Miss O recently celebrated her 4th birthday. Can you believe it? It feels like just yesterday I was throwing her very 1st birthday party. 

This year’s theme request of Hello Kitty was a lot easier than last year’s Princess Peach Party. While I absolutely love coming up with crafty ways to decorate instead of the store-bought stuff, it was nice to be able to pick up a few things this year. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t still get creative!

Loot Bags

This was the first year that Miss O had a birthday party with her friends instead of just her family party (lucky girl got TWO parties!). For her pint-sized guests which included both boys and girls, I decided to make some fun loot bags for them instead of buying store-bought as you can only get very girly Hello Kitty loot bags. I used my Cricut Explore Air to whip up some Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel faces for the bags. They were filled with goodies such as sidewalk chalk, Play-Doh, stickers, a Kinder Egg, mini colouring books & crayons, glow necklaces, a balloon on a stick and a few other small items. I had some Hello Kitty Duck Tape that I used to do the name tags.

Decorations

I also made a Happy Birthday banner for the birthday girl using my Cricut. This banner was used at both parties. It was painstakingly created in the Cricut Design Space software. I find it difficult to find the space in my house to hang a horizontal banner each year so I opted for a vertical banner this year. I added a bit of bling here and there with some stick-on gems. 

Next up were the paper lanterns. I made 3 in total using the same Cricut design as on the loot bags. I also cut out ears for the lanterns. I picked up some basic white paper lanterns from a local dollar/party store. They weren’t designed to hold candles or anything, simply as hanging decoration which was perfect. I hung one from the ceiling lamp in my living room, one in the kitchen and simply placed the third on a shelf. 

Miss O has amassed quite the collection of Hello Kitty toys in her 4 years so I used many of them to decorate the fireplace mantel. The doll in the centre has her face on it! It was something I picked up at a local craft show. I also did a very simple vase decoration – I stuffed different colours of tissue paper into it and stuck in a balloon! On the mirror is a poster I had made for her birthday celebration at preschool – they ask the parents to do up a little something to show the class different pictures throughout the years of your child. Of course I made use of the Cricut once again to do the lettering!

Table Setting

I love to decorate the food tables in fun ways. My mother had picked up a tablecloth and some hanging decorations. I acquired a few metal buckets adorned in Hello Kitty faces that I filled with pink tissue paper and a piece of floral foam. I inserted some Hello Kitty balloons on sticks into the foam. The other buckets were used to hold the forks and napkins. I completed it all with pink plates!

The Cake!

Last but not least was the cake. I find that at her family party, not a lot of people eat the cake or cupcakes so I wanted something simple but fun. I visited my favourite local cupcake store (conveniently located behind my house!) and asked if they could make a cake out of cupcakes. Boy did they deliver! It was a dozen cupcakes squished together in the shape of her head and iced with their delicious vanilla icing. Cupcake cakes are awesome because you don’t have to cut them – simply pull them apart! Like usual, we had a few left over and I was quite happy about that. Yummy!

Like usual, I put in a lot of time and effort into her parties. I simply love being crafty and birthday parties leave me with no shortage of opportunities. Being crafty also helps me save money on the exorbitant prices of store-bought items. I hope you can use some of these Hello Kitty birthday party ideas for your little lady. Miss O loved seeing it all in action. She got spoiled with gifts like usual. She’s a lucky little girl! Now to get started on Little J’s Minions party in August…