I had big plans to be super low key about Isla’s 4th birthday. After planning a bridal shower and a baby shower over the summer, I was partied out. Not to mention her birthday fell a week before my sister in law’s wedding. But, she had been counting down the days since June and had been going on and on (and on) about how she wanted a rainbow unicorn birthday. There is no shortage of ridiculously cute unicorn and rainbow party supplies right now and Isla is in love with decorating and celebrating (I have no idea where she got that! 🤷🏼♀️) and I just couldn’t skimp on her birthday with that much excitement.
One thing that really saved me is that her first birthday had a rainbow theme and because I’m a hoarder, I had a good amount of decorations packed away. I even had enough balloons left over to make a rainbow balloon arch.
We carried the unicorn theme into the refreshments with unicorn horns (Bugles), unicorn bread (banana bread with chocolate drizzled and sprinkles), unicorn bark, fairy bread (fluffer nutter sandwiches with sprinkles) and rainbow fruit salad. We balanced it out with some quiche and croissants for the adults so it didn’t seem like Buddy the Elf created the menu.
I love to bake, but in the interest of time, I got this pre-made cake at Trader Joes. It fit with the color scheme perfectly. We supplemented the tiny cake with some cupcakes too.
For decorations, I just went with anything colorful. I used a roll of iridescent wrapping paper (another thing I’ve been hoarding for just the right occasion) across our island to bring in more color and place under the food. This makes clean up soooo easy and is one of my favorite party hacks. These unicorn figurines were scattered around as well and were a bigger hit with the kids than I would have expected.
I set the kids table using these unicorn tablecloths. I found these iridescent paper plates at the dollar store of all places (similar here). The rainbow plates, matching napkins and amazing unicorn mylar balloon were all from Paper Boy. Isla special requested party hats, but I went rouge and got these unicorn masks instead and they were just as fun.
I also had Isla’s birthday interview on display. This is the first year we’ve done one and all of her answers revolved around Disneyland.
Isla told me all day long that “it was the best birthday party ever!”, so it was all worth it in the end, but I’m looking forward to taking off my party planner hat for a while!
I’m curious to know how y’all made the balloon arch. Do y’all have a how to video?
We don’t have a video (but that’s a great idea!). I tied the bigger balloons to fishing line, then filled in the smaller ones with a low temp glue gun. The method is similar to the one used in this post https://www.okayestmoms.com/diy-balloon-wall/ Good luck!