rainbow birthday

Time for the long-overdue post about Faith's fourth birthday party... which was two weeks ago. Ah well.

When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she answered "Rainbow!" And thus was born the theme for her party. It was overall pretty low-key (friends from Jack's work and their kiddos) but she had a blast.

Decorations:

rainbow crepe paper streamers and white "cloud" balloons

white tablecloth with streamers taped down into a rainbow table runner

construction paper cut into streamers

Food and drink:

rainbow fruit & veggie trays, rainbow pretzel wands

homemade pizza (pepperoni, veggie, and cheese)

rainbow punch (would've worked better with more ice cubes or a smaller container)

The cake was inspired by this one, though there are lots of tutorials out there. It wasn't any harder to make than any other layer cake, just took a little extra effort. I just used a basic 3-layer white cake recipe (this one, except I used egg whites instead of whole eggs), then divided the batter into six bowls and colored each one with gel food coloring-- the liquid food coloring won't get you an intense enough color. Then I baked each layer in a 9-inch round pan, but because they were thinner than regular cake layers, I only baked them for 15 minutes. (I had to do two baking batches, since I only have 3 round cake pans.) Then I layered them together with white buttercream.

in process

post-slicing

I would've sworn I took a picture of the finished cake before cutting, but I can't find it. Anyway, the lettering on top was just Airhead candy cut out with mini alphabet cookie cutters. The cake was a HUGE hit, and delicious too.

Here's the birthday girl blowing out the candles! (And hiding under the tablecloth... as you do.)

Activities:

We really only had one activity, since all our child-guests were preschool-aged, and apparently I didn't take any pictures of that either. I made a rainbow "punch piñata" similar to this one. It was pretty easy to make, and it was a nice alternative to the free-for-all that results with traditional piñatas (especially for my hesitant-to-join-in girl).

We also had goody bags to distribute with various rainbow-colored goodies. I try to keep from giving out total junk, and only hand out what I wouldn't mind my kids receiving. The goody bags each contained one of those cheap watercolor paint boxes, a rainbow swirl lollipop, an elastic bracelet made from plastic pony beads with each kid's name in alphabet beads (Faith strung all the non-letter beads herself!), colored Twizzlers shaped into rainbows, a small inflatable beach ball, and a pencil with rainbow lead.

She loved her rainbow party! If you're interested, here's a link to the Pinterest board I made to keep track of party ideas.