It was Pinkalicious!

Awhile back my mom got my daughter hooked on Pinkalicious, so when I asked her a few months ago what she wanted for her 4th birthday party she, of course, said "Pinkalicious!"

If you're unfamiliar with the book, a short explanation is that the little girl eats too many pink cupcakes and turns entirely pink. The doctor diagnoses her with "Pinkititis" and the only cure is to eat green food to return to normal.  It's a cute book and I knew it would be fun to plan a party around it.

It's a given that it had to be done frugaly.  I saved our yard sale money and whatever esle I could here and there so that I didn't have to cut into our bill paying budget to pull this off.

One way I saved money was to make my own invitations.  I Googled "free Pinkalicious clip art" and found this image that became the front of the invite.

(http://www.thinkpinkalicious.com/)

I then used my old PrintMaster program to design the back.

(the empty space had the pertinent info)

I put balloons outside and a sign on the door so that our guests would start feeling Pinkalicious the minute they spotted our house.

I set up the food table in our living room.

Everything was pink, of course.

Another way I saved money - I made the cake myself instead of ordering one.  Nothing fancy, but it worked just fine.  A friend let me borrow her cake stands to put some of the food on, and I just used my set of clear mixing bowls for the rest.

Pink marshmallows on sticks, dipped in white chocolate, and rolled in pink sprinkles.

PB & J sandwiches cut into Pinkalicious fairy princess crown shapes.

More marshmallow treats.

Strawberries dipped in white chocolate that was tinted pink.

Pink popcorn!  (coated in the same tinted pink chocolate)

I made a banner for the front of the table.

Here's the birthday girl in her t-shirt we made just for this party. 

(That will be in an upcoming post)

I used the coffee table as another display area for the book.  We started off the party by reading the book so that anyone who wasn't familiar with Pinkalicious would understand what was going on.  I gave each girl a pack of pink M&M's to munch on while I was reading.  (The candy and the flower petals were deeply discounted after Valentine's Day) I added the other little display board, just one of Halie's toys, to help balance out the display and I quickly wrote a little note to  put on it.

The girls sat at the kitchen table to eat.  I didn't have any specific decoration planned for this table, and I was running out of time so I just ran to Halie's room and gathered up her Pinkalicious cupcake set and put it on the table along with a few fresh flowers from the yard.  Not stunning, but it worked.  : )

Pink Lemonade to drink.  The pink crazy straws were also a post-Valentine's clearance purchase.

In the corner of the kitchen I set up a little photo-op area with dress up stuff and a flowery background (tablecloth).  Each girl got to dress up as Pinkalicious and have her picture taken.

Birthday Girl's turn.

Another activity they did was decorating their own PINK cupcakes.  Again, post-Valentines clearance merchandise gave me lots of pink and red icings, edible glitter gel, and sprinkles.  I also bought cherries, and edible flowers, and had more of the pink M&M's as an option too.  They really had a lot of fun with this!

Here are their creations. 

I found the cutest idea for favors during my blog hopping/party planning.  I made these little treat bags of green food and told them to be sure and eat it so they wouldn't turn pink after all that pink food they had!

(Treat bag toppers are available for free download here.)

Update:  A few days after the party I went to Walmart.com photo center and made up a thank you card for each little girl that attended.  They looked similar to this, only with their personal pictures inserted, and a thank you note along the side.  I thought it would be a nice way to personalize our thank you's and let each girl have a picture of themselves to remember the fun.

The decor was a mixture of dollar store purchases, Hobby Lobby, and Oriental Trading.  Each week, for a few weeks before the party, I would go to HL and use my coupons to buy a couple more things.  That way I wasn't running out at the last minute and paying full price for everything.  So between doing that, and stocking up on Valentine's Day clearance sales, I was able to do this entire party for right around $100.

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