8494

Chocolate Party - 3yr - M&M Tree

April 2004

Debbie in Winchester, MA  U.S.A.

Honorable Mention

For my daughter's 3rd birthday, she really wanted a "chocolate" party.  I was a little perplexed as to how to satisfy her request, while having a party that is fun for young and old alike.  I checked this web site, and found the idea of the "Willy Wonka" party, and I was off. 

The invitations were golden tickets.  One side was gold foil with the verbage from the ticket in the movie, of course substituting the vitals for the time and place of her party.  One the back, which was white card stock, I had the more specific information of the party. 

To make the invitations, I used gold metallic contact paper (8 1/2 x 11) and stuck it to a piece of regular card stock.  I printed it on a laser printer, front and back.  The heat of the printer adhered the contact paper to the card stock.  Then I cut out around the invite with a pair of scalloped scissors to give it a more finished look.  One other note, I was able to download from the web the Wonka font, so the writing was authentic. 

Since this was a backyard party, I made a big sign to go over the front gate.  On gold metallic poster board I (again using the Wonka font) wrote "Chase (our last name) Chocolate Party".  To print the letters large enough, I printed them out in an enormous font size, one letter at a time.  I then traced the letters onto the poster board and colored them in with black marker.  My husband mitered some molding and made a gold painted frame for the sign. 

We had a red carpet leading up to the gate, and purple and gold ballons tied to the fence posts. 

Upon entering the yard, guests first saw the M&M tree.  A willow tree with small cardboard cake disks painted front and back to look like M&Ms.  I hung them with string from the branches.  They looked quite real!  Over in the corner of the yard was the lollipop forest.  This was made from large cardboard cake disks painted to look like various types of lollipop.  All different colors and patterns. 

For games, I hid "golden eggs" all over the yard.  They were large wooden eggs painted with gold spraypaint.  Each kid had to find one for a prize.  We had a "fizzy lifting" burping contest.  I made new labels for small bottles of seltzer, and again using the Wonka font printed out "Emma's Fizzy Lifting Drink" labels.  The kids loved the contest, which went on for quite some time.  We had a "candy throw" where the kids threw "candy" disks (same as the M&Ms above) to see how far they could throw. 

Finally, we had "Pin the Golden Ticket".  I got a cutout of a child from a local school supply store.  Each child tried to pin a golden ticket as close to the hand as possible (I didn't use pins, each ticket had a large piece of tape on the back).  I used gold foil tablecloths on all the tables, with purple top hats filled with snacks.  I had trouble finding inexpensive purple tophats, so I bought plastic black ones from the local party store and spraypainted them gold. 

For the cake, I ordered a cake from a local bakery, and it looked remarkably like a giant Hershey bar. 

For the goodie bags, I filled gold foil bags with Wonka brand candy, a pair of rotten false teeth from the local joke shop, and a toothbrush!  In the background I had the soundtrack from the movie playing.  It was a lot of fun, and my daughter still watches the movie with her golden ticket clutched in her hand!!

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