Candy Land 1st Birthday Party

Last year for Zoey's first birthday party, we had a Candy Land theme.  I had a lot of fun with it.  Zoey was too small to have any interest in most of the decorations, so mommy got to pick them out and have fun!

We bought glass vases at Hobby Lobby and filled them with pink, blue and violet colored candies and multi-colored lollipops to create the Candy Land look.  The best variety of these colorful candies was available through Oriental Trading Post.  They also had the large lollipops that we used as both decorations and party favors for guests.  They made great decorations, but unfortunately they did not taste as good as they looked.  We found this to be the case with most of the pretty, colorful candies we ordered.  We ordered the pink containers pictured above that look sort of like Chinese food take-out boxes for the kids and the kids at heart to use to tear down the candy display and take treats home as party favors.  I love being cost efficient, so I thought having the decorations double as party favors was a fun and thrifty idea!

 We made the cupcakes and cake for the party.  The 1 cake is covered and decorated with fondant.  My husband and I gave ourselves a crash course provided by googling how to make fondant the week before the party.  We were pretty pleased with how it turned out.  It was intended to be the smash cake and the cupcakes were for the party guests, but the birthday girl had other plans.  When we gave her the smash cake she just barely took a pinch off of it.  I think the fondant was a little too thick with her to deal with.  In retrospect, a buttercream frosting would have probably been a better idea.  So we improvised and gave her a cupcake.  She was more than happy to smash that!  She had a ball with it!

She had so much fun at her party and I loved making these memories!  It was a little exhausting, but so worth it!