As my daugh­ter, Anabelle’s fifth birth­day was approach­ing, we were throw­ing around ideas of the theme of this year’s par­ty. We tra­di­tion­al­ly try to find a theme that is gen­der neu­tral, espe­cial­ly due to the num­ber of lit­tle broth­ers there are in our gang, as we did last year in her Find­ing Nev­er­land par­ty. Though Anabelle is a girly girl through and through, she can def­i­nite­ly hang with the boys! She adores the Dis­ney “Toy Sto­ry” series and when the idea came up, she was dead set on hav­ing a Toy Sto­ry-themed par­ty to ring in the big FIVE!

The chal­lenge on my end would be to exe­cute the theme, while avoid­ing mak­ing it over­ly com­mer­cial. With the three dif­fer­ent movies and sto­ry­lines, the pos­si­bil­i­ties were end­less, but also a bit over­whelm­ing! So, in talk­ing with Anabelle, we decid­ed to focus on the lat­est movie where the toys’ own­er, Andy, is pack­ing up and leav­ing for col­lege and they are mis­tak­en­ly donat­ed to Sun­ny­side Day­care. I want­ed to play up the use of card­board box­es to rep­re­sent the toys being boxed up, as well as through­out the decor. I also thought the use of col­or was real­ly impor­tant to cap­ture the vibe of a school, while also cor­re­spond­ing to the rain­bow logo of Sunnyside.

Leave no toy behind with this Toy Story party inspired by the third movie in the animated movie series with DIY projects and inspiration!

The invi­ta­tions set the mood for the par­ty and when I envi­sioned them com­ing out of card­board box­es, I knew I had to enlist the help of the incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed Do from Pig­gy Bank Par­ties, who designs the most fab­u­lous and cre­ative print­a­bles and espe­cial­ly favor box­es! She made my dreams come true when she cre­at­ed these amaz­ing box envelopes (with editable text!) for both the invites, as well as labels through­out the par­ty! Too cute, right?! I found the most adorable illus­tra­tion of a lit­tle girl (resem­bling Anabelle) dressed up as her favorite Toy Sto­ry char­ac­ter, Jessie, by the artist Car­olyne Tillery in her Etsy shop oh hel­lo dear! I uti­lized it in the design of the invi­ta­tion, along with addi­tion­al graph­ics from Kika Esteves.

The guests were greet­ed with giant “mag­net” let­ters read­ing “NEW TOYS”, as the char­ac­ters heard when they arrived at Sun­ny­side Day­care. I want­ed the kids to feel like they were toys them­selves and the over­sized let­ters and alpha­bet blocks were per­fect! I enlist­ed the help of my father, who did such an amaz­ing job with the blocks with the use of wood/paper mache let­ters, mask­ing tape and paint! Oh, and my moth­er helped, too! I just adore how the blocks turned out!
The back­drop for the dessert table was built out of card­board box­es and filled with the Toy Sto­ry toys pop­ping out of them, while the ban­ner was strung with alpha­bet block letters.
The main attrac­tion on the table was the cup­cake dis­play made out of small­er box­es. I made fon­dant top­pers of the main char­ac­ters and placed them on cup­cakes in indi­vid­ual box­es. I also print­ed out addi­tion­al block let­ters, rain­bows (from Kel­ly Med­i­na Stu­dios) and addi­tion­al char­ac­ters (found at the Dis­ney Fam­i­ly site) for the rest of the cup­cakes dis­played on the table and inside plas­tic Slinkies.

Also includ­ed on the table were dif­fer­ent types of can­dy, as we want­ed to steer clear of any choco­late in the unusu­al­ly hot weath­er of 95* that day! They were dis­played inside clear paint cans and, as you can see below, in per­fect arm’s reach for the kiddos!

Instead of a table­cloth, the kids’ table was lined with draw­ing paper from a table­top paper hold­er from Ikea and all the toys… I mean, kids, had their own Sun­ny­side lunch box, to which I attached a graph­ic and a coor­di­nat­ing tag!

