Kid's Bee-Day Party!

This past weekend was my daughter Bianca's 2nd Bee-day Party. I chose a bee theme. Here are the invites I designed in Photoshop and sent out to her friends.

Each guest got a handmade Bumble Bee headband upon arriving at the party. These were so easy to make using pipe cleaners, black headbands and black pompoms. A glue gun makes magic!

I went a little berserk with the table. I made the tissue pom-poms from dollar store tissue paper and garbage bag twisty ties. Easy peasy.

The table had 5 small jars (purchased from the Dollar Tree) filled with yellow and black candies.  Lemon drops, scooters, black raspberry chews, black m&ms and yellow m&ms.

I purchased small sized vanilla sandwich cookies (fake oreos) at the Dollar Tree and dipped them in yellow candy melts (available at craft stores in the cake decorating department). Then I zig-zagged black candy melts over them to make cute little bees.

The beehive cupcakes were made by making standard cupcakes in silicone cupcake liners. Once baked I removed from the liners and flipped them upside down. Then I piped lemon frosting from the base upwards and added a black M&M for the opening.

I found the small raffia beehive at Michaels Crafts on super clearance. It was covered with fake cactus plants. Once I removed them it was a perfect table decoration! Add some quart mason jars with yellow flowers and it made the table super cute.  The yellow B was purchased from Michaels clearance and was just 25 cents.  It was originally red but I painted it with craft paint to match the color scheme.

The small black and yellow buckets were purchased at Target Dollar Spot and filled with black licorice and Bit-O-Honeys....both of which were rejected. Can you blame them? 

This tray of "Bee Stingers" was made by dipping stick pretzels in the yellow candy-melts and then drizzling with black candy melts. The kids loved them. (I saw this idea online and CAN'T find the original link now!  Sorry!)

I also bought three small picture frames from The Dollar Tree and added pictures of the birthday girl as a baby and two favorite photos from her recently.  I painted one of the picture frames yellow.

I made a beehive pinata (originally seen here via Country Living) with paper mache and a balloon. Then covered it with yellow streamers. Left over black and yellow pipe-cleaners were twisted around a pencil and glued on as little bees. I love how this turned out.

Because the kids were so young we didn't blindfold them or move the pinata. It took the oldest guest (my seven year old, Ella) to finally break it. Inside were individually packaged teddy grahams (for a healthy option).

The guests colored a beehive coloring page and also did this bee craft, which I made up. All of the pieces were self sticking craft foam, so we only needed an adult to help glue on the pipe-cleaner antenna and glue them to the tongue-depressors. It was a hit!

This was my FAVORITE craft from the party. Before the party I designed this beehive printable and printed at at 8x10". I used a yellow stamp pad (purchased at A.C. Moore for $1) and had each guest place their forefinger on the pad and add it above the hive. Then we used a sharpie pen to add a black stripe, wings and other bee details and then added their name. I put the finished poster into a black 8x10" frame from Dollar Tree and hung it in my daughter's room as a keepsake from her birthday. So simple, inexpensive and cute!

Here's a close-up of the little fingerprint bees.

Guests got a gift bag with a small yellow party blower, a yellow bubbles bottle which I added a strip of black and white paper to and a small wooden bumble bee (which i bought at the craft store).

Their bags also had the treats from the pinata. I tied the bags with yellow bakers twine which I made using the tutorial found here.  I wrapped my string around an empty CD case instead of a ruler to make more at one time.

Just wondering...would a video on making the tissue pom-poms be helpful?  I couldn't find a good one when I started out making them.  Anyone interested?