Just Add Kids: Rainbow Party

As my youngest daughter's first birthday nears closer, I am reminded of how we celebrated my eldest daughter's first birthday - with a rainbow themed party! The party took me about 2 months to prepare and plan, trawling the internet for free printables and recipe ideas.

I was pretty excited about my first child's first birthday. For me, it wasn't so much a celebration of her turning 1, but more that my husband and I had survived our first year as parents. A rainbow party seemed appropriate to sum up the year. Even though there were bad days, there was always a happy moment just around the corner waiting to shine through, much like a rainbow after the rain.

Here is the party in review, and I hope it can bring someone else a little inspiration for your child's next birthday party:

The Invite

Invite printable can be found here for free thanks to Babybites.

Envelope printable thanks to Paper Glitter

The card I used to back the paper invites was old cardboard file dividers that I had sourced from my work.

The Decorations

The decorations ended up a bit underwhelming. I went for traditional balloons and streamers with some additional rainbow printable signs.

Helium Balloon kit available to purchase from Big W and Spotlight for $50

Rainbow Printable sign from Printabelle (This was free when I made it, but looks like it is now $5, or you can still download it for free from Catch my Party)

The Drinks

A rainbow of drinks! I sourced these all from our local IGA. The water bottle labels and straw toppers are another free printable from Printabelle/Catch My Party.

The Food

A rainbow of vegetables with homemade pumpkin &pecan dip and tuna dip. The vegetables I used were Red Capsicum. Carrot, Yellow Capsicum, Celery and Purple carrots. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a blue vegetable to complete the rainbow.

I used a recipe from Taste.com.au for the Pumpkin and Pecan Dip (substituted the walnuts for pecans) as well as the Tuna dip.

Now on to the rainbow of fruit with a homemade honey and ricotta dip. Again the rainbow is missing the blue element as well as the purple. As the party was in winter, the selection of fruit available was limited, and I didn't want to have mushy defrosted blueberries on the plate. Fresh blueberries would work well when they are in season, and maybe plums for the purple fruit.

Unfortunately, I put my husband in charge of the photography on the day of the birthday, and I therefore don't have any other photos of the other food I prepared!

The other things I made were:

Ham & Pineapple mini pizzas
Sausage Rolls
Pancetta & Leek Mini Quiches
Tomato & Feta Mini Quiches
Tuna Sushi Rolls & Avocado Sushi Rolls
Roasted Vege & Feta Mini Pizza
Spinach & Ricotta Rolls
Chicken & Vegetable Rolls
Strawberry, Lemon, Choc Mint and Blueberry Macarons (I can't believe hubby didn't take a photo of these! They were so much work!)

The Cake

One of the main inspirations for a rainbow party was the multi-layered rainbow cake.

I used a simple butter cake recipe (make twice the quantity), splitting it into 6 bowls and mixing in gel colouring to get the rainbow colours. I sourced the gel colouring from ebay, as it was a lot cheaper than buying anywhere I could find it in Australia.

The cake was finished off with a plain white buttercream icing.

I had never made a cake of this size before, and I was pleasantly surprised with the result, and so were the party guests when they saw the inside of the cake.

The Outfit

I ordered the cutest outfit for my daughter from Etsy, but it didn't arrive in time (infact it didn't end up arriving at all), so I had to make a mad dash to the shops the day before the party, hoping to find something rainbow coloured. Best and Less was a winner with a simple rainbow layered dress.