We had an awesome day at our Super Summer Sunday Sundae Social Birthday Party for both my daughters’ birthdays—they turned 5 & 7 years old. We had a pretty tight budget this year, but I feel like we were able to put together a party that was just as fun as any others. A ice cream social is one of the best parties to have when you are on a budget, because you can get away with doing only dessert instead of having to feed a large group of people, and trust me, kids are fine with only being served ice cream!
First, we made our own invitations with a quick search for free clip art online and with a little time designing a layout with Adobe Illustrator. I printed the invitation and glued it to polka dot card stock I purchased from Michael’s.
We didn’t do too much as far as decorations go. For the most part, I just pulled out some colorful things I already had, such as floral table clothes and placemats. I did, however, make some centerpieces to go along with our ice cream sundae theme. They were very easy to make. Basically, I just took a sundae dish (found these colorful ones at Vons), put a piece of floral arrangement foam, cut the stems of some carnations to size, and arranged them to look like an ice cream sundaes. This little project added just the flair we needed to get us in the ice cream sundae mood.
For the ice cream table, I got tubs of your basic vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. You can’t go wrong with these three basic flavors! And I bought all the toppings I thought the kids (and adults) would like—cookies, sprinkles, syrups, chocolate chips, nuts, fresh fruit, and of course, whip cream…with a cherry on top! A friend of mine jumped behind the table to help serve the scoops and spray the whip cream, but the kids were allowed to do the rest of the toppings themselves. They had a blast piling up all their favorite toppings.
Other than the ice cream, I just put out a few things to keep the kids entertained. I found some ice cream cone bubbles at DollarTree that the kids had a lot of fun with. I also put out some sugar cones and ping pong balls for them to play catch with. They did have fun playing catch with the cones, but in retrospect, I maybe should have just made one game out of it instead of just putting them out. They did start breaking and making a mess (which our dog enjoyed.)
I also put together a very easy craft table where the kids could cut out and decorate their own ice cream cones with constructions paper. This was very cheap to put together and all the kids enjoyed the project.
Since we were all so loaded up with sugar from the ice cream and cookies, I decided to just do some cup cakes instead of a full sheet cake. We sang happy birthday to the girls and then put the cupcakes aside for everyone to take home with them as a treat for later once the original sugar high wore off.
And of course, no party is complete without a little take home souvenir. All the kids were sent home with a little ice cream sundae favor. In a take-away ice cream cup, we put a little gift and candy and topped it with a body bath scrubber (for the ice cream) and then used double-sided tape to top with cotton balls (for the whip cream) and a red pompom (for a cherry). For the girls, the gift was a little nail polish and decal set and for the boys it was a superman hand sanitizer. I really did try to think of a better gift to put in the boys. It can be hard finding things for boy favors for a girls birthday party. If you do this particular favor yourself, you might find it hard to keep the whole “ice cream” together. What I did was cut a small hole in the bottom of the cup and pull the string for the body scrubber through the bottom. To get it to stay, I tide a knot on the string to make it tighter and then slid a toothpick through the knot at the bottom to hold it all together. There might be better ways to get them to stay together, but this worked best for me.
All in all, it was a successful party that I would totally do again. This party could be adapted for all kind of occasions and for any age.
