How to: Add handmade flair to a birthday party – no skillz required

This post originally ran three years ago, but I was thinking of repeating the project again for my boy’s eighth birthday.

Julian had one friend sleep over for his fifth birthday this year. The child’s family came over for a pizza and salad dinner, and guess what? That’s eight people around our table. Eight is enough, right?

I was so in love with some of the other birthday parties I saw on the interwebz this month, those with lovingly designed party favor bags and cupcake toppers, that I couldn’t resist spending a few minutes making something personalized for the party. I think these little decorations could be used for any age of party, from one to 99.

I bought a package of orange circle stickers from the Paper Source, which has a store near me. On their website, there is a Word template you can download so that whatever you type on the Word doc will show up in the center of the stickers. I typed a number 5 and used different fonts for variety.

Then I looked in our wrapping paper stash for ribbon. I cut a few lengths of it and taped it to our doorway. Then I placed a sticker on each side of the ribbon every six inches or so. Repeat.

The second thing I did with the “5″ stickers was place them on each side of a toothpick. Then I stuck the toothpicks in the brownies. I really really wish they were cupcakes. I think it would look much better, but the birthday boy was with me at the store selecting a mix (I make brownies and cupcakes exclusively from mixes) and he insisted that he loves brownies.

I did have a few stickers left, and I could have made more streamers, but I decided to hand them over to the pre-K class so they could use them on the birthday crowns they make.

Looking for more ideas for easy creative projects? See our whole list of “Makin’ It” posts.