By: Kirsty Mitchell
Birthday celebrations for my family are a big deal. I normally throw a large, themed party for my kids, spending countless hours crafting theme inspired food, creative table set ups, party favors and interactive activities for all to enjoy. The celebration is a beautiful whirlwind of lots of friends and family hanging out in close contact. It's what I love and I have never imagined doing parties any other way.
Fast forward to March 2020 and parties have taken on a whole new path with drive-by’s and we have all had to adjust our party throwing skills to celebrate and throw a party on a much smaller scale whilst still maintaining social distancing guidelines. I love that people are finding safe and creative ways to still celebrate special occasions (drive by style)! There are so many ways to incorporate fun, thoughtful ideas to get an awesome party feel that will help your drive-by guests and guest of honor feel like they are celebrating and marking the special occasion in style.
Through this growing trend, I found a new love for doing parties another way - last week was my daughter’s 6th birthday and we threw her an ice cream themed drive-by birthday party. It’s was a great party success; my daughter loved her drive-by celebration and I honestly love that we were still able celebrate in a fun and creative way. Here are some of the ideas I put together for her to make it extra special:
The Invitation
This was a quick word project - I found my images online, put in the important information, added some simple design elements and the invite was ready to send via text and email.
The Sundae Toppings
I love that anything goes when it comes to sundae toppings. Our ice cream sundae bar included sprinkles, sour gummy worms, gummy bears, M&M’s, mini Reece’s Cups, cherries, circus animal crackers, Pirouettes wafers, whipped cream and of course caramel and chocolate sauce. I found a plain framed chalkboard sign from Michaels and Candice (my very talented business partner) created the beautiful menu with chalk paint markers (also found at Michaels). The cookie jar was purchased from Hobby Lobby and the mini containers were clear small condiment and spice serving boxes from Amazon.
The Décor Elements
Ice Cream Stand - This crate stand was previously used by Candice as a lemonade stand for her daughter’s birthday. It was great we got to repurpose this for our ice cream stand. Using my Brother ScanNCut2 machine, I cut out “Julia’s” and “Ice Cream Café” on cardstock. For a fun add, I glued real sprinkles to accentuate “Julia’s”.
Garden Ice Cream Cones - I had some leftover lanterns from a previous party and the colors were perfect for vanilla, strawberry and mint chocolate chip garden ice creams. Using colored markers, I added sprinkles to each one. For the cone, I used poster board rolled up in a cone shape and covered it with some awesome gold grid wrapping paper that I found in my wrapping paper stash. Alternatively, you could also buy some natural color poster board at Hobby Lobby and draw on some grid lines. To stake these cool ice creams into the ground, I used extra-long smores sticks (from Walmart), drilled a small hole on the top and used small wire to attach the lanterns to the stick. Next I pushed the stick through the cone leaving around 10” sticking out. For extra reinforcement, I glued the lantern to the cone. Sidenote – the cones make great hats (or unicorn horns) to play with after the party!
Chocolate Sauce Drips - I cut out “melted chocolate sauce drips” using brown felt fabric then cut out the confetti sprinkles on cardstock again using my awesome ScanNCut2 machine. I hung these drips across my garage, front door (using a staple gun) and even used one as a table overlay.
Sprinkle Water Bottles - I found some sprinkle themed duct tape at Michaels and wrapped them around mini to go water bottles. Sprucing up water bottles is a simple but a really fun addition to any party table with so many duct tape patterns to choose from.
Hand Painted “6” and “Sweet” Letters - These hand painted paper mache “Sweet” letters come right from our Ice Cream Party in a Box and are one of our DIY items that we make ourselves. The “6” was a fun addition that we are considering adding to our Ice Cream Party Box as a customizable add-on.
Flower Ice Cream Cone - I was inspired by an image I saved about 5 years back of a flower in an ice cream cone so I decided to replicate it. I added some sprinkles in the vase and carefully dropped in the real waffle cone with a beautiful pink rose – it literally took 5 minutes and it was a great statement piece.
Parties are love for my soul...I am so glad that we have found a fun way to keep them going! xx