I chose a Toy Story theme for Lil' Hoot's third birthday because she spent several months prior to her birthday absolutely obsessed with her Toy Story "friends". From the top left:
- I made her a #3 birthday shirt with Buzz Lightyear and Woody patches.
- Her birthday sign was made in MS Word using the Gill Sans Ultra Bold font. It doesn't match the movie font exactly, but it is as close as I could get without Photoshop.
- Birthday cookie with Toy Story figures. She prefers cookies to cake and it was her birthday after all, so she got a giant chocolate chip cookie. I tried desperately to decorate with icing but, well, I can't be good at everything and I absolutely stink at decorative icing. Fortunately for me, she was extremely happy with the figures and the cookie.
- I was a bit worried about the balloons - one of the few requests from our birthday girl - because there was a national helium shortage (or so the signs said in many stores). I eventually found a couple of Toy Story balloons at Wal-mart. The rest of our spread included M&Ms, carrots, grapes, goldfish crackers, raisins, peanut butter rice krispie treats and sugar cookies*.
- I made her banner using the same Gill Sans Ultra Bold font. The gift bags included the alien thank you printable from Disney Family Go. I got the idea to include paperback books in the gift bags from a friend of mine. I found a 12 pack of Clifford books on clearance from Scholastic. I also printed out the Toy Story Fun Book.
- Table decor was kept super simple. Lil' Hoot chose her party hats - not toy story themed, but again, it's her birthday. Toy story plates and another printable - Buzz's Refueling Liquid - water bottle labels. Those were a big hit.
*A note about these sugar cookies. Absolutely a HIT! The recipe for the cookies is from Annie's Eats - soft frosted sugar cookies intended to mimic those found at the grocery store. I have always had a hard time getting sugar cookies to turn out edible but these were easy and tasted awesome. Added bonus - they freeze great so I made up the dough ahead of time then froze them. When it came time for the party I just popped them out, let them thaw a bit then into the oven. One change though, I didn't like the icing so I used vanilla frosting from the Cake Boss.
And I almost forgot, invitations! I snagged a printable Toy Story invitation from the Disney site then added a Buzz Lightyear image and popped them onto some primary color cards.
