A 50¢ Makeover & a Lisa Frank 8th Birthday Party

A couple of weeks ago I shared this picture over on the Facebook page of a dirty little, ugly, neglected, ceramic unicorn that I bought at a thrift store for 50¢.  I asked if anyone had a guess as to why in the world I would buy such a thing.  Most people didn't have a clue why I would do that, but one person guessed right.  It was for a birthday party.

My daughter wanted a Lisa Frank birthday party this year and to help save money I usually try to be the one to do their cakes, even though I'm amateur at best.  She decided she wanted the inside to be rainbow colors and she picked out hot pink frosting for the outside.  We ordered a Lisa Frank cake topper to finish it off.  But.....I didn't bother to pay attention to the dimensions of the topper, I just assumed it would be a decent size.  Nope, it was tiny.  More like a cupcake topper.  Now what?  But one day at the thrift store I found this little unicorn and decided that for only 50¢ I could experiment with painting it and possibly use it as the topper instead.  

I took it home and cleaned it up, then sprayed it with a couple of coats of white spray paint I had.  Then using craft paints I also already had I got to work copying the Lisa Frank horse that was on her invitation.  Once I finished painting it I gave it a coat of glossy clear sealer and we ended up with this.

It certainly wasn't perfect by any means, but she was in love with it and so excited about it, especially because I told her she could keep it even after the party!  :)

I'll go ahead and share a few more pictures with you from the party while we're at it.  They aren't the greatest, I was running late and the party had already started by the time I could spare a few minutes to snap some.  I didn't want to hold the whole thing up because I was trying to stage every picture and make it "perfect", so I just quickly got a few.  I'm still sharing them though because I enjoy doing parties and accomplishing them on a small budget, and I enjoy sharing them with you all.

 A few months before her birthday we found Lisa Frank party supplies on clearance at our local Dollar General and she decided that's the theme she wanted for her 8th birthday.  We found some plates, napkins, invitations, and a banner marked down.  Later on we found a couple more matching banners at the thrift store for 25¢ each.  We even found favors and prizes on after Easter clearance that were bright and colorful as well.  She had fun picking out the rest of her party supplies from the party store.

She also decided she wanted to have a water party since August is SO very hot down here in Florida.  We prayed every day that the rain would hold off until after the party and it did, we had beautiful sunny weather and were able to do everything outside.  (This mama didn't want no soppin' wet kiddos traipsing through the house.)  We set up tables on the deck for food, drinks, and gifts, and set up chairs in the shade of our big tree for the adults.

I didn't realize until later that my camera was on the wrong setting and some of the pictures got washed out.  : (  

She had so much fun finding colorful and rainbow themed items to use.  This is the first year that she has really had a desire to have an input on her party, other than choosing a theme, and it was fun working together to plan it.

Everything looked so colorful and festive.

We found these little favor bags in the after Easter clearance stuff and they fit in with the theme perfectly.  I painted the words on with white paint to look like chalk.

We filled up one of those snap-set pools for the kids to play in, and also put a sprinkler under the trampoline which was a lot of fun for them.  There were also water guns and tubes of bubbles to blow.

We played a couple of water games, ate pizza, and had a great time.

The day before the party my two little helpers assisted with the birthday cake making.

Since she wanted the inside to be rainbow colors we bought a neon food coloring set and two cake mixes and made 6 different colors of batter.

We layered the multi-colored batter into the pans and hoped for the best.

The finished product!

We used purple frosting between the layers and then I piped the purple in a decorative edge around the bottom and also around the topper.  We found the colorful candy flowers at Walmart and used those to help bring in some more of the rainbow colors of Lisa Frank.

This is how the inside of the cake turned out and she thought it was awesome.  :)

I so enjoy planning parties and being creative to accomplish them on a small budget.  If it was left up to only me I would probably go overboard and decorate to the nine's and plan every little detail.  But my husband keeps me balanced and reigned in and has helped me learn to simplify things so that it's not so stressful for me and therefore ends up being more enjoyable for everyone involved.  :)

Little Man is already planning what he wants his party to be when it's his turn for a big party next year. He changes his mind almost daily, lol!