Not only is this pink & green “Kung Fu Marley” Birthday Party that Ebony of Sparkling Events & Designs created for her daughter ridiculously cute to look at – it’s also filled with super-creative activities for the kids! Between the “Panda Art” table and adorable “Panda Sanctuary” where party guests got to stuff their own little panda bears, what’s not to love?! There was even a kid-sized Pink Pagoda built from scratch by family members – and even though lots of time went into building this of course, it only cost about $25 in materials… IMPRESSIVE!

And we can’t forget the eating of the treats…which is another “activity” that I’m sure the kids loved. ;) From a fabulous cake complete with edible bamboo to amazingly detailed sugar cookies and darling glittery glassine bags filled with popcorn & “panda treats”, there was definitely some talent that went into these sweets… and this entire party!

Read on for lots more fun pics + all the creative details….

PARTY DETAILS, as told by Ebony…

“Planning this party for my Marley actually started way back in April of this year before the sequel of the first Kung Fu Panda movie even came out.  Last year we had a sweet shoppe party for Marley because she was really just the sweetest baby ever.  Well, in year 2, she has turned into a true spitfire with tons of spunk!  So it hit me to do a Kung Fu Panda party for her, but of course with a twist.  My challenge was how I could make this party fit for a little girl because the theme traditionally seems a bit boyish!  Changing up the colors did just that!

The invitation was the starting point for the party and I wanted it be Kung Fu Panda but different, so adding the hot pink pagoda is where it started and went from there.  I love pink and green, so I added a touch of black to complete the color palette.  A little glitter to the pagoda was the finishing touch.

Decorations

The party guests were greeted with kid sized wooden Po figurines from Kung Fu Panda in three different moods.  My brother sketched these out by hand, my dad cut them out and then my husband painted them.  It was truly a family working together to create something beautiful.  We were able to get photos of the children with Po as they arrived.

My very first vision for the main prop for this party was to have a kid sized hot pink pagoda.  My husband kind of scratched his head and looked at me like I was crazy and then my brother-in-law said he was up to the task and got to work immediately.  We got free wood off of freecycle.org and he built it from the ground up.  It was truly a work in progress and took months to perfect.  We painted it hot pink added some glitter and Chinese writings, including Marley’s name in Chinese.  The project probably cost us about $25 total but lots of love and care went into creating it.  The children (and adults) were amazed by it.

Planning the activities for this party wasn’t hard at all and was really important to me.  Children need appropriate activities at a party.  At the end of Kung Fu Panda 2 (spoiler alert) we see Po’s father living in a panda sanctuary where the pandas are harvesting bamboo.  I instantly knew that I wanted a panda sanctuary incorporated into the party somehow.  So I created a panda stuffing sanctuary using some greenery and canvas board.  The children stuff small panda bears from  The Party Animal .  The panda stuffing sanctuary was a huge hit; the children (and adults) loved stuffing the panda bears and of course throwing the puffy filler all over the place.

We also had a ‘Panda Art’ station where each child received a Kung Fu Panda 2 coloring book with markers, crayons and glitter glue to decorate the pages of the book.  Throughout the room we strung lanterns in pink and white from corner to corner to add some festive décor.

Dessert

The backdrop for the dessert table was a screen that my brother-in-law made out of scrap wood.  We use those disposable paper blinds for the actual screen.  I painted it black and adding fans with glittered chopsticks. How clever and inexpensive! For the dessert table I really wanted to make it kid friendly because I feel like I missed the mark on their other parties.  I wanted it to be low to the ground because the guests were little tikes and I wanted them to be able to reach everything, So it was about 2 ft. tall.  While those beautiful apothecary jars create visually stunning dessert/candy displays and may be ok for an older child’s party, they are not practical for a bunch of 2 – 5 year olds.   Since the table was so low, we served the treats on bamboo trays and cups.

The amazing cake was created by  Mimi’s Mocha Treats  and was just gorgeous. I sent her the invitation and she came up with this great design. The pink pagoda sketch on the front of the cake was fantastic!  Everything on the cake was edible too, including the bamboo stalks.  Jen from JP Creatibles  created the most beautiful and dazzling cookies, also based on the invitation that I designed.  The Purple Pug created beautiful panda glassine bags and panda stickers. We put popcorn and panda treats in the bags. The pink glittered bow fit my Marley perfectly.  Once I received those glittery treats, glitter started popping up through the entire party. We also had some custom hot pink fortune cookies made with a special message for Marley’s celebration.  SKADOOSH!

Overall, I think that this is my absolute favorite party. 95% of the decorations were all handmade by family and I think that is absolutely wonderful and so very special.  To all of you readers, I’m sure you have some gems in your family… tap into their creative brains!  My husband thought I was insane to try and build a kid sized hot pink pagoda….but look what happened!”