custom inspiraton board: how to get to sesame street

For this inspiration board, Rosa asked for help putting together a Sesame Street party for her son and daughter's joint birthdays. She knew she wanted a sweets buffet and bright colors, but she isn't allowed to decorate the walls of her event space. I gave her a rainbow of ideas to really make this party pop...

Theme: Sesame Street

Party Ideas
Color Palette: Bright primary colors (red, blue, green yellow, orange, purple)
Setting: Birthday lunch & activities indoors at community building.
Decorations: Give each table a different color tablecloth and attach centerpiece to a bundle of balloons (mix mylar and regular rounds) of varying sizes and colors. If the place will allow it, you can also run a string of fabric bunting diagonally back and fourth across the room to make the space seem a bit smaller and cozier (or drape it along the edging of your dessert buffet). If you want to create large sized characters, have a place like kinkos blow up color images to poster size and affix them to foam board with a fold out stand. It would also be great to do the sesame street lamppost and street signs outside pointing the way to the party.
Food: A bite sized buffet of kid-friendly colorful foods. Mini grilled cheese & pb&j sandwiches, pizza bites, fruit salad, veggie sticks etc. for the kids, and include some grown up options like tri colored pasta salad, mixed green salad, grilled paninis etc. For an added touch, give the kid foods fun names (ie: grover’s grape jelly & peanut butter bites). Include buckets of Jones or Izze soda in a variety of flavors (Jones offers an option to create personalized labels too- you could include a photo of your kids and create a flavor name).
Dessert: A sweets buffet including 2 towers of cupcakes decorated with character faces, giant lollipops and apothecary jars filled with a rainbow of candy. Attach 2 large bundles of balloons behind the table to elevate the space and include stuffed sesame street characters of varying sizes that your kids can take home.
Favors: Offer bags for each guest to fill up with treats from the candy buffet. Seal with personalized labels or character stickers. Pre-punch holes at the top of the bags so parents can tie on balloons for their kids to carry out.
Activities: Pre-arranged entertainment by Elmo etc. Set up a table with coloring pages of the characters & lots of crayons. This site has great resources: http://www.parenting.com/sesame. For music: Putumayo has a CD of songs from the playground and there are others on the market I’m sure.
Other: On the invite, ask all the guests to wear a shirt representing the color of their favorite Sesame Street Character.

Photo Credits
Row 1: muppet cupcakes via shishi montreal; bunting via secret agent josephine; jones soda
Row 2: hats via etsy; lollipops via flickr; cake pops via bakerella
Row 3: rock candy via the sweetest occasion; candy buffet via hwtm; sesame street sign via tree hugger
Row 4: cd via sesame street.org; balloons via karas party ideas; sprinkles cupcakes via make merry events; cookie monster cupcake via flickr