Cooking, Crafts and Fitness: A Pinwheel Birthday

My daughter loves Yo Gabba Gabba. I mean, LOVES IT! And she has a special place in her heart for Foofa. So when her 2nd birthday was coming up, it seemed natural to throw her a Yo Gabba Gabba party.

But I felt like it went against everything my inner crafter believed in to go with commercial party decorations bought at Party City. I just couldn't do it.

As I was perusing Evites I came across an adorable animated one with pinwheels. I had my inspiration!

I headed to Hobby Lobby to get materials for decorations. Don't you just LOVE Hobby Lobby? I could drop so much money there if it weren't for the small amount of self control I have! Luckily, scrap book paper was 50% off so I grabbed several sheets of coordinating patterns.

My goal was to make several pinwheels to put around the house and to make a Happy Birthday bunting to hang on the fire place.

I was SO PLEASED with the way it all turned out. The pinwheels were adorable and I couldn't have asked for more with the bunting. And it was all pretty easy to make. Just a few nap times spent crafting (which, let's face it, is not a bad way to spend nap time!).

I also put a centerpiece of pinwheels on the food table and hung a few from the window behind the table.

Since the party was in the afternoon I went with simple snacks for food. Veggies with onion dip,

a fruit rainbow,

Pink popcorn (stovetop popcorn drizzled with white chocolate - seriously delish!),

Edamame hummus, Whole grain pita chips, and my mom's deviled eggs. Oh, and of course pigs n' blankets!

We served wine and pink party punch which combined Sprite, cran-raspberry juice, and sorbet. We chose a pomegranate/blueberry/acai sorbet...it was amazing!

Of course, I couldn't leave sweet Foofa out completely. So I made a Foofa cake using a heart shaped cake pan and craft foam.

Alice was delighted! And the cake was delicious! I made a yellow cake and used this recipe for a buttercream frosting which I found on Pintrest. Really, REALLY good!

All in all the party was a huge success! Everyone had a great time and everything turned out exactly as I planned. I couldn't have asked for more. And the best part? At one point I looked up and my husband had cleaned up all...the...mess. What a man!