I want­ed the kids’ food to be exact­ly what a tod­dler would find in a packed lunch with a sand­wich, apple slices, rain­bow gold­fish crack­ers, fruit snacks and juice. I found the Toy Sto­ry sand­wich box­es, as well as the themed snack bags and tis­sues at the 99c Only Store, which were just perfect!

One of the char­ac­ters in “Toy Sto­ry 3” is Lot­so Hug­gin’ Bear, who {spoil­er alert} turns out to be bad, but once we saw this humon­gous, hug­gable stuffed bear at a Cost­co store, we just could­n’t resist! Anabelle’s great-grand­moth­er bought it for her and it is indeed a hugger!

We set up an art area with easels, col­or­ing pages and Sun­ny­side art box­es for the kids. Draw­ings from Andy’s room (print­ed from Pixar Plan­et Forums)were pinned across a string, while a blow-up book­worm from Ori­en­tal Trad­ing wel­comed the toys/kids.

I found the fun and col­or­ful art box­es at the 99c Only Store and attached the Sun­ny­side label to them with Mod Podge. Inside, the kids found a box of Toy Sto­ry crayons, char­ac­ter erasers and cray­on bubbles.
Some of the activ­i­ties we had in store were kept in these numer­ic mesh con­tain­ers from Ikea and labeled with the box cards. The col­or­ful para­troop­ers from Ori­en­tal Trad­ing were a huge suc­cess! The kids also had fun with the trash bag races and sav­ing char­ac­ters that I cut out out of card­stock with a grab­ber = the claw!
We laid out emp­ty box­es with an over­sized post-it note for guests to “donate” their gifts to Anabelle!
The adult food was dis­played sep­a­rate­ly in the “Par­ent Cafe­te­ria” sec­tion. The col­or­ful plates, cups and plas­ticware also came from Ikea, while the oth­er con­tain­ers were pur­chased as the 99c Only Store.

We were so incred­i­bly pleased when we hired Ms. Louisa last year to lead the chil­dren in activ­i­ties that we con­tact­ed Soul­fire Stu­dios to have her back again this year! I can­not praise Ms. Louisa enough with her abil­i­ty to cap­ture the kids’ atten­tion and bring so much joy in their imag­i­na­tive play! We received such great feed­back from not only the kids, but the par­ents who enjoyed watch­ing their kids play, rather than run after them the entire time! She read them the Toy Sto­ry 3 book, warmed them up and dressed them in cos­tumes that she brought.

West­ern dance to “You’ve Got a Friend In Me”! Yee haw!

Ken’s fash­ion show… walk­ing down the run­way to “Freak Out”!

Rockin’ the mara­cas and som­breros to “Ay Un Ami­go En Mi”!

For Anabelle’s sec­ond birth­day, we hired Bal­loons With a Twist to cre­ate bal­loon ani­mals and when they were hold­ing a pho­to con­test last year, we sub­mit­ted a pho­to of her wear­ing an elab­o­rate bal­loon crown the artist had cre­at­ed at the par­ty. We were so super excit­ed when we won the con­test and redeemed our prize with face paint­ing, per Anabelle’s request! We were so hap­py and thank­ful and the kids just loved it!
The kids had a fun time with the Toy Sto­ry col­or­ing pages and seri­ous­ly… do bub­bles ever get old?! Ummm, no! 😉
This Toy Sto­ry par­ty had such a dif­fer­ent vibe from last year’s theme, but the con­stant was the amount of fun had by the birth­day girl and her friends and that was tru­ly THE most impor­tant thing to me. The kid­dos had a fab­u­lous time at Sun­ny­side with the rest of the toys cel­e­brat­ing Anabelle’s fifth birth­day! And a spe­cial shout out to my fam­i­ly and my friends (Har­ri­et and Do) with­out whom I could not have done it all!
The favors were hid­ing in these “TOYS TO DONATE” boxes…

The kids went home with a set of Toy Sto­ry char­ac­ters and the note quot­ing Andy in the movie, who just donat­ed his toys to a deserv­ing lit­tle girl as he departs for college:

“Now you got­ta promise to take good care of these guys. They mean a lot to me.” So long, part­ner. ♥ Anabelle

Toy Story 3 party ideas ~ Lynlee's

Merci Beaucoup!



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