Rainbow birthday party

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Well, after a week of technical difficulties, I’ve finally managed to upload all four hundred and fifty photos to a blog post in order to share the prettiness of Allegra’s rainbow birthday party. Okay, there’s not quite that many pics. But close.

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This was SO much fun to put together, you guys.

Rainbow party invitations

Let’s start with the invitations. My go-to for invitations is Etsy – there are thousands of designs in every theme imaginable, and virtually all of them can be personalised by the designer with your child’s name and party deets. There’s usually a 2-3 day turnaround, although many shops offer rush orders if you’re in a hurry. Then you just print the file at home. Super quick and easy, and sure beats hand writing dozens of invitations like we once used to!

This was the pretty invitation Allegra chose. It had the party details written on each stripe of the rainbow. Super cute!

Next, onto the pre-party prep. Since this is a long post, I’ve added headings so you can easily find what you need.

Rainbow layered jelly cups

The first thing I did was to make some rainbow layered jellies. They looked so pretty once they were done, and I was surprised how many people at the party asked how I’d made them. It’s so simple, but I thought I’d share how I did it in case anyone else had the same question. Be aware that they do require a few days’ head-start.

I started by measuring the height of the cup, then divided that measurement by 6 (for each of the rainbow colours – typically seven, but we left out indigo). This let me know how much jelly to pour each time.

I used a small ruler, because the cups were tapered, so it’s deceivingly hard to judge by eye – you need less liquid for the bottom layers and more for the top as it widens out. Using a ruler made the process really quick, because I wasn’t stopping and eyeballing it and adding a bit more each time to get it right .

I mixed two packets of jelly per colour, and then allowed each layer to set fully in the fridge before adding the next.

Even though I left about 10 hours between each addition and the jelly was firmly set, the bottom layers still seemed to dissolve into each other just a little over time, creating a slightly blurred effect. It still looked pretty, but the stripes were a little less crisp than I’d imagined.

It might have been the warmth of the liquid that did that. You could possibly avoid this by adding iced water to your jelly mixture in the second stage instead of just the cold water that’s recommended on the packet.

Oh, and I used jelly with natural colourings for the red, orange and green layers – and those colours seemed less vibrant, so next time I’d probably just use the more brightly coloured artificial stuff and then apologise to all the Mums afterward. ?

Rainbow cupcakes

Next, rainbow cupcakes! These were also super easy to make. I baked the cupcakes in rainbow cupcake liners. I’d ordered some Rainbow sour straps similar to these online. I cut each strip into thirds to get a shorter length. After icing the cupcakes with blue buttercream, I cut a small slit in each side then poked the rainbow strap into the slits to make an arch. Then I added a few white mini marshmallows for “clouds”. Done!

Rainbow fairy bread

I also made some fairy bread with rainbow hundreds-and-thousands. To make it a bit more interesting, I used a star cutter on a second square of bread, then buttered the underside and stuck it over top. I love how the bright colour peeks through!

Rainbow birthday cake

And of course, we can’t forget the fabulous rainbow cake. You can see exactly how we made it in this post.

These pictures still make me smile every time!

Rainbow craft table

Let the party begin! When the girls arrived, I had a craft table set up with some rainbow paints, brushes, water cups and a rainbow colouring page for them to paint. While we were setting up we used a coloured pencil to make a little dot on each stripe of the rainbow, so the girls would know which colours to use.

I found these adorable Micador paint palettes at Big W, which were just perfect as they came in rainbow colours.

Rainbow nail bar

Near the table I created a little rainbow “nail bar” where the girls could get their nails done.

I had to do some hunting around to find the brightest rainbow colours I could! I found all of these at Big W.

The girls absolutely loved getting their nails painted. One rainbow colour per nail!

The birthday girl wore a rainbow-kinda dress that she’s had in her dress up box for ages.

Behind the “nail bar” you can see the party bags. I used rainbow paper bags that came in a pack with thank you stickers, which made them quick and easy to throw together. I bought them online from One Stop Kids Party Shop (Australia), or if you’re outside Australia, you can find the rainbow bags here on Amazon. (I couldn’t find an equivalent for the stickers, sorry.)

