My Little Pony Birthday Party Drive-By

My daughter adores My Little Pony and requested a pony party for her third birthday. Due to the current pandemic, we opted for a birthday drive-by. We celebrated with rainbows, sprinkles, and lots of homemade fun.

Decorations:

When decorating, I always start with free clip art and coloring pages and what we already have around the house. I projected images of the Mane 6 to make…

Oversized Coloring Posters

I buy white poster board in packs of 10 from Walmart. They cost around three dollars for ten. I use a black Sharpie to quickly trace a projected image then I go back and slowly trace over the lines again to make them thicker, darker, and have a more finished look. Sometimes I hang them on the wall with paper cups filled with crayons (attached to the wall with command strips or push pins). Other times, the kids spread out on the floor on their bellies to color. This time, the birthday girl decided to color then paint her Twilight Sparkle poster.

Large Pony Inspired Face Cut Outs

This was made using poster board, crepe paper ribbon, a glue stick, and a little acrylic paint. The cost was next to nothing but really made a nice impact and helped to set the scene. My daughter loved these so much, they have since been moved to decorate her bedroom walls.

Large Wooden Pony Cut Outs

I buy huge panels of particle board from Home Depot. At the time, they costed 8 dollars per sheet, and I was able to make two ponies per sheet. The sheets measure 4X8 feet. I used a variety of acrylic paint that I purchased from Walmart for 50 cents a bottle. My father who is very handy, used a handheld jigsaw to cut it out. We placed some stakes of wood in the ground and leaned the ponies in front of them. Again, they made a huge impact at a very low cost.

I also made a banner that said Ponyville.

Pictured here is big sister waving to the birthday drive-by guests. This photo was captured by talented local photographer, Brighid Hackett. The Ponyville banner is available to download for free below. It is best printed out onto white cardstock, hole punched at the two sides of each star, and strung up with ribbon or yarn. We just used yellow yarn. This doesn’t have to be limited to parties but could also be used to decorate a pony themed bedroom.

Party Activities:

Spike Paper Bag