Hey Mommy friends! My daughter is turning 3 the end of this month and she is so excited to have an M&M's theme party! I pretty much have a lot of ideas after researching on the internet for decorations and games and desserts. But I am not really sure what I can do for "Food" food to go with the theme? We are having it at 2pm but I still want to have some other light snacks and munchies OTHER than the tons of M&M's cakes and sweets I plan to make. I was hoping to incorporate the theme by colors or shapes though with the savory foods. Please let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions! We are really excited for this fun birthday idea, and I highly recommend it to any other mom's out there whose kids love m&m's as much as mine does!
Alrighty! In case anyone is interested, these were my ideas....
We made invites from construction paper using the m&m's colors and cutting them in circles and I traced the specific "M" on white paper to put on the invites so it would look authentic. Put the party Info on back. I asked everyone to wear their favorite m&m colored shirt, and I will have M's cut out for them to tape to their shirts when they arrive if they want. (I'm sure the kids will)
By complete accident, I found really nice M&M's calenders for 1.00 a piece and Michael's craft store. They will be awesome to give with party favors or prizes. I bought an extra calender and took it apart to hang all 12 month's pictures as decorations. They also had day of the week magnets, and computer mouse pad type calenders with m&m's there all for one dollar. I can use these as prizes for the kids games. As well as I found M&Ms chap stick/lip gloss 3 packs that were very inexpensive at Target. I know the girls will love those.
Let me just say that the Dollar Tree just rocks! They didn't have all of the primary m&m colors, but they did have red, yellow, and blue plates, napkins, cups, ect. You just cant beat it! Party city charges 5, 6, 7 something a pack of plates. Seriously? Dollar Tree, well.... one dollar, LOL. They had tons of party favors that would work for us. Pens, notebooks, bouncy balls all in primary colors to go with the theme. I printed out M&M's guys and typed each child's name in cool font and put it on the note book to personalize it.
Also, there was a silver, tinsel type garland at Dollar Tree since her bday month is November all the XMas stuff was out... but it also had primary colored foil circles all through it that looked like M&Ms. I got a few strands of that to hang, rather than paper garland b/c I can never get it to look good. They had mini gum ball machines a buck a piece at Dollar Tree, in all primary colors just like my plates and stuff. I got 3... 2 to dispense peanut, and regular chocolate m&ms. And an extra to fill and have the kids guess how many are in... the closest one gets to take the whole thing home! They loved this! They are small and plastic, but for a dollar a piece you really can't beat it.
At Target, they recently had their Halloween candy on clearance 75% off. I accidentally found large 50 pack bags of specifically m&m's, peanut m&m's, and mini m&m's... no other candies in them. They are in regular snack bags, not Halloween looking at all. So I got those to hide and have an m&m hunt for the kids. And throw a few in their goodie bags. I got poster board at the Dollar store also. Cut a large circle from it and traced an M in the center. I will give each child an M to play "pin the M on the m&m."
I did splurge and bought two large bags of chocolate and peanut m&m's from Sam's Club, 56 oz bags. Just so I have some to fill dishes with and for all of my desserts. They were about 9 dollars a bag, but much cheaper then buying the smaller bags at the grocery store since I needed a good amount.
We copied pictures of the M&M's characters from the website and pasted them into Microsoft Word on the computer. I set them up in 5 columns across my paper and made them fairly small to print off all of the different characters. I am going to make mini sandwiches since we are having the party at 2, and I will stick toothpicks in the sandwiches and tape these small m&m's print outs to the top of the tooth pick. It was just too much to figure out how else to incorporate M&M's into the "main food." I am going to get a loaf of "rainbow" bread and make little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids that we be neat and colorful. They serve them with mini marshmallows at Issac's Deli restaurant and the kids always seem to love that, so I will throw a couple of those on the serving dish for fun.
Also, planning on having blue Hawaiian punch, red punch, orange soda, lemonade, green soda or juice, brown chocolate milk.... you get the idea; to represent all of the m&m's colors in drinks. The kids can decorate their own cupcakes with m&m's however they wish. We will serve green guacamole with blue corn chips and red salsa. Orange cheese puffs. Yellow chips, brown pretzels, ect. Just using the color scheme for easy snacks you would normally have at a get together. Veggie tray with lots of bright colored veggies.
I found foam circles in the craft/school isle at the Dollar Tree. All I had to do was cut out my white M's from my tracings... I stacked the papers 5-6 thick so I got more at a time that way... and glued them on the foam circles. Hole punched the top and will hang them from fishing wire all from the ceilings. I might order balloons in primary colors and tape M's to them, i cannot find real M&Ms balloons. I already have primary colored Christmas lights in my attic that I might use as well.
I cut holes in an old cardboard box and we are going to have an "M&M's toss" type of game if there is enough time and the kids seem bored or something. Possibly paint M&M's on the kids cheek with clearance halloween face paint if time allows and the kids seem interested. It would be super easy to paint that! I am not HUGE on games, I hope for the kids to have fun in their own way... but I like to have a few lined up just in case they seem to be bored or need something to help keep them busy and keep up the fun!
