A Nyan Cat Birthday

I promised you a while back I would tell you about my little one's party this past November. Well, today I'm going to share that with you.

Do you know Nyan cat? If you don't, check this out:

Well, there you have it. That's all it is. Not much to go on for a party, huh? Yet, this video consists of a cat, a pop-tart, stars, a rainbow, and an annoying-yet-catchy tune. This is the stuff my little one's dreams are made of, and so this is the theme she picked for her fifth birthday.

I started off with the cake. A Google search led me to this, which I set out to copy, sans the flowers. Not to brag, but I think I might have nailed it :).  My next idea was to expand on the Nyan cat theme by combining ideas for rainbow parties with ideas from kitty cat themed parties. This is what I came up with:

The large Nyan Cat was drawn on a grid-lined poster board (which helped immensely with the pixel look). The letters I cut out by hand from some colored cardstock. The blue star balloons, blue table covers, and streamers I purchased from our local Party City.

To create the rainbow ceiling decorations below, I purchased small diameter dowels, cut them to size and then glued streamers to them in ROYGBV order. The star dangles were purchased from Walmart.

The centerpieces I made myself. I couldn't find any satisfactory ones at the time, so I found a picture of Nyan cat online, printed it, cut it out, and attached it to a bamboo skewer. I then put that skewer in a small cup filled with quick-setting concrete, along with some curled pipe-cleaners. After the concrete was set, I tied some blue cellophane around the cup with some prismatic silver curling ribbon, and attached some silver star stickers to the side. That, along with some star confetti was the perfect decor for my tables.

For favors, I made kitty ears out of colored headbands and felt. The other thing I did was make a basket of kitties that were "free to a good home." They were made of cardstock and had different designs for the kids to take home and color. As an added bonus, they also had Pixy-Stix whiskers. I also bought a few random party favors to give out after the games. The winners of each game got a big treat bag filled with several prizes, while everyone else got to pick one toy from the prize box.

This year, I kept the games simple. We played "Pin the Rainbow on Nyan Cat," a variation of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." We also did musical chairs to the Nyan Cat theme, but for the adults' sakes, I used the slightly less annoying piano cover :). Musical chairs was such a hit, the kids asked if they could play it twice. You can tell by the blurry, yet smiling faces below that everyone had a good time.

The food was simple and delicious. As with everything else, I stuck with either a rainbow or cat theme. The tent labels for the food I made with Microsoft Word. I printed out the labels and glued them to folded cardstock. For the rainbow fruit, I chose red apples, peaches, dried pineapple, green grapes, and blueberries with a lovely whipped fruit dip. To make the fruit dip, all you do is combine 8 oz. of softened cream cheese with 8 oz of Cool Whip and a 7 oz jar of marshmallow creme, and beat until fluffy. My daughter loves cheese, so I had a plate of colby-jack cubes that I called "mouse bait." Another idea I had was to use a cookie cutter to make fish-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or "peanut butter and jellyfish" sandwiches. Since, you know, cats are crazy for fish. I also made a veggie and cracker tray with a buttermilk ranch cheese ball that I made to look like a ball of yarn with some cream cheese and a flat cake frosting tip. Of course, we also had pop-tarts in several flavors! However, I think my absolute favorite themed food from this party was the chocolate mice. You heard right, mice.

I got my idea from this pin. However, my little one doesn't eat cherries or almonds, so I needed something else that would work. What I found was Walgreen's Good & Delish Mini S'mores. Wanna make these? Gather mini s'mores, fudge stripe cookies, Hershey's kisses, and chocolate candy bark. Carefully melt the chocolate bark in the microwave ten seconds at a time. Spoon the melted bark into a piping bag with a small round tip (I don't know what number tip mine was, honestly). On a sheet of wax paper, start piping as many pairs of ears as you will need. While those are cooling, pipe some chocolate onto the bottom of the mini s'more, then attach it to the cookie. Then, pipe a small tail coming from the edge of the mini s'more. Once the ears have hardened, they can be carefully peeled from the wax paper. To attach the ears to the head, pipe a small amount of chocolate onto the Hershey's kiss, then stick the ears on. After that, pipe some chocolate onto the mini s'more, then attach the head to the body. You may have to hold the head in place for a second while the bark hardens. Repeat until you have the desired number of mice. Note that you might need to reheat the chocolate bark as you're working with it. This can be done by making sure the piping bag is sealed, and dipping it into a bowl of hot water (just uncomfortable to the touch, not boiling).

Well, there you have it, a Nyan Cat birthday party fit for a five-year old. As always, you can check out my Party Ideas board on Pinterest for more stuff to make your next party spectacular. See you next time!