Rainbow party backdrop

Onto the party table! The backdrop was just seven disposable plastic tablecloths, each in a different rainbow colour. (I had to crop out the red and purple stripes in this shot.) We left them partly folded so we didn’t have to cut them and because they would have been too see-through all opened out. Then they were just taped onto the wall, with a slight overlap so we didn’t have any gaps.

I bought mine from One Stop Kids Party Shop (same place I got the party bags), and Big W also have most (if not all) of the colours in their party shop. If you’re not in Australia and you want to create this effect yourself, you can find rainbow coloured tablecloths here on Amazon:

Red / Pink / Orange / Yellow / Green / Blue / Purple

It was such a fun, colourful table to put together.

Rainbow vegetable platter

I made an easy “rainbow platter” of vegetables and fruits – red capsicum (bell pepper), carrot sticks, cheese cubes, green beans, blueberries and purple grapes, with white Tatsziki dip.

Rainbow lollies

And of course we needed some rainbow lollies on a cute tiered platter!

Rainbow drink bottles

I have these little glass milk bottles that I seem to pull out for most parties, because they’re so darn cute. I made up red, orange, yellow, and green cordial to go in them. For the blue I used Gatorade.

Once again I chose natural colours for the cordial where I could, which ended up looking a bit washed-out. I would’ve gotten a much brighter red from the artificial stuff, but red colouring makes one of my kids go crazy, so for me it wasn’t worth it.

Rainbow fruit kebabs

I also made fruit kebabs in rainbow colours. The honeydew melon turned out to be quite a pale green, so in hindsight I would have used kiwi fruit instead for a bit more contrast.

I feel like this is turning into a lesson in “how to use brighter colours than I did for everything so it looks better.” Lol.

It was still all so bright and colourful though.

The little rainbow cupcakes were a hit.

And I seriously did not want to cut that cake…

But of course, it had to be done. And it was just as pretty inside!

Rainbow pass the parcel

Now the games! First we played pass the parcel. It’s a classic, but of course we gave it a rainbow twist.

I wrapped the present in layers of rainbow-coloured paper, with packets of Skittles taped in between each layer as mini-prizes. Red was on the outside and the layers continued in order. Before we started we talked about the order of colours in a rainbow and what the very last colour is – so they knew when they were getting close to the prize!

This was a really fun way to build anticipation as we went along. There were squeals of delight each time a new colour was unwrapped.

Oh, and our pass the parcel music was “I can sing a rainbow”, which is my daughter’s favourite song, and hence the reason for this whole theme in the first place.

Rainbow streamer race

Next we had a rainbow streamer race. This was HILARIOUS.

We split the kids into pairs and gave each pair a coloured crepe streamer (in all the rainbow colours, of course.) They had to face each other while one held onto the roll and the other held the loose end. Then when I said go, the person at the top of the hill had to start unrolling the streamer as the person holding the end slowly backed away.

We told them it was a “slow race”, because if they broke their streamer, they had to go back up to the top and start again. The winner was the first pair to reach the garden bed with their streamer intact.

Now just try to imagine how this went down with a group of five year olds. I was in stitches. In my glorious daydreams I’d imagined a rainbow of colour spreading out down the hill. And I even used to teach five year olds. I should’ve known better.

As soon as we said “go”, the hilarity began. Parents were shouting instructions at kids. The littlest one turned around and took off running down the hill at lightning pace with the entire roll in his hand, as his much older partner shouted at him to come back. Streamers were breaking all over the place. The kids at the top, who were supposed to stay put, started walking down the hill as well because they couldn’t unroll their streamer fast enough. It was mayhem.

I have not laughed that hard in ages.

Skittles sorting game

I bought a big tub of Skittles for this game. We split the kids into groups (any number of groups would be fine) and gave each team a rainbow-coloured set of cupcake liners and a container of Skittles. The team had to work together to sort their Skittles by colour as fast as they could.

They absolutely LOVED it! This turned out to be a great game for all ages. It was simple enough for the littlest ones to understand (unlike the Great Streamer Race, lol), but the bigger kids really got stuck into it as well.