PARTY: Tangled Birthday Party {Food and Decorations}

This past weekend, my little girl turned 4! She is a little girly girl (unlike I was at her age!), so her heart was set on having a Tangled birthday party. I got inspired and started planning everything a little over a month ahead of time so I didn't feel like a mad woman the day before the party.

I had so much fun planning everything and went crazy DIY-ing almost everything except the plates and plastic ware. (But I'm sure I would have done that too if I could ;) With all of the energy and time I put into everything, I would hate to try to shove so many tutorials and pictures into one giant post, so this week is going to be dedicated to all the details and DIY's that went into putting on a Tangled birthday party, from the invites I made to games and the handmade favors.

If your child is having a Tangled party, this whole week is for you! And even if you aren't planning a Tangled party, you can at least enjoy the pictures I hope :)

Today, I'm primarily going to focus on the decorations and food. Later in the week, I'll share tutorials for the favors, photo booth, and games we played. Also, HUGE thanks to Shannon for taking most of these pictures! I was running around like a mad woman trying to get 14 children age 4 and under to focus on activities :)

The Food

I love party food! I'm a big grazer, so parties are the perfect excuse for me to load up my plate with a little of everything. The food for this party was a little more difficult to plan because several of the children in Haley's class have gluten, egg, and peanut allergies. Add that to the fact that we were expecting close to 40 people at lunchtime, and I had quite the challenge!

For those with gluten and tree nut allergies, I made gluten-free Rice Krispie treat "paintbrushes," which were Rice Krispie treats (made with gluten free Rice Krispies) cut in rectangles and dipped in colored candy melts (Wilton candy melts are gluten-free by the way!) I then inserted an ice cream stick into each and stuck them into foam blocks covered in tissue paper. Please ignore the fact that they're falling over. Ahem.

For those with tree nut allergies, I made little Sunbutter and jelly sandwiches cut with a sunburst cookie cutter I purchased from the Cookie Cutter Shop (quick shipping and great price!) I made regular PB&J's for the rest of the kids. A fruit tray and Nutella fruit dip were also a quick and easy addition for those with tree nut allergies. Just mix greek yogurt and Nutella and instant fruit dip!

Aside from the specialty foods, we also had PB&J's, pink yogurt covered pretzels, pigs in a blanket, chips, Bagel Bites, and pink lemonade with lemons floating it it (are you sensing the pink, yellow, and purple theme?) My absolute favorite food, though, were the sunburst cookies. 

These cookies turned out so pretty! I've never worked with royal icing until this weekend and let me tell you, it's time consuming. I knew I had to have sun cookies, and the only way to make them look as polished as I wanted was to use royal icing. What I didn't anticipate is that that decorating 60+ cookies would take 5 hours. Worth it? Yes. But man, my frosting muscles hurt. Again, I used the sunburst cookie cutter from The Cookie Cutter Shop.

The royal icing recipe I used is from Bridget at Bake at 350, and it was so much better than I expected! Just the right flavor and consistency. Bridget also explains how to decorate with royal icing to get the best results. This is definitely my go-to royal icing recipe for the future. The sugar cookies were from a mix, I'm not ashamed. You gotta draw the DIY line somewhere!

The Cake

Oh the cake. It turned out just like I wanted. I was going to originally purchase a Rapunzel cake from a local bakery, but then I saw Martha Stewart's ruffle tower cake and I had to make one. The cake was a white cake mix, and the vanilla buttercream frosting is Shelly's from Cookies and Cups. My husband was disappointed that I didn't make cream cheese frosting, but he at the cake and lived, and everyone else seemed to like it since we only had 3 slices left over.

I dyed the layers ombre-style in 3 different shades of purple because, why not? I was already crazy enough to shut 14 young children into a small space and load them up with sugar, so it might as well be pretty. The cupcakes were strawberry at Haley's request, and not as pretty because I ran out of time or else they would have been ruffled too. I also made the "happy birthday" banner and attached it to skewers with yellow yarn.

The Decorations

 I wish I would have taken more pictures of the decorations, but again, busy running around like a crazy woman!

I made the tissue paper flowers on the wall by folding and stapling together pieces of tissue paper. The flag bunting was made by cutting out triangles and sunburst shapes with my Silhouette Cameo (love that thing!) and stringing them onto ribbon. Side note: Silhouette cutters do NOT love construction paper, so don't try it. It's no fun to pick all the little fibers off of the cutting mat either. In retrospect, I should have just stuck with card stock.

The tablecloths were yellow and purple to go along with the theme, and I also made some yellow table runners for the food tables from plastic tablecloths. Other than that, we tossed a bunch of pink and purple balloons on the floor for the kids and called it a day!
  

Haley had the BEST time, which she kept repeating to me over and over. Her favorite part of the whole party? When everyone sang happy birthday to her (as you can tell from her big smile in the picture above.)

I am beyond tired, but so happy with how everything came out! The kids had a great time - and that's all that really matters. I feel so amazingly blessed by all of the wonderful friends and family that came to celebrate my little girl turning one year older.

 Make sure you check back the rest of the week for more Tangled-related DIY's!

Check out our link party page to see where we link up each week!