Minnie Mouse Inspired 3rd Birthday

My goddaughter Analene celebrated her 3rd birthday with a Minnie Mouse inspired party. I use "inspired" because while her mom Ana and I wanted to include her love of Minnie in the celebration, we didn't want it to competely take over the party.

Instead of using Minnie's image in everything, as most character themed parties tend to do, we used the the red and white polka dot pattern in the party and just added touches of Minnie throughout.

Ana expressed to me that they she wanted to use the classic Minnie colors of black, red and white. We encountered some difficulty in finding character items like the pinata in this color scheme as Disney has shifted to using the newer pink Minnie design.

We started with these invitations

The sweets table included a tower of red velvet cupcakes and cupcake brownies, dipped pretzels, caramel popcorn, Swedish fish, sour bites, Reese's dark chocolate, licorice, cotton candy flavored hard candy, mini marshmallows and dipped giant marshmallows.

One thing I did not originally plan on doing but I think worked well were the manzanita arrangements on the sweets table. I had bought the manzanitas for my daughter's party next month but I spoke with Ana we decided that since we had them anyway, we might as well use them instead of having them collect dust for a month. I attached small tissue poms to the branches and a couple leftover tags I had from the cupcake toppers.

The table centerpieces were simple potted plants wrapped in red paper.

Ana's mom and sister covered an orange drink dispenser

with polkadot fabric and added ears on top.

Happy birthday sweet Analene! You are growing up so fast.

More photos from the party can be viewed on the facebook page