Fruit Birthday Party

Recently my middle daughter turned 6 and requested a fruit themed birthday. Bright, sweet, and very orange-inal, it was a fun theme that reflected my daughter’s personality. Here is how my kids helped me to put together an absolutely pear-fect, easy, and inexpensive birthday party to celebrate with her family and friends. Hoping these ideas and printables can be helpful and fun for your family too!

Decorations:

I really loved these ballon fruits from Oh Happy Day. She makes the funnest things out of balloons. My kids helped me to blow up various balloons we had leftover from past parties and cut out leaves from construction paper to make these large balloon fruits to decorate our kitchen. We made lemons, oranges, blueberries, cherries, as well as many prunes (the birthday girl’s favorite fruit). Everything was strung up with clear fishing wire. For practically no cost as we already had everything, we were able to decorate this large space.

I used a pack of yellow paper plates and some cut up scraps of green poster board to turn the windows in our living room into large pineapples. This took about ten minutes to put together with my kids helping me to roll up masking tape to adhere the plates to the wall.

I filled the bookshelves with all the kids’ fruit themed books as well as some pictures of the birthday girl with her siblings. Avocado Asks by Momoko Abe is one of their favorites. They love her illustrations and endearing message. I also included a basket of plastic purple easter eggs as prunes and a purple balloon with a green paper leaf attached as another nod to my daughter’s favorite fruit. My mom and dad have a large prune tree and send us fruit every year which is where her obsession began.

In the play room, my kids helped me to make large slices of lemons, oranges, kiwis, and dragon fruit. We took my 14 inch cake boards and traced an outline onto yellow posterboard. We then glued 12 inch circles of white poster board on top, then cut up a 9 inch yellow paper plate into sixths to create the lemons.

To make the large orange slices, we painted the outside of a 14 inch cake board and glued a 12 inch circle of white poster board. We then cut up a 9 inch orange paper plate into sixths and glued the sections on trying our best to keep everything evenly spaced.

To make the large dragon fruit slices, we covered a 14 inch cake board with pink plastic tablecloth, glued a 12 inch circle of white poster board on top, then attached little black pom poms as seeds.

To make the large kiwis, we used a 14 inch cake board to trace onto lime green poster board then glued it onto brown craft paper. We then attached an inverted nine inch paper plate on top and glued on black pom poms as seeds.

We created a large watermelon out of pink and green paper plates, adhering some circles of black felt as seeds. This took about 15 minutes to put together with my kids and was an easy and inexpensive way to add some large scale fun to our living room.

I cut apples in half and my kids painted them, stamping away to make this poster to celebrate the birthday girl. I also made her an eye chart sign to go with it. I make more signs like this here.

My kids really loved this and I had to grab more paper for them to continue.

Big sister drew this picture of the birthday girl with cherries which was so sweet, I had to make this sign to go with it. It is available to download here for personal use.

Over the cake table, I made this strawberry banner for my daughter. I reused some of the large paper flowers I had made for her unicorn birthday last year and added yellow circles of cardstock to the center to make large strawberry flowers. I love using banners to decorate as they help to quickly and inexpensively change a space.

In the living room, I made this watermelon banner and my kids helped me to paint a large pineapple and dragon fruit to pose with. I have made many cutouts over the years from huge particleboard panels. I often use my projector to enlarge the images, outlining them with a black Sharpie, and my husband cuts them out using his jigsaw. This time, I just used the back side of cutouts we already had and freehanded these simple fruits. The pineapple was made from the back side of Ernie from my daughter’s Sesame Street birthday and the dragon fruit was made using the backside of King Triton from my daughter’s previous Little Mermaid birthday. The swim team borrowed him recently to help decorate their Under the Sea themed championship and unfortunately his trident broke off in transit, which actually made it easier for us to work with. As we used wood and paint that we already had, these decorations were practically free.

Here is the birthday girl painting the cool pineapple. We also made a large pear and watermelon out of the back side of a cutout of Rarity from my daughter’s My Little Pony party that we hosted three years ago.

Here is big sister painting our large dragon fruit.

Here is little sister posing with the cool pineapple. The photo props can be found here.

