What Trish lacked in budget, she more than made up for with resourcefulness and creativity: Tula loves all things Hello Kitty. There is a plethora of Hello Kitty birthday supplies available, but I knew we could make just about everything ourselves, and it would be cheaper and cuter.
Since I have a 5-year-old who loves projects, making the decorations kept us busy in the afternoons for about a week, while Tula napped. Other than steamers and balloons, the decorations were made out of paper that I purchased at Paper Zone. It’s amazing how much you can make out of colored butcher paper and poster board! Instead of buying birthday hats, we used the poster board to make headbands shaped like Hello Kitty characters.
The favor boxes were 49¢ each, and we cut and glued paper pieces to make them look like different characters. Filling the boxes can get expensive, so we kept it simple by going to a nearby asian market to pick up some Hello Kitty candy and gum. We found rainbow stickers and activity books at the party store, too. The total for each box came to about $1.50. The kids also helped me bake the rainbow cake, and they had a ton of fun mixing up the colors.
Thanks Trish! Readers, you can find Trish at Modern Thrifter and see more of this fun party here.
Small Cool Lessons: Discovering Small Space Design Ideas That Really Work
Beatriz's Fun & Functional Workspace
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Sheex Bedding
How to Make Easy 3-Ingredient Energy Bars at Home
How to Make Fresh Pasta Dough in the Food Processor
WOW! This is ADORABLE!!! I wish we could see some more pics of all the creativity.
Beautiful! Love the hats and the cake.
very cute party. how did you make the ears and what is the nose on the cake?
That cake is beyond!
Awesome hats and treat boxes. So much sweeter than anything you could buy.
Thanks everyone! The ears were just pieces of card stock that I coated in frosting and the nose was some sort of mint/white chocolate candy that I found in the bulk section at the grocery store. You can see more photos on my modernthrifter.com blog, here's the specific link: http://tumblr.com/xydfe2p2u
Wait... the ears (headbands, not cake) were made out of colored poster board that I cut into strips and glued on the ears/eyes/hair for each character. We kept them flat until the guests arrived and then stapled the bands to fit each child's head.
I can't get enough of the rainbow cakes I keep seeing around. I can just picture my kids' glee when they first see all the colors inside what appears to be a rather simple cake.
Why wasn't I invited?! Seems like the party of the decade!
Wonderful! Love the rainbow cake and the hats!
How did you make the colors so vibrant in the cake? When I made the cake last year for my son's birthday, the colors were more pastel than bright. Do I just need to add a ton of food coloring? (I used the gel icing colors)
WOW! I especially love this rainbow Hello Kitty cake as well. My daughter would freak. She literally just had her birthday a couple weeks ago (we did cupcakes), but maybe we can make on this winter for fun :)
We did have to use quite a bit of the gel food coloring to get the vibrant colors. I noticed that the layers with red mixed in were more bitter than the other colors, but overall the cake was still tasty and the kids didn't mind.