Ice Cream Parlor Birthday Party

Our little girl is TWO!

We went with the sweet theme of a vintage ice cream parlor birthday party. And of course we had to sneak in her favorite things! From blueberries to giant bubbles, and an ice cream play dough station to kiddie pool. The party was a hit!

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DIY Ice Cream Parlor Decorations

For a big impact, I made a giant ice cream cone out of kraft paper, coffee filters, and a tomato cage. I found the clear 36 inch jumbo balloon at Michael’s, borrowed the little red ball, and cut out sprinkles from paper. As a bonus, our little girl loved playing with the balloon after the party too!

Here’s an inside look at the ice cream cone.

The DIY art was another of my favorite decor pieces. I probably spent way too much time making the ice cream parlor sign… but I LOVE it. I’m definitely keeping it for an ice cream parlor play spot at grandma’s house.

And the Japanese inspired kawaii cherries are just so stinking cute! If you’re not already a VIP member (which means you get my occasional awesome emails and access to the free printable library), then sign up and snag these adorable free printables here!

Lots of cardboard, tape, and paint turned into an adorable ice cream parlor party. I had a fair amount of random supplies already, so the DIY decorations cost a total of $30 or less!

Desserts

For the cake cones we filled waffle cones with homemade lemon cake and topped with lemon creamcheese frosting. YUM!

A few tips for these tasty treats:

1. Make a batch with smaller cones like sugar or wafer cones that’s a more manageable size for little hands.

2. Add a layer of cake, then frosting, and repeat about 3 or 4 times for a nice distribution of cream cheese frosting.

3. Feel free to make the cake and frosting a day ahead, but don’t assemble until right before the party to avoid soggy cones or wilted frosting tops.

4. These can totally be dairy free if you swtich out the frosting and make a dairy free cake.

The main event: ice cream bar with snazzy toppings.

• Fresh fruit
• Heath toffee bits
• Nuts
• Oreo pieces
• Homemade brownie bites
• Salted caramel (easy Werther’s version here)
• Hot fudge

Boom. Classy ice cream bar.

And please don’t fall for that cheap value sized ice cream gallon. Just go straight for the Costco premium vanilla ice cream. Then you won’t even mind having leftover ice cream in your freezer. 😉

Also, these 9 oz ice cream cups were the PERFECT size for both kids and adults. They’re so cute! And they prevented the waste you’d get from kids loading up normal size bowls, eating a quarter of it, and leaving ice cream soup for you to clean up.

Our little cutie sneaking some toppings.

Activities

After the kiddos were loaded up with sweets we unleashed them on the backyard to burn off the sugar.

Then we broke out the bubbles. We tried this giant bubble recipe and it worked pretty well, but I might try out another recipe next time. The kids loved the bubbles though! It was helpful to have a few different bubble wands and a bubble machine so everyone could enjoy the bubble fun.

And finally, after the little ones started to get cold from the swimming/bubble combo, we let them warm up in the sun and play with ice cream playdough. It’s super easy and only takes two ingredients to make! You can get the recipe here. The younger kids mostly just played with it like playdough, but the older kids loved having ice cream scoops so they could fill their cones. Next time I would totally have red pom poms for cherries and large sprinkles for more creative ice cream fun.

Everyone had a blast! What sweet memories with our sweet little girl. We can’t wait for her little sister to join us soon.

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