American Girl Ice Cream Social- Birthday Party

I tell you. The girls strung the signs so that H that's so far away from the "appy" is kinda bugging me. Yes, I'm a firstborn. Sigh, not that it matters. I'm so glad the girls helped and had fun.

I know that today is technically Take It Tuesday, but I haven't packed but one lunch. School is starting though, like next week. I'll pack some then. Today I want to share Diva's American Girl Ice Cream Social birthday party. We love our parties here on Give Peas A Chance. She was allowed to invite just a handful of girls to join us for an afternoon of crafts, carousel rides, glitter tattoos, and ice cream social madness. I kid, it wasn't madness it was really fun! I can't believe I have a NINE year old though. I'm old. Happy Birthday sweet girl!! We're so blessed to have you in our lives.
This post is going to be picture heavy, so get ready for it.

Let's start with food. Really though, there wasn't food. Just ... sweets.

 I forgot the platter I was going to put her "cake" on... and the candles. Will I ever remember the candles? So Diva, just like Piglet, did the "pretend to blow out the candles" thing. Oh well. Anyway. The cake was three cupcakes, and a sugar cone that  I tacked down to the lid of ... I don't know what that lid is from? Anyway. I tacked down the sugar cone, and cupcakes with frosting. Put the cupcakes and cone on top of the frosting. Then I grabbed a jar of sprinkles and dumped it in there. (This party was not here at home, or I would have found a platter, I was improvising.)

 So we had vanilla ice cream. Just vanilla to keep it simple. 

Toppings and such 

Fruity Pebbles
Mini Chocolate Chips

Sprinkles of all sorts
Mini Oreos

Teddy Grahams
Cherries

Strawberries
Red Hots
Mini Biscotti
Magic Shell
Whipped cream

Sugar cones
Mike and Ikes
Marshmallows (both the Mike and Ikes and Marshmallows were for the favor bags too, I didn't want to take any sweets home with me)
I also avoided gummies, caramel, nuts, and stuff like that because of Diva's braces and allergies.

 I'd like to take a moment to thank my friend for saving her Frappuccino bottles for me. I love using them for parties. I'm going to etch them soon.  They look cute with just a little label and some bakers twine though.

 I covered/labeled most everything with free printables. I did design the signs and her invites.

 Along with make your own Sundae's we put out items to make Root Beer Floats. 

I pretty much puffy heart mason jars. I use them for so many things!

Cookies and Mike and Ikes.

 I also had cookies available for anyone who wanted to make their own ice cream sandwiches. Which were huge. I didn't have one, but if I did I wouldn't have been able to finish one of these. I actually just had fresh strawberries with whipped cream on top, and water.

Birthday girl's ice cream sundae. I had to toss the Mike and Ikes... I forgot, braces. 

 I baked cupcakes into the cake cones for the girls to TAKE HOME with them. You know so they could eat them once their sugar levels from all the ice cream plummeted. 

Now, crafts. We planned about 3 crafts? But we only got to do one. Right. One. Which is fine because it was fun and the girls were having fun. The one crafty thing we did was making bracelets. The girls all got to make one for themselves and for a doll or stuffed animal if they wanted. Funny thing is, DH made I'd say 50% of the bracelets. He was much faster and the girls kept asking him for help. Eventually he had them pick colors and made them some too. 

After the bracelets, DH called the girls over to the table and helped them one by one make a sundae, a float, or an ice cream sandwich. SO thankful he was there. He coaches Diva's soccer team so, he can handle girls.  He also loaded, unloaded the car, helped set up. I mean just about everything. 

While he helped the girls I gave them each a glitter tattoo. Don't laugh, and no worries, I am not "quitting my day job". The girls liked the tattoos though.

 Hibiscus.

 Pixie chose a mermaid. I knew she would.  She also picked pink and red.

 This is a leaf, ivy design.

 Piglet chose this flower.

 I messed up a little on this but it worked out.

Another flower.

After the carousel ride, the girls filled their goodie bags-

This is the gift table/favor table. I didn't even get tablecloths. Anyway, the girls did bring their dolls along.
Favors-

Marshmallows- fruit flavored ones
Flower lollipops
Bubbles
Bookmarks (2 different ones)
Mike and Ikes
American Girl Treasure Totes

 These are the Treasure Totes. Too cute, I got them off of the American Girl website.

 Bookmarks, my friend used her Silhouette machine to cut the banner items and these items out for me. I just put them together and laminated them. I liked the way they turned out.

That's all for party pictures that  I can show you. I did get some of the kids on the carousel.

Onto stuff for the party.

I designed the invitations and signs, then had them printed at Costco. I was so pleased with how her invitation turned out. Mind you I used fonts, I don't know how to draw or add pictures and shapes. So Wingdings and letters is what I used.

(Obviously not my phone number- haha)

 The frames were 99 cents, I got them at Ikea. They were the last ones there at our location. They did have some blue ones but I like the plain white/off white. I can use them for more events.

I mentioned that my friend sent us some fun colorful cutouts for the banner, and signs. Here is Piglet helping me string the cute ice cream cone banner with bakers twine.

Cake and Ice Cream sign, before mounting on different paper and laminating.

So cute. Santa, I'd love a Silhouette please.

Diva put washi tape on the bubbles to add some color to them.

For the cupcakes baked in cake cones, just a tip, or a couple

1. Moist cake + cone= mushy/soft cone. Don't make these too far in advance. 

2. I used my popover pan to hold up the cones, this worked 10,000,000 times better than my small Pampered Chef muffin tin. The sides on the popover pan just cradled the cones better.

3. Fill the cones about 2/3 of the way full, bake as normal.

 Popover pan. You should go make these Popovers. 

Pampered Chef mini muffin tin, not as effective. But perfect for Pancake Cupcake/Muffins.

I think that's about it... it was a fun party. Very minimal setup and cleanup. Or maybe that's because DH did most of it.

Pixie picked me some flowers <3 p="">

Printables can be found at Pottery Barn Kids

The basket that the Bitty Twins on the favor table are in can be found on my friend's Thirty One site
Bakers twine, Washi tape, Straws can be found on Pick Your Plum - there's a new deal everyday though.

American Girl Dolls, totes, and Saige's Hot Air Balloon can be found on their site. (Thank you Auntie Heather for the Hot Air Balloon!)
You can also check out my reviews of the American Girl DC store HERE, and HERE.