  Then I had plenty of leftover frosting from the cupcakes to use for her cake as well.  Cake decorating is not one of my greatest skills.  I just don't have the patience for it.  But this one turned out okay, and it was much less stressful than some of the cakes I have made for Audrey's parties.

It wouldn't be a Pink Lemonade Party without some pink lemonade!!  I made some regular old Country Time pink lemonade.  And I also tried my hand at making some homemade watermelon lemonade.  It was a time consuming process (I juiced at least a dozen lemons by hand!), but everyone seemed to like it.  I think it was worth it in the end.  I used this recipe, but it only made 2 servings.  So I multiplied everything by 8 (I don't even know what the word for that would be, octupled??).  That gave me about one gallon of lemonade in the end.  We ran out, so I guess I could have made more!

I probably could have made more food as well.  We had BBQ chicken sandwiches, strawberry spinach salad, fruit and dip, and chips plus Uncrustables and cheddar crackers for the kids.  I believe that everyone got enough food, but we ran out of everything by the end.  I probably should have made another side or another meat option, but I was already over budget!  =)

This Strawberry Spinach Salad was a big hit.  I adapted the recipe a little from the original, substituting olive oil and red wine vinegar because that is what I had on hand.  And I also added some pecan halves.  I didn't try it, but everyone seemed to love it.

 For the kids, I made this play lemonade stand.  I was worried that no one would play with it, but all the kids seemed to enjoy putting lemons and straws in cups and passing them out to everyone.  Especially Audrey.  She made lemonade for everyone through the party, and she has continued the rest of the day and evening to make lemonade for us at home!

I didn't quite take pictures of everything, as it is always crazy to try to get everything set up (especially when it is raining!) and photographed before everyone arrives.  But if you made it through this whole post, then you have a pretty good idea of what the party was like! 

Now, it is most definitely time for BED!