My oldest daughter, Aubrey, turned five last week, and she requested a rainbow party this year. She absolutely loves arts and crafts - she's either painting or coloring all the time - and if you ask her what her favorite color is, she replies, "Rainbow!" :) If you tell her rainbow is not a color and then ask her the question again, she'll say, "All of them!" :) So this theme was perfect for her.
My inspiration for this party was everything Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple! Thanks to Roy G. Biv, I never forget the order of colors in the rainbow. :)
Decor
I snatched up some beautifully-priced colorful plates, cupcake wrappers and picks, and tissue paper at Marshalls. It's so true, I always find things when I'm NOT looking for them!
For the table decor, I uploaded some pictures of Aubrey to Picmonkey, adjusted the exposure to make them lighter, and then added the colored letters with a matching border. I printed them onto photo paper and then taped a wooden dowel to the back and stuck the dowels into some pieces of styrofoam that I had in my craft closet. I first covered the styrofoam with the decorative tissue paper and then inserted the dowels. Because I wasn't planning to use the cupcake picks that came with the wrappers, I decided to stick those in the styrofoam too.
Sweet Treats
Cupcakes
Aubrey had fun piling on the clouds. :)
Just a word to the wise... If you ever make these with cotton candy, don't make them more than a day ahead or the clouds will melt into the frosting.
Rainbow Treats
I made these rainbow marshmallow treats using the original Rice Krispy Treats recipe but substituting half fruity pebble cereal and half brown rice cereal. It's funny, I grew up on Fruity Pebbles - it was my favorite cereal as a kid - but nowadays I find them way to sweet for my palate, so that's why I used half unsweetened cereal.
- Melt 1/4 cup butter with one 10 oz. package of marshmallows, then stir in three cups fruity pebbles cereal and three cups brown rice cereal. Using a greased spatula, press tightly into a greased baking pan. I used a 2 qt. casserole dish to get the thickness I wanted.
- Let cool completely before slicing and eating.
To serve the birthday girl her treats, I placed a cupcake on top of a rice krispy square.
Food
Fruit Rainbow
I just love how God made food so colorful!! Isn't this pretty?? Using the order of rainbow colors as a guide, I chose strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, green grapes, blueberries, blackberries, and red grapes to shape the rainbow. I placed waxed paper on top of the tablecloth and then set the fruit on the waxed paper. This way I wasn't confined to a tray and I could make it as big as I wanted. Because of the colors and shape, this was the perfect centerpiece for the food table.
I made a fruit dip to place at one end of the rainbow as the cloud. For this dip, I simply mixed together one container of marshmallow fluff and one package of lemon yogurt.
Rainbow Salsa and Chips
I decided to do a jazzed-up version of my simple Three Ingredient Salsa to create this rainbow-colored salsa. A can of petite diced tomatoes (red), a handful of shredded cheese (orange), can of corn (yellow), two avocados (green), can of black beans (this was my blue since I couldn't think of anything really blue to add), and some diced red onion (purple). I topped it off with a handful of cilantro, a drizzle of olive oil, a generous pinch of salt, and lots of fresh lime juice. I picked up some different colored tortilla chips to complete the dish. This was actually the biggest hit at the party!
Tortilla Rollups
These were inspired by the Pioneer Woman's tortilla rollups. I made a colorful veggie version using red pepper, carrots, orange pepper, yellow pepper, cucumber, and red leaf lettuce. (Again, the only color I couldn't come up with was blue). I love how pretty they turned out! I displayed these rollups on waxed paper as well. Not only does that allow me to set them where I want, but it's also easy clean-up! :)
I made Ree's original turkey version as well.
Other
Rainbow Ice Cubes
To make these, I mixed 1-2 drops of food coloring per 2 cups of water, then froze in ice cube trays. Once frozen, I transferred ice to a plastic freezer bag so I could re-use the trays to make more colors.
Game
No party is complete without a Pin the Something on the Something game! So Aubrey and I made a Pin the Cloud on the Rainbow game using some papers I had in my craft closet. Who knew - cutting paper in the shape of a rainbow wasn't the easiest task for me. :)
The Birthday Girl
I asked my friend Jenny at Free Spirit Jenny to make this cute rainbow-colored headband for Aubrey to wear on her special day. Needless to say, she loved it! :)
The fam...
It was certainly a fun-filled rainbow day with both sets of grandparents here for Aubrey's birthday. Can't believe my baby is FIVE!! This was a very fun party for me to plan, and I hope you find some inspiration here as I have found inspiration from others!
Sometimes I link to: Craft-O-Maniac, The Better Mom, Keeping It Simple, Create with Joy, Growing Home, Cornerstone Confessions, Somewhat Simple, Food on Friday, No Ordinary Blog Hop, Nap Time Crafters
We had a rinbow party for my daughter's first birthday, I to was reviting roygbiv the whole time I was prepating things! I love the fruit rainbow and the rice crispy treats.
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