an autumnal backyard frozen 2 birthday party
Our two girls both ended up being September babies, which was not in my silly master plan for spacing out birthdays, but has turned out to be wonderful! I knew I had to do a Frozen theme for Zoey’s first and Luna’s third birthdays—they love the movie and the music plus the theme of sisterhood made it all feel right.
The girls are born in late summer/early autumn and because of that, I decided to base their Frozen birthday party on the opening number of Frozen 2, which takes place during the harvest. I took my color inspiration from Some Things Never Change, especially Anna’s wheat-embellished gown; the pale yellow, gold, and pops of lavender and violet of her dress paired with the warm orange and red tones of autumn were the perfect play on a Frozen theme! I love a subtle nod and this struck the perfect balance of giving the girls a fun, themed party that also let me choose the color scheme.
I’m so proud of how everything came out! So as I prepare to celebrate the girls turning two and four this year with a simpler family get-together, I (of course) had to revisit my autumnal take on a Frozen party! I hope our backyard gathering can inspire your own if you too have an autumn baby who loves Frozen!
Let’s get Into THREE Unknown, or Into the ONE-known, or InTWO the Unknown, depending on how old your child is turning! 😆
Menu
I wanted to keep the main food simple and kid-friendly, so I opted for sandwiches—a nod to the first Frozen movie! I got ours through Sprouts’ catering and they were a hit with everyone. We love a pretzel bun around here! We served them with chips and a hummus dip inspired by this one from Minimalist Baker.
I took inspiration from the movie for the rest of the sides. I put together a “fire” fruit salad and made earth “rock” cookies1. I enlisted my younger sister’s help to make squiggly air meringues and rounded the sweets out with Ahtohallan ice cream cups. because Ahtohallan is frozen. I made no signage for any of these and I don’t even know that it read as element-inspired food…but I knew, and that’s enough for me!
Cake
I got it in my head that I should make Olaf’s Peter Pumpkin for the cake and ran with it. I saw this pin and realized all I needed was a bundt pan! I found a ceramic one at a thrift store and did what I always do for my kid’s birthday cakes: make a cake from a box mix!
I made the stump by melting chocolate chips and combining it with leftover condensed milk from the rock cookies.
I wasn’t confident I could pull off a homemade frosting, so I used store-bought cream cheese frosting with gel food coloring. If I were doing this over again, I’d make a buttercream, because the cream cheese frosting got real droopy once it was out of the fridge. It tasted good enough, though!
My kids might be the only ones who don’t love chocolate cake, so I took a spare cake mix from my pantry and whipped up some cupcakes. I used purple foil cups and frosted them with cream cheese frosting that had a touch of purple gel food coloring added, and topped them all off with rice paper leaves!
Decor
I’m a big fan of including partyware as decor. It helps make things festive yet simple(ish)! I usually start with a color palette and work from there.
For this party, I bought a bunch of vinyl tablecloths in shades of gold, pale yellow, lavender, and violet to cover the folding tables we rented from a couple off Facebook Marketplace, plus one red gingham tablecloth for the cake table.
Then I bought paper plates in violet for the food and gold for dessert. My Latin heritage requires that coffee be served alongside cake, so I also bought paper coffee cups in the now-discontinued vanilla color, all from Party City.
The streamer backdrop was another DIY. I had more tablecloths than I needed so I cut the extras into two-inch strips, tied them onto twine, and tacked it up. It was time-intensive but effective, and I love how it moved with the wind!
I rounded out the decor with flowers, of course! It’s another very time-intensive decor project, but so worth it. I find the whole process meditative; perusing Trader Joe’s for flowers that reflect the color scheme in my head, trimming all the stems, and toying around with the arrangement of the flowers and colors. It’s a lovely way to spend an afternoon!
As a mom of young kids, I don’t get many opportunities to start and finish a creative project in a day. Arranging flowers is an extra party task, sure, but it’s one that my family and I get to enjoy for the week following the party, so it’s very worth it to me.
Activities
We have a big trampoline in our backyard, so I counted on that as the main entertainment and played a game of Pass The Parcel before lining the kids up to break an Olaf piñata. I think a game of Pin The Nose On Olaf would have been fun, too!
I’m really proud of how the party turned out! Like I said, I love a subtle reference! I think the day captured the essence of Frozen 2 AND of that autumnal feeling that September brings.
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