Sugar High

My daughter's reaction when she saw the set up

When I asked my daughter what she wanted for her 5th birthday she exclaimed, "a candy store!". But real estate costs money and I hadn't quite saved enough for a brick and mortar sweet factory. So I created a little home-based candy store right in our dining room. We invited a bunch of her little friends and their mommies and we set our sights on a fantastic sugar-high!

I ordered the custom invitations at Zazzle. I love that site. I ordered them a month in advance to be sure the would arrive on time. Here they are...

Each guest was handed a sweet bag as they came in. There was only one rule. Fill that baby up!

Treat Bags

I went on Etsy and found personalized party stickers here. I applied the stickers to the treat bags and the candy jars. I found all of the glass jars and containers at Walmart. I added a strip of ribbon wrapped around each jar to make it a little more festive.

I bought most of the bulk candy here at Oh Nuts!  I chose my daughter's faves and had some fun with their colored malted milk balls (so delicious!). The Ice Cream Sundae Malted Milk Balls were a huge hit and the colors are divine!

Ice Cream Sundae Malted Milk Balls

I also ordered a few pounds each of other colorful delights, like Laffy Taffy, Sixlets (so many gorgeous colors) and assorted candy sticks. The rock candy was a top fave among the kidlets.

I went to Costco and Walmart and picked up some boxes of popular chocolate bars and placed those items in baskets for the kids to grab.

I found the candy scoopers at Party City (those were the hardest thing to find)!

Party Store Candy Scooper (they were in the wedding section)

All guests were treated to hot dogs grilled by the husband, fresh fruit salad, cake and ice cream. Loads of chips were on hand for guests who needed to counteract the sweet with a little salt.

We still needed a birthday cake and I called some local bakeries to price out a custom candy store theme cake design. When the prices started upwards of $250 (we had about 20 people to feed), I decided that a darling color cake from Costco would suffice. It was delicious and I kept the price under $25!

My girls apparently didn't get enough candy and needed to dig into that frosting straight away!

Along with bags loaded with candy, each guest left with a t-shirt to commemorate the special day. I designed the t-shirts and had them screen printed by a local printer. I ordered an array of sizes (youth and adult) to accomodate all guests.

Everyone got a t-shirt!

Finally, I knew we had to add lots of color to transform the dining room into an official candy store. I wanted something fun and fresh, eye-catching and easy. I finally found these amazing tissue paper pom poms and hung them from the ceiling. The BEST part of these paper lovelies is that they are now a permanent fixture in our children's playroom (post to follow). You can order the tissue paper pom poms already made (you just have to separate the tissue and fluff the pom poms before you hang them). There are also tutorials available online if you want to make them from scratch. Click here for the Martha Stewart how-to version.

I won't be throwing a party like this every year but I'm happy that I was able to do something memorable and fun for my little girl and her friends.