Party Activities:

As my daughter’s birthday is in summer, usually with eighty degree plus weather, we like to make sure to have plenty of indoor as well as outdoor activities. I like to set up a craft table that is self explanatory with all the supplies laid out, where guests can come and go as they please.

This was the setup on party day. I made a citrus slice banner that is free to download. I also made some watermelon inspired activity signs. For more details on each activity, see below. I draped my daughter’s dollhouse with a yellow tablecloth and cut some leaves out of poster board to create another large pineapple. A few more balloons in yellow and green were strung up with clear fishing wire to make whimsical larger than life lemons and limes to complete the space.

Here are my kids starting the party before the guests arrive. It gives them something to do while I warm up food and my husband and I get some more pre-party cleaning done.

This file is best printed out onto white cardstock, cut out, and hole punched on top at two sides, then strung up with ribbon, yarn, or twine. We used some hot pink ribbon we had.

I made some fruit themed coloring pages for my daughter. They are available here. The party like a pineapple coloring page is available below for personal use. I make more personalized coloring pages for kids here.

I found some coloring pages of fruit bowls here at Coloring Home and projected them onto white poster paper to create a wall of large coloring posters for the kids.

I purchased the white poster board here and hung some paper cups filled with crayons using push pins. This is a very inexpensive and easy activity to have on hand for kids and I try to do this for most of their parties.

Here is the birthday girl coloring in her fruit bowl.

The kids made popsicle stick puppets using the templates I made below. Shown above is a pineapple, avocado, and dragon fruit.

This file is best printed out onto regular printer paper and used as a template to cut out onto construction paper to create a quick and easy craft setup. I included floral stickers, googly eyes, markers, and glue. The kids went to town creating their own unique fruit puppets, and also used the yellow and green ovals to create silly lemons and limes.

I made these cute fruit tags that say all red-y to party, one in a melon, and 100% orange-inal. These tags are free to download here for personal use.

I printed them out onto white cardstock and punched them out using my 2 inch circle punch. I hole punched them at two sides and set everything out on a tray with pipe cleaners, stretchy string (our favorite for making necklaces), and a bowl of Froot Loops and the kids went to town creating necklaces and bracelets. The birthday girl loves puns, jewelry, and creating patterns so this was the perfect activity for her.

I found these really cute fruit tattoos here and both kids and adults loved them. I saved some to put into goodie bags and the rest were set out along side a pack of baby wipes for easy application.

I saved fruit bags and containers and filled them up with plastic easter eggs as tangerines, lemons, strawberries, etc. and turned their playroom into a little cafe. The kids used their Lego bricks and Duplo blocks to create more pretend fruit.

I made a simple play menu and the kids made each other fruit smoothies, muffins, and pies. I included some cut up pool noodles as fruit flavored freezer pops as well as cups, straws, muffin tin liners, and pie pans. My daughter really enjoyed this setup, taking orders, and calculating the bill for her customers. Setups like these have helped my kids all become very comfortable with basic math in a playful, low stress environment. To see see my other dramatic play set ups click here.

Daddy read The Fruit Bowl by Mark Hoffmann. My kids love the funny drawings and all the silly puns plus as a bonus, it helps kids to learn what actually is considered to be a fruit, botanically. My kids were surprised that eggplant and cucumbers were fruits.

We took the large wooden cutouts we made outside for some easy party games.

I added some of my husband’s rolled up black socks as seeds and the kids tried to throw them into a white laundry basket (the inside of the dragon fruit).

We turned plastic orange cones into pineapples by rolling them up in yellow plastic tablecloths and attaching some pieces of green plastic tablecloth to the tops using just rubberbands. We added pool diving rings we already had to play this simple game. Alternatively you can make your own rings out of pool noodles and packing tape. We’ve done this in the past.

I set up a table with watercolor paint and a variety of brushes for kids to paint and make these fruit paper crowns.

I filled up their water table with citrus slices and frozen Black-eyed Susans we currently have in bloom. I added a variety of scoopers, funnels, and bowls and the kids really enjoyed this.

We made a homemade pinata out of an old carseat box, some priority mailboxes (as the birthday girl had received several packages in the mail already), some tissue paper, and crepe paper streamer. My kids always enjoy helping me to make and fill these larger than life pinatas.

Here is the birthday girl taking a swing at her pinata!

