Candyland Party -4yr- Bulk Candy Sources

INVITATIONS: I bought King Size Hershey's Bars & took all the brown wrappers off then, replaced them with a personalized Candy Land theme wrapper that I made using a Candy Land photo I found in a google search (type in Candy Land images) & printed them myself. Then bubble wrapped them & put them inside a 6X9 Metallic envelope, guests told me that their invite arrived in good condition & everyone LOVED them!  

DECORATIONS: We had the party outside so that it would resemble the Candy Land board game as much as possible so a tent was set up for the guest tables. I bought the Candy Land-plates, cups, napkins, centerpieces, banner & party favor boxes from www.BirthdayExpress.com. Guest tables-8 ft. tables that seated 8/table, used green disposable tablecloths for the grass affect like the Candy Land board then red, orange, purple & blue place mats for the Candy Land Trail" (red across from red orange across from orange & so on). Guest seats were dressed in white satin chair covers with chair sashes to match the place mat of that spot. I had the plates napkins & cups already set up at each seat so that the theme/colors of the party were everywhere & distinct! I bought the larger rainbow colored Whirly Pops & placed them on each plate along with a sheer organza bag like you buy at Michael's I also placed Ring Pops inside the cups so they wouldn't fly away! Then scattered some other colorful candies on the tables.  

CANDY BAR: I thought a candy buffet would be perfect for Candy Land birthday party so I searched google for some pix/ideas cause I just knew there would be lots to look at since Candy Buffets are the new in thing for weddings these days. It's great for color/decorating & doubles as your favors! I went on eBay to buy the glass containers to put the candy in & lucky for me Michael's was also having a sale on their containers as well so I bought some then too. I plan my party's theme way ahead of time so I can buy things throughout the year so that I don't have to feel so stressed & broke by the end of the party.

There are a few places you can go online for the candy here are a few of the sites I used  www.BulkFoods.com www.BulkCandyStore.com www.NiftyCandy.com  www.SweetFactory.com  For this set up I used one 8 ft. table. I used purple disposable tablecloths & added a purple disposable skirt around the table to dress it up a little more. I used different size boxes under the table cloth to make different heights for the candy jars like you will see in many candy buffet photos this made it so I had to use two table cloths because the height caused the table cloths to not be big enough. I put the cake in the middle as the focal point of the table which made it look AWESOME & pulled the whole look together. The cake by the way looked really cool as well; to view photos of it go to www.apieceocake.com. I fan out my leftover Whirly Pops on either side of the cake on the table. The sheer organza bags on the plates were for the kids to put their candy in. 

ACTIVITIES: This was a lot of cardboard painting & glitter (plan for about a weeks time to put into this)!!! We asked Art Van to save the largest boxes they had so that we could use them for our props. We made all the signs for each station to look just like they did on the game board out of cardboard too & the cricket cutter for the letters. All the stations that needed a table got a pink tablecloth to represent the pink spot on the Candy Land trail. And we got our daughter's babysitter & her friends to play each Candy Land character & to oversee each station.  The stations were set u as follows: 

GINGERBREAD TREE-We made Mama Tree & one of the pink bushes from the game board with large cardboard & painted them. The activity was to make gingerbread men.  

PEPPERMINT FOREST-We went to Bronners & bought the largest candy canes we could find & then some smaller ones to fill in space. We also bought -snow batting chunky glitter round mints & few red sparkly twigs on sale. We used the batting for snow on the ground stuck the candy canes in the snow everywhere to resemble a forest & scattered the glitter & round mints. The activity was a ring toss game; we bought rings & stakes then painted them white & red & the winners got a mini candy cane.  

GUMDROP MOUNTAINS-We made HUGE gumdrops out of cardboard painted them & glittered them. We also bought a bunch of soup cups with lids two sizes from Gordon's Food Store & painted those all different colors & glittered them too we put rocks inside so they wouldn't fly around & scattered those EVERYWHERE just like on the game board. The activity was Gumdrop Domes which they made with gumdrops & toothpicks; it's kind of a science experiment sort of thing check out this link : http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/gumdrop dome.html.  PEANUT ACRES-We made the Peanut Brittle House & a Peanut Bush out of cardboard too; the house was made like a mini house not just a flat cardboard prop. The activity was to search through a large box of painted packing peanuts for some peanut treats like Nutter Butter & Reese's Cups. The box was made to look like a large basket.  

LOLLIPOP WOODS-We made a ton of lollipops out of wooden dowels (for lollipop sticks) different round Styrofoam's & table cloths/tissue paper to cover up the Styrofoam which we then tied with ribbon-we bought all of these supplies from Hobby Lobby. We bought all different sizes & placed them everywhere gathering a bunch at one spot for the activity spot. The activity was not very unique; we got a bunch of Burger King crowns & taped lollipops to them.  

SNOWFLAKE LAKE-Again VERY LARGE cardboard for the Ice Cream Mountains & lots of glitter we also used the leftover snow batting to use at the base of the mountains & bought a pink snowflake garland that I draped on the mountains. The activity was Sandy Candy Wands the kids got to add different color sandy candy to there wands like sand art then Princess Frostine hot glued a snowflake on top of their wands when they were done.  

GLOPPY-I just had an 8 ft. table set up dressed with a brown tablecloth & skirt with a chocolate fountain & all the treats for the kids to dip. But we did also make a large cardboard cut out of Gloppy to set on top of the table by the fountain to make it look like he was part of it. This was a hit of course! 

CANDY LAND CASTLE-This turned out REALLY great! We used some of our largest cardboard to make sections of the castle then we tied them all up to a large trampoline piecing it all together. After the cutting & painting this was probably the easiest station to prep & set up (and maybe even the biggest hit too)! 

This party looked like a million bucks & got SO many compliments every kid wanted a Candy Land party after this & every parent wanted to borrow the props! For food we just got pizza we kept the food simple since everything else took so much time & effort. The kids were so fun to watch & hearing their reactions was priceless even the adults were amazed! This was a BIG hit!!!       "