Strawberry Shortcake Birthday

A great summer birthday party theme for a girl is strawberry shortcake. Yes the little smell good dolls have made a comeback. When I was young the characters had big scented heads and childlike faces and bodies. Much to my dismay the characters have had a makeover to make them slimmer, add make up and a teen fashion sense. But my daughter likes them so we created a memorable party.
Party City has a few items which we bought in theme but the rest was my doing.

 First find things in pink, red, lime green and red & white polka dots. Hearts look like strawberries so dig through valentines day crafts.
I bought 1 set of Party city table toppers and made 2 more centerpieces for table height & weight...
Strawberry Sticks- Kid can Help! I made tall strawberry sticks with pink, red and green card stock, glue sticks, wire hangers and strawberry shortcake logos cut out from party city wrappers (no waste here).

1. Cut or bend wire hanger to desired height. 
2. Trace & cut 2 red or pink hearts & 2 lime green stems
3. Cut out logos, pictures of strawberries and stickers
4. Glue 1 side of strawberry and place wire hanger in the center
5. Match second strawberry on top and smooth out
6. Repeat with 2 stem pieces
7. Add fun stickers & logos

To complete centerpiece I bought 2 tall red heart buckets from Target & 4 red & white polka dot daisies from Michaels. Add some green sprigs, a Strawberry stick, a balloon and rocks in the bottom to keep balloon from flying away..
Party Favors and Crafts for guests to make and take

Party favor basket for under 2 dollars each

1. Container-  99 cent store
2. Bubbles- party city
3. Heart glasses- party city
4. Pencil- party city
5. Candy- party city, vons
6. Bookmarks- Kids make at party and take home

Bookmark Craft- Baskets, colored Popsicle sticks, glue sticks, red, pink, green cardstock, stickers, scrap book paper & cut outs

1. Trace & cut out circles with a mason jar lid. 2 sizes of circles
2. Reuse/recycle the wrapping of party favors & centerpieces with any pictures or strawberry shortcake logo and cut out. Find any stickers of shortcake. I only found 1 kind at party city. Michaels has hearts & strawberry stickers. Stamp patterned paper circle and hearts.
3. Use 3 baskets(99 cent store)- 1 for glue sticks (Costco), 1 for decals & sticker and 1 for circles and popsicle sticks, 
4. Have children pick 1 stick, 4 circles(2 large, 2 medium), a few decals and share glue sticks
5. Have them glue on decals and 1/2 of circles
6. Glue 1 side of circle and place stick in center
7. Glue other circle on top to secure the stick
   

Game- Strawberry Basket Toss- 1 cone, 3 baskets, 3 balls, 3 strawberries with 10, 50, 100 points, candy as prizes

1. Set out baskets with closest basket as 10 points and farthest 100. Assign a candy giver and a judge/ ball chaser.
2. Kids make a line.  Each kid gets 3 shots. 
3. If they make 2 baskets & earn 20 points they can get 1 candy, 50 points gets 3 candies, 100 gets 8 candies each turn
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

As for food, we went to the park with a barbeque and made hamburgers and hot dogs with some fun toppings. Of course we had farm stand strawberries, pita chips and hummus and strawberry yogurt raisins. I made my famous strawberry lemondade and chocolate covered strawberries.

Strawberry Lemonade

1. Juice 2 cups of fresh lemon juice (10-15 lemons)
2. In small saucepan put 2 cups strawberries, 2 cups sugar & 2 cups water
3. Dissolve sugar and macerate strawberries
4. Strain out strawberry pulp and that is the sweetener for lemonade
5. Add lemon juice and sweetener to pitcher and add 7-8 cups water to dilute

Strawberry Cake & Cake pops
I usually make desserts from scratch but with all the work I put into the other parts of the party I used boxed cake mix and frosting.
Cake

1. Mix ingredients of a Red Velvet cake box according to directions
2. Pour 1/2 mix into a heart shaped pan (Buy at Michaels with a coupon) and 1/2 into a circle pan
3. Let cool, gently release from pan by turning over onto large cutting board
4. Repeat same procedure with a White Cake box 
5. Once cooled, slice rounded top off each heart cake (save top for pops) & circle cakes so they are flat for layering
6. With strawberry jam glue 2 heart layers together on a cake plate
7. Cut a leaf shape out of the 2 circle cakes to sit above the strawberry
8. Glue leaf shape together with strawberry jam
9. Frost strawberry with pink frosting and stem with green frosting
10. Accent edges and seeds with edible red gel 
11. Use extra cake and frosting to make strawberry shaped cake pops in red, lime green and pink
12. Small shortcake buckets available at Party City and floral styrofoam at Michaels.
13. Put styrofoam in bucket and cover with red napkin
14. Stick cake pops in foam so they stand up