Mickey Mouse Party

So as you know, we are in full throttle birthday planning mode for K's Pirate Party!  And it is coming at me hard and fast.  I am a little stressed about getting everything done but super excited for it to happen.  (I'm kind of giddy about getting to share it with all of you, but in due time my dears)

For K's second birthday we had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party. 

*Disclaimer - the party was by no means photographed for a blog tutorial so please forgive the pitiful pictures.  I will still attempt to provide as much detail as I can...*

First of all - Invitations.  Really, I don't have anything against store bought invites.  I have even been known to use them in the past, but I don't prefer them.  We actually went a really low maintenance route for K's invite.  I took an image of Mickey and the gang and photo shopped K into the picture and had them printed in a local photo lab (i.e. Wal-Mart).

No assembly required!  Just stuff them and mail or even pass them out.  When I showed it to her she was so excited to see herself in a picture with Mickey.  And then she was confused because she didn't remember being at Mickey Park.  It is difficult to explain those kind of things to an almost 2 year old, but moving on.

I love my Cricut.  And I worked it into the ground for this party.  We made all of the centerpieces.  I was only smart enough to take a picture of one...  This is the main centerpiece with all of the character in it.  I cut them out and assembled them onto skewers.  The skewers were placed into baskets with Styrofoam and the Styrofoam was concealed with red shredded paper.  Easy peasy lemon squeezie!

Each guest table had a smaller basket designated to a single character and also several "2's" thrown in.

We made treat bags for the children (and chocolate covered pretzel rods for the adults with Mickey sprinkles on them).

I just loved these treat bags.  We used black glossy sandwich bags and put rectangles of red scrapbook paper at the bottom.  Using my Cricut we cut white ovals and added buttons to make Mickey Pants!  Forgive the picture.  I know there is a pink sippy cup in the way, but this was the only shot that included the treat bags.  You can also see the pretzels and a little bit of the Donald & Daisy basket in the background.

Most of the decorations were in bold primary colors.  I chose a traditional red and white checkered tablecloth for the tables.  Here is a shot of the utensil holders that we made by covering two cardboard six pack drink holders with scrapbook paper.  Cute right?  And this can be done for any theme.  (remember the tutorial from earlier?)

Using store bought party hats and my handy dandy Cricut we whipped up a batch of Mickey Mouse party hats for our party goers.  These little lovelies found their way onto the heads of more adults than children!

All you have to do is cut two black circles per party hat, fold one side in just enough to glue and attach it to your party hat.

We usually serve picnic food since we have the party in the evening.  One addition this year was a veggie tray served in this Strawberry Style Serving Pot.  Do you see the little Mickey Mouse heads made from radishes? :)

I think details are so important so be sure to incorporate your theme in any way that you can.

We had coloring activities, a bubble machine and Gooey Fishing for the kids.  But, the highlight of the evening was the man himself!  We purchased a Mickey Mouse costume (I know, we are insane but we are now the proud owners of a Mickey Mouse costume...)

K was beyond excited.  She ran straight to him and invited him to live with us.  Mickey stayed for pictures and of course numerous rounds of the Hot Dog Dance.

It was a great party.  The next morning as soon as K's feet hit the floor she said, "Mama, let's do it all again."