Food:

We included the birthday girl’s favorite foods as well as a lot of homemade kid favorites.

The birthday girl’s favorite food is currently orange chicken so we ordered a party tray from a local restaurant. As most of the food is homemade, it helps keep the party costs low, allowing us to splurge on a few items.

We had a nacho bar with homemade salsa, queso, and taco meat.

My daughters helped me to make these Vietnamese egg rolls. We called them fruit roll-ups to keep with the theme. The recipe is from my mom and her delicious recipe can be found here.

This isn’t really fruity but my kids really love shrimp chips. I grew up eating them at all my birthday parties and am happy to continue the tradition for my kids.

I made grape jelly meatballs, another party favorite.

My daughter requested a strawberry cake covered in fondant. We like this recipe from Tastes of Lizzy T as it incorporates pureed fresh strawberries into the batter. We used this recipe from Wilton to make the marshmallow fondant and made slices of lemons, oranges, kiwis, and dragon fruit to decorate the cake.

If you are intimidated by fondant, let this picture be encouraging to you! It takes only minutes in the microwave to make and my kids love helping me to create with it. It’s like edible play dough to them. Here is my youngest who is three, helping to cut out circles of fondant for sister’s cake.

I used the template from our popsicle stick craft to turn these delicious chocolate cupcakes into pineapples.

I used a regular circle cookie cutter and this recipe to make watermelon slice shaped cookies. I just cut off the tops about a third way down to create melon halves and made two diagonal cuts to make triangular slices. I baked them and left the decorating to the kids as another party activity.

I found the cute surf board shaped watermelon tray at the Dollar Tree and added Wilton candy eyes, mini chocolate chips, green marshmallow fondant leftover from decorating my daughter’s cake, and pink vanilla buttercream frosting. The buttercream frosting is from Two Sisters. The activity sign is free to download below. Hope it can be useful to you.

We used this recipe from Tastefully Frugal to make homemade snow cone syrup. The kids always love this for all of our summer gatherings.

Lastly, we served a variety of fruits. The birthday girl loves fruit and rainbows so I knew we had to make this easy tray to share with her guests.

Favors:

I made her some simple personalized bag labels and attached them to plain white bags that I bought in bulk here. I create more personalized bag labels here.

The bags for the party contained party blowers, fruit roll ups, scented erasers I found at the Dollar Tree, and scented stickers I found here. I really like this pack as it included a variety of different fruits including lychee/litchi and the scents were really strong but not overpowering. They were given to the guests to fill with pinata candy, more tattoos, as well as any crafts they wanted to take home.

My greatest joy in creating these parties for my children is seeing all their excitement and happiness. In the days leading up to her birthday, my daughter made numerous drawings of fruit including the I Spy game above which we displayed and used as an activity on her birthday. She was so proud of all the things she helped to make and we really enjoyed a lot of fun in the process. I also liked having the chance to show my kids that we don’t have to buy the latest and greatest and can make a lot out of what we already have.

Here are a few other things my kids made for sister’s party using what they already had:

I hot glued some green pipe cleaners to pine cones and my kids painted them yellow to make little pineapples which we scattered throughout the house to help decorate.

My kids used their Magna-Tiles to create more fruit.

I also enjoy finding ways to incorporate their current interests into their daily learning. Here are a few examples of activities my daughter really enjoyed in the days preceding and following her birthday.

We raided our kitchen to make our own fruit bowl. The kids included a tomato, avocado, and squash. My husband was able to find dragon fruit at the grocery store. I made this writing activity for them to illustrate and write about what they would put into their own fruit bowl. I included a word bank filled with a long list of what is considered to be botanical fruits for them to use. Writing activities like this has helped my kids to get excited about writing in the summer and has also helped them to work on good sentence structure, spelling, and grammar. I hope it can be useful to your kids too. You just have to remind them that the goal is not to use every word in the word bank or else you will end up with a grocery list.

I also couldn’t resist helping to get the birthday girl ready for first grade with these math crafts.

I create more printable activities for kids here with the goal of helping to grow kids who love to learn.

To see my other kids’ parties click here.

If you use these printables or party ideas, I would love to see it! Please use #sodangfun on social media, tag me @sodangfun on Instagram, or post to my Facebook page.

I hope this post can help you to create something berry fun with and for your kids!