I tend to get a little over excited when planning parties for my children but when my daughter asked about having a Hello Kitty birthday, I was particularly giddy. Hello Kitty is all about crafts and cooking! I actually had to scale back from the original plan to have “shops” in the backyard where guests would go for individual activities (see the carnival booth plans at Mr. McGroovy’s).

The Invitations: Finestationery.com did not have what I needed for this party, so I ordered invitations through Tiny Prints. The cards were purrr-fectly wonderful.

The Crafts: We had several stations set up on low tables under one of those big tailgate tents in the backyard. Children could make giant tissue paper flowers. We folded several layers of colorful tissue accordion style then wrapped a pipe cleaner tightly around the middle. The kids pulled the tissue layers apart to create the flower. We also photocopied a Hello Kitty picture on cardstock. We then hole punched around the edge of the picture and tied a piece of long yarn to one hole. The guests could lace the string (like those nursery school lacing cards) and/or color the picture of Hello Kitty.

The Cooking: We used heart, butterfly, and tulip cookie cutters and made plain sugar cookies. We set up a table with the cookies, icing, and various sprinkles for a cookie decorating station.

The Scavenger Hunt: Each child received a drawstring bag with clues inside. Since our guests couldn’t read yet, we had slips of paper with pictures of places around the yard. You would pull a picture out of the bag, look for the location in the picture, then go to that place to pick up one treat. When the kids finished, they had filled Hello Kitty’s purse.

The Drawstring Bags: My sister made these for my niece’s spa birthday. She very kindly sewed the whole batch for me. Here is the basic pattern, but our bags had a 6″ square base and the sides were 22″ long and 10″ tall.

The Party Favors: Everyone took home the filled drawstring bags. After completing the scavenger hunt, the bags contained a headband with a red bow hot glued to it, lollipops, Hello Kitty lip gloss, Hello Kitty mirror, Hello Kitty mini notepad, and a few other fun items. All of the party stores and places like Target have a pretty big selection of mini Hello Kitty party favors.