Mickey Mouse Party -1yr- Micky Mouse Music

For my son's 1st Birthday I did a Mickey Mouse theme with gifts and confetti as the accent theme and red, blue, and yellow as the accent colors.  We had about 17 children and 35 adults. 

Invitations - my husband is a graphic designer so he designed a custom invitation that folded into a square about the size of a CD cover.  It was meant to look like a gift.  The outside of the invitation looked like wrapping paper and had Mickey shoes, Mickey shorts, Mickey gloves, and Mickey heads and "Happy Birthday" in the Mickey font scattered all over.  The invitation was tied closed with yellow and red curling ribbon (just like a gift).  The inside of the invitation folded open with 3 flaps.  The top flap had a full-body Mickey.  The wording in the center of the invitation said "It's Daniel's 1st Birthday!" (in Disney font) "Mickey wants you to cheer for the greatest day of the year!  Let's celebrate Daniel's First at the Happiest House on Earth!" (in Mickey font).  Then it listed the usual information and referrred to our address as "Daniel's Magic Kingdom".  The background for the inside of the invitation was tiny confetti.  The partyware was "Wow Mickey" that I bought at Party City.  I only bought the dinner and dessert plates and used solid red, blue, and yellow napkins and cups.  The tablecloths were solid yellow.

For centerpieces I wrapped a square box in solid red wrapping paper and put 1 large square Mickey sticker on each side.  I had multi-colored tissue paper shooting out of the top of the box.  Sticking out of the middle of the tissue paper was a Mickey cut-out as if popping out of the box.  The Mickey cut-out was mounted on a small wooden dowel.  I stuck the dowel into a small piece of styrofoam at the bottom of the box.  Mickey was holding a flag/pendant that said "Daniel's 1st Birthday" in the Disneyland font and had the same tiny confetti printed on it that was used on the invitation.  Also printed on the pendant was the Disneyland castle. 

My husband made the Mickey and the flag/pendant on the computer and printed them on photo paper.  The tables were sprinkled with "Confoti" (from confoti.com).  Confoti are confetti made out of pictures.  The pictures I used for the Confoti were of my son at Disneyland and/or with Mickey and there was also solid red, yellow, and blue confetti.  I wrapped the patio poles in red, yellow, and blue crepe streamers.  I cut out approx. 75 over-sized confetti shapes (circles, stars, swirls, squiggles) out of red, yellow, and blue poster board and tied them on fishing wire then hung them at different lengths from the patio ceiling and gazebos.  It looked GREAT and as though confetti was falling from above! 

I had taken Daniel to get his birthday portraits earlier in the week.  He did five poses total.  For the first two poses he was dressed in a Mickey costume I made and was holding a small Mickey plush doll.   I made the costume by dying a white long-sleeved onesie black.  Then I bought red shorts and sewed two big white buttons on the front.  I also bought girl's black tights and white satin gloves (typically used for First Communion).  I had also found children's slippers in the shape of Mickey's yellow shoes at the Disney outlet.  And of course I bought Mickey ears when I took Daniel to Disneyland. 

The costume looked fantastic and got a lot of comments at the portrait studio.  In the third pose Daniel wore a Mickey t-shirt (the same one he wore at the party) and also featured the Mickey doll.  For the fourth and fifth poses he was dressed in a nice red and white plaid button-down shirt with khaki pants.   

The food tables were festive and bright with the same yellow table cloths.  We served a lot of cheese-themed foods and snacks (cuz mice like cheese) and all of the serving trays, bowls, baskets were red, blue, and yellow.  At the food table I had three of his portraits in  8x10 red frames. 

The party favors had their own table which also had an 8x10 photo of him dressed as Mickey in a red frame.    Each child received a solid colored gift box (from Oriental Trading)tied with blue, red, and yellow curling ribbon.  Inside the boxes were Mickey stickers, Mickey pencils, candy, bubbles, and bouncy balls, all wrapped in colored tissue.  Each child also received a large Mickey swirl lollipop (from the dollar store).  I tied red, blue, and yellow curling ribbon to those too.  The lollipops were displayed in a yellow plastic bucket and looked like something out of Disneyland.  The adult guests received a Mickey magnet frame with Daniel's picture of him dressed as Mickey.  My husband and I made the magnet frames ourselves.  He printed a black Mickey head on photo paper and cut out a square in the center.  He then cut square pieces of wood and sprayed them black.  I then mounted the picture on the wood and glued them to the Mickey head and attached a small strip of magnet on the back.  The cake was a Mickey design from Sam's Club.  It had red, blue, and yellow balloons and confetti.  The cake table also had a yellow table cloth and was sprinkled with Confoti.  There was a second 8x10 pose of Daniel dressed as Mickey in a red frame on this table too.  I also passed around a Mickey autograph book for the guests to sign. 

I bought the "Wow Mickey" birthday banner and mounted it on 2 strips of blue poster board.  We customized the banner by adding the word "Daniel" which my husband made on the computer (he duplicated the lettering and printed it on photo paper).  The gift table had a red table cloth and a large Mickey plush doll sitting on a big box covered with another red table cloth so that he was high above the gifts.  I hung a large Mickey beach towel (from Wal-Mart) on the sliding glass door and taped the over-sized confetti all around it. 

No one could even tell it was a towel.  It looked more like a poster.  All throughout the backyard I had about 2 dozen red, blue, and yellow latex balloons tied to different things.  About six of the balloons were Mickey shaped.  My father-in-law made me a miniature version of Mickey's house out of large pieces of cardboard.  He drew it and painted it himself.  The house stood about 40-50 inches tall and the kids had fun posing in front of it for pictures.  Outside, at the front door, I had oversized confetti hanging from the entryway ceiling and I taped Mickey postcards that I bought at the Disney store to the door.   I also taped plastic Mickey placemats to the windows that faced the backyard. 

There were about 6 different placemat designs.  The high chair was decorated in red, blue, and yellow streamers.  Daniel had a Mickey bowl and plate from the Disney store and wore a Mickey bib from Target.  I tied a giant Mickey head mylar balloon to his high chair.  The pinata was Mickey with red, blue, and yellow accents.  I ordered it from a local dollar store for about $15.  The kids got red and yellow lunch bags with which to collect candy.  I personalized the bags with Disney alphabet stickers. 

The music playing during the entire party was Disney music from their greatest hits collections.  Daniel, my husband, and I each wore different Mickey T-shirts we found at Wal-Mart and khaki bottoms.  Toward the end of the party my husband and I showed a 20 minute photo montage of Daniel's first year.  We had worked on it for about a month.  The opening sequence of the video played the Mickey Mouse march/theme song.  The closing credits played the Electrical Parade and had computerized fireworks.   The party was a lot of work and took months of planning but it was a dream come true.  It looked fabulous and guests really appreciated the hard work and small details.  The kids had a blast and were most excited about their big swirl lollipops.  It was a lot of money but worth every penny to see my son's happy little face smiling at me at the end of the day.