15199

Candyland -3yr- Gingerbread Shaped Favor Bags

February 2007

Jennifer in San Diego, CA USA

Special Mention

For my daughters 3rd birthday we had a Candy Land Sweet Celebration. 

The invitations were fashioned to look like lollipops. I folded purple cardstock in half, traced and cut a circle leaving one end connected to fold as a card.  Using lime green poster paint I painted a lollipop swirl pattern on the front and printed the following inside:  Join King Kandy and the gang for Sophia's Sweet Celebration.  Date, Time and RSVP information.  I blew up and printed the Candy Land game cards and put directions to the party on the back.  The bottom of each painted circle had 2 small holes punched out one on top of the other.  I put the directions inside the card and used a lollipop stick through the holes to secure the card with the directions inside.  Each lollipop was wrapped in celluphane and tied with a purple ribbon with little green polka dots. 

We had the party indoors (at our loft) which is a 1600 sq. ft. open rectangular shaped room.  You can find so much during Christmas time for this party!  We have low wooden beams that go across the length of our loft so I used garland along them alternating the candy cane tinsel ones and the snow flake tinsel ones.  We had lawn candy canes lining the stairs up to the door.  Once inside I had painted a HUGE Candy Land banner that I hung above the front door.  We had drawn and painted each Candy Land character to stand about 4-5 ft tall.  They looked just like the game!  We positioned them all along the walls so that they essentially surrounded the room. I made lawn size lollipops (3 of them in lime green, bright pink and purple)out of large styrofoam disks, paint and wooden dowls.  I wrapped them in tulle and tied them with ribbon.  I positioned these by Lolly who was flying on one wall.  For lord licorice I used licorice by the yard and made licorice trees by taping them to the wall on both sides of him.  Above him were 12 miniature flying chocolate" bats.  Mr. Mint had lawn candy canes by him that I had bought $1 each.  There are a set of three steps at the back of the loft that I labled Gum Drop Pass. 

I made gumdrops by purchasing floral foam cones.  I cut short slices of the cone which made different sized gumdrops.  Each were painted and rolled in SEVERAL layers of sugar to look realistic.  I placed all different sized gumdrops on the edges of each step so as to not interfere with the kids walking up and down the steps. Jolly was hung here as well. Gloppy was by our buffet table where I had a chocolate fountain running ( You can pick these up for about $40 why rent?)  Princess frostine stood up on the cupcake frosting table and above the kids heads were multiple snow flakes all different heights and sizes.  I had plastic ones and ones I cut from different sized round doilies.  All glittered to sparkling perfection! Gramma Nut and Bazz had tissue peanut bushes by them.  Using green poster board I ripped and crumpled pieces of green tissue paper and glued them to the poster bord.  Once the entire surface of the poster board was covered I glued shelled peanuts to them.  They looked great! Mamma Gingertree was used for a game ( which I'll explain later).  After all of this was positioned on the wall I used rainbow paper ( bought a pack of computer paper that came in all rainbow colors) to create the game bord looping and running off the walls.  This REALLY added to the effect and made the room so bright and colorful. I used this soft tack stuff…it's kind of like putty.

CAKE: I used those vanilla square cakes and fashioned each cake to look like a playing card.  How hard is it to draw one or two colored blocks on a pre made cake??  For the character game cards I had to print a picture place it over the cake make tiny holes with a toothpick to trace the image onto the cake and then color it in.  Theres only a handul of these cards.  TIP: Crayola has a box of multi color icing writers.  I used a couple boxes of these to make them look realistically like playing cards.  Even so they're not complicated.  It looks like so much more work than it really is. 

FOOD: The party was at two so we just mostly snacked. Pinwheel sandwhiches with lollipop sticks in them Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwhiches for the kids cut out like a ginger boy chocolate fountain with strawberries and apple slices for dipping candy cane shaped mini pretzel sticks I made from scratch (for the kids sanwhiches)peppermint bark and gingerbread cookies for tea (bark is SO easy to make!) 

TABLE DECORATION:  Each table had a gumball machine centerpiece with gumballs in them. I bought these very high necked clear vases that had a clear band of glass wrapped around them.  They reminded me of licorice so I placed the remaining licorice by the yards in there to resemble licorice trees for the food table.  I covered all the tables in a heavy durable candy cane striped wrapping paper.  This held up great and goes a long way for the money compared to paper or plastic cloths.  We had a CANDY BAR too!  I covered a fold out table with the candy cane striped wrapping paper and placed 8 bright colored metal pails.  Each with a different type of bulk candy ( M&M's Skittles Swedish Fish etc)To drink we had punch with gumdrops frozen in ice cubes.  The plates were red and white solid colored and the napkins had different candy shapes on them.  I had gingerbread man shaped plates for the peanut brittle peppermint bark and gingerbread cookies and everything else was served on silver platters. 

ACTIVITIES and GAMES:  I had a ton of stickers and lunch sacks for the kids to decorate their candy bar bags with.  The adults got into it too.  After that the decorated their cupcakes with frosting sprinkles small candies and such.  The cupcakes LOOKED nauseating but the kids loved it and ate every bite.  I had a gumball throw too.  I took a red pail and turned it upside down.  I made the pail look like and old fashioned gumball machine with the 25. sign and knob to turn.  I just drew it with a sharpie.  On the top of the pail I placed another clear pail and glued the two together.  From the oriental trading company I purchased different colored mini inflatable rubber balls that resembled gumballs.  The kids had to try to throw as many in as possible.  It's challenging because sometimes the balls bounce off of eachother.  Mamma Gingertree had purple water ballons blown up with a copy of a game card in each one.  The inflated balloons were attached to the tree and once the kids picked their balloon an adult helped pop them.  The child with the gingerbread man playing card in their balloon won.  We also played Candy Land Hop.  On the hasbro website there are printable DVD game mats.  They are shaped as the characters and candy pieces.  Essentially we played musical chairs with the game mats that I printed.  For PRIZES the kids got Candyland Jumbo activity Pads and crayons. 

GOODIE BAGS:  On top of the candy from the candy bar the kids took home ginger bread house kits.  Not the expensive grocery store kind.  They each got 6 graham cracker squares (4 for the sides and 2 for the roof) 5 starlight mints 12 red hots 2 mini gingerbread men (store bought) 4 mini candy canes a sanwhich bag with white decorators icing made from powdered sugar and egg whites ( they cut one corner of the bag and use the sanwhich bag as a pipng bag) a small bag of coconut shavings ( for snow)and two small tubes of different colored icing.  (these were also from that crayola icing box.  I came across them at $5 for a box of 16 different colors).  Each was bagged in a ginger bread shaped goodie bag and the sanwhich bag even had little gingerbread men on them.  I cut gingerbread men shaped name cards to label with each childs name.  At the very end of the party each kid was sent home with a toothbrush as well. 

This party was so much fun and everyone was incredibk impressed by the amount of work we put into it."

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