Cupcake Birthday Bash Part 1of 4: The Basics

Saturday's birthday party for my neice went extremely well. Almost everything was done in time, the kids had a great time and it wasn't a huge disasterous mess. I'm breaking this up into 4 posts to keep this from becoming too long to read at one time. (plus I want to make sure the birthday girl's family has a post with just party shots) This time I'll just post some of the party basics because I can't get over how cute a cupcake party is. If you have the time you could really create some great things.

There were a few projects I wanted to make but simply ran out of time. The old me would have stayed up all night the night before and worked frantically all day to get everything completed. I would have been tired, stressed out and wouldn't have enjoyed the party at all. That's how I know I've learned to relax some. I prioritized the to do list so I would start with the most important things, completed as much as I could and when I ran out of time I stopped and was fine with it. I even took an afternoon break before the party had lunch and relaxed. It was quite a new experience for me and I loved it. I got the kids started on the cupcakes and just sat back and watched all the fun.

I made 3 dozen cupcakes, nothing fancy just chocolate and white cake mixes. In fact, I only even decorated less than a dozen. I only did those to give the adults the option of eating some that didn't have little hands all over them. I did make the buttercream frosting from scratch though. It just tastes so much better to me and its easy, even if it is a little messy.

Just before bed the night before I saw this post about printing your own cupcake flags. Of course my printer is awol so I had to pull out some scrapbook paper and whip these up. They aren't the best version but it added something else for them to play with. (see opening picture)

Since throwing the party was a last minute decision (she was out of state on her birthday) I didn't have time to make and mail invitations. Instead I took the invitation idea and turned it into her birthday card. I found the cupcake patterned paper at Hobby Lobby and just freehanded the cupcake out of cardstock I had at home. I think it turned out pretty cute.


I even managed to find cupcake liners with little cupcakes on them. I couldn't resist! Another Hobby Lobby find.

Here's a close up shot of the decorating table. (I can't believe I forgot a picture of the entire room) It's actually my coffee table. I just pulled it into the middle of the living room and put everything there. It was just the right height for the kids to sit at and worked out great. I used pink plates and napkins since that is the birthday girl's favorite color. I split the two batches of frosting and made five different colors for them to use. (there is also a yellow one which isn't pictured) I put them into disposeable piping bags with a different type of decorating tip in each one. I used disposeable because the idea of washing out 5 messy bags was enough to give me a headache! There are a couple things I didn't get in the picture. Each of their cups has a name tag on it that I made out of scrapbook paper (which matched the flags) and I also decorated the table with large sprinkles instead of confetti.

Like I said, there are a lot of other things I would have made if time had allowed. One thing that a lot of people do is make the cupcake shaped cake using a pan like this or this. It's really very cute but unfortunately I don't have one of those pans yet and wanted to just use things I have on hand to keep the cost down and use up some of my supplies. I also wanted to make a fabric banner like this one or this one (or at least one out of cardstock) but that was one of the projects that didn't make the final cut. I'll definitely be keeping it in mind for future parties though. I also had the idea of doing pin the cherry on the cupcake (like pin the tail on the donkey) by making a giant cupcake out of poster board. I think that would be a cute party game. There are tons of other ideas out there if you do a search on cupcake party ideas. With a little planning (and more than 4 days to do it all) you could make an awesome cupcake themed party. Stay tuned for Part 2...Action shots from the party!