‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ Birthday Party Theme

Last fall I happened upon a picture of a cake and immediately knew I had to make it for Annelise’s next birthday. Eight months later, her birthday finally rolled around (hey, I like to plan ahead!) and we celebrated with a Somewhere Over the Rainbow themed party.

I had no desire to do a big elaborate party that required weeks of planning, hundreds of dollars, and stressed out sleepless nights, so I kept it simple and was very happy with the results.

If you’re planning a similarly themed party, I hope you’ll find some of these ideas helpful!

The Cake

I used two cake mixes and divided the mix into six bowls. I then used food coloring to dye each a different color of the rainbow. ROYGBIV!

If you want detailed instructions on how to make the cake, check out my friend Kristen’s post over at Mommy in Sports.

Frost the entire thing with white, fluffy frosting. Then form two frosting ‘clouds’ on top.

Add some rainbow colored sprinkles to the bottom of the cake.

Add your rainbow and you’re done!

Okay, here’s the deal with the rainbow. When you get those sour belt gummy candies, they’re soft. I tried to figure out a way to harden them up and can tell you that the oven, the microwave, and the freezer are all bad ideas. They will melt or crack. Luckily my hubby came to the rescue with a couple of zip-ties and some superglue. We put the zip-ties in between two sour belts, glued them together, and bada-bing, bada-boom, we had a rainbow that was bendable, but didn’t collapse. It was inedible, but that wasn’t really important since we were just hours away from party time and I was getting desperate.

If I did it over again, I would have taken the sour belt out at least a week before party time, formed it around something to give it the proper shape, and let it harden the good old fashioned way: by getting stale. Live and learn.

Doesn’t the cake look cool when it’s cut into??

Fruit Platter

This one doesn’t need much explaining. Just cut up your rainbow colored fruit and arrange them in order on a tray.

The Decorations

Okay, I found this idea on Pinterest and was going to link over to the site that was linked to the pin. However, when I just tried to go there, Pinterest informed me they had blocked that site for inappropriate content, soooo…. I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due, but I’m not going there.

Blow up a bunch of balloons (I had the brilliant idea to use a bicycle pump. It worked really well and I didn’t pass out from lack of oxygen.) Now carefully string the balloons together in the order that you want them with dental floss and a needle. If you look carefully, you can just make out the floss in this picture:

Once they’re strung together, hang them up and arrange them until they look the way you want them. Then hang the corresponding colored streamers below.

And there you have it; our very simple Somewhere Over the Rainbow birthday party.

Oh, one more thing: Party Favors! (I almost forgot to mention them, just like I forgot to give them out. Oops!) My intention was to hand out colored pencil and watercolor paint packs at the end of the party. I guess I’ll save them for next year 😉

 I think she enjoyed it!