Marina turned 2 the first week of the Pandemic, so we were lucky to be able to go out and buy a box of cake mix for cupcakes for that celebration. This year, we knew the attendees would still be small (2 other families besides ours) but we wanted to go a bit bigger on decor than we were able to the year before to make up for it.
What 3 year old girl isn’t into rainbows? When I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday that was the first request, and I was happy to be able to grant it for her. Rainbows are pretty common these days, but mostly in the muted contemporary/millenial color palette of pastels, taupes and other sand dune type colors. That is anything BUT my girl. We were going to go bright and colorful, and I chose to go slightly more neon than primary colors for this rainbow birthday party.
I have never done balloon anything before so I hired a local team from instagram to make me a balloon half rainbow to decorate the backyard. It’s not exactly what I envisioned, but you can bet that Marina was obsessed with it, for over the week we kept it up.
I tried my hand at making our own multi-layer rainbow cake with neon gel colors, and it came out tasting AMAZING even though the curb appeal wasn’t exactly all there. I learned a lot about crumb coats from all my friends on instagram though! Next time I attempt something like this I will definitely try a crumb coat and refrigerate first, before adding a final layer and the sprinkles throughout. Marina couldn’t care less though, she was amazed at the cake and since she helped me make it, was totally enthralled by the process.
We used rainbow wrapping paper and served a rainbow fruit plate, and that was about the limit to the ‘rainbow’ things I could manage for this rainbow birthday party. As I’ve learned, one or two big things like the balloon backdrop and the cake are enough to keep the kids amazed and the photos fun, without having to do everything on theme (napkins, cake topper, straws, whatever). These birthday parties can get crazy quickly, and I wanted a lot of impact with as little headache as possible, and I think I managed that!
I also made her a set of rainbow butterfly wings to wear around the house and bring the whole theme home. She absolutely loves flapping around the room and wrapping herself up in a cocoon! It was overall a fantastic rainbow birthday party that even if she doesn’t remember, I will remember forever!