They have A TON of M&M's merchandise on their website if you want to get really serious. But with me staying home with my daughter, I needed to keep to a budget. I bought extra napkins to use to line my serving plates that I already have to go with the color scheme so it doesn't totally clash. They do sell M&M's bowls, plates, all of that stuff if you wanted to go that extra mile. But honestly with all the m&ms types of desserts we had, that really was enough with the primary color back ground.
I got confetti-type BOXED cakes and icings, brownie mixes, ect to have m&ms on them, or the m&m's type of look. I am going to make chocolate covered pretzel rods and sprinkle mini m&m's on them. I am making sugar cookies from the log on the refrigerated section. Cut them on the thicker side, sprinkle m&m's and push a popscicle stick in before baking. they are fun and kids love them. There was an awesome recipe on the M&M's website. You get ice cream cones, push your prepared cupcake in the cone, ice it sloppy like how an ice cream cone would drip a little on the sides. Sprinkle with colored sprinkles and M&M's (or have the kids do it themselves) and serve them in a large bowl filled with m&m's... the bottom of the cone stuck down in the m&m's bowl and that will hold them up. The picture looked really awesome.... website http://www.brightideas.com/bright_idea.aspx?ID=111
I am pretty excited that my daughter chose this idea, if you can't tell :o) She has been able to help me with many of the things and she is really feeling special being included in so much. She loves helping me in the kitchen, and cleaning, and cooking, and decorating, shopping... so she has been included in all of this; which is probably the most exciting and special part for her! We have been having so much fun together, and I can't tell you enough as a Mommy on a budget, how much fun this party has turned out to be using many creative ideas. It may sound like a lot, but honestly, it really was easy! And so much fun. I can't wait for our party... I still have 2 weeks and just wanted to give myself enough time to be creative and really take the time so I could save myself some money!
I hope this helps anyone else interested in going this route! Please still message me if you have any more ideas. Thanks so much ladies!
Hi, I am actually writing to ask a question. Did you find M&M decorations? I am actually using this theme for my baby girl's first birthday. I am trying to find foil balloons and candy bags. If you can help I would appreciate it so much. Thanks
J.
If you just want to do finger foods, you can do Ritz and peanut butter sandwiches or mini quesadillas (I recently made some with cheese and sliced chicken breast). You could also cut flat fruit snacks into rounds. Just about anything round could be transformed with a piping bag and some peanut butter or cheese spread -- just add Ms to everything ;) If you want to go the pizza and veggie tray route, you could always make Ms out of pepperoni or the carrot sticks to turn the large trays into the world's largest M&Ms . . . or just relax and enjoy yourself :)
Make pizza & put "M" in pepperoni!
super Cute theme, I love it when everything fits a theme down to the last detail, but i also have to remind myself sometimes that you just can't make it happen. so if it doesn't work cut yourself a break and know that and M&M party totally rocks even if the food doesn't match.
Ok so here are the things that came to me when i read your post. You could make sandwiches for the kids using a big round cookie cutter template. I would probably just to Pb and j on white bread and try to put an initial on it, like M&M's logo or your daughters first initial. If you wanted to take it a step further you could probably tint the bread, or just do open faced round jam sandwiches in red/strawberry or purple/grape.
Other wise what about small mini burgers--sliders with ketchup or mustard on them. either open faced or not.
Or you could do a play on the letter M like Macaroni and ... ok something else with an M.
Even if you can't come up with food that looks like M&M's if you serve it on an M&M tray or if you could find fancy tooth picks with an M&M& logo (or make your own on the computer). That would be totally cute.
What an awesome party! I would love to come, This could be so cute for a teenage girl too. mmmmm chocolate.
I love doing theme parties too =O}. I was thinking you could do sandwiches on tortillas (they sell them with spinach in them so they are green, our you could just add some food coloring to the plain ones yourself). I thought either PBJ, or in this crazed allergy world we live in, maybe lunch meat cut into circles also.
For sides, maybe apples cut into circles (core out the middle and then slice the apple). You could add Ms made out of pancake batter or dough, or even peanut butter. Also carrots cut as coins (or cucumbers) with a food coloring M stamped on them).
Other round things I could think of: potato cakes, pancakes, cheese cut into circles, cookies - Crayola makes great red, yellow, green, and blue colors), blueberries, mini tomatoes sliced. I think that is the extend of my brain power this morning.
best wishes for a great birthday party (others just don't understand that this is fun for us, not work =O})
Other than decorations, the cake and M&M's food is food. Don't worry about fitting the theme unless you want to go crazy! Just feed whatever party foor you would typically. Personally, I usually have a fruit try, veggie try and pizza for kids, cold cuts and hot rooast beef and salad if kids/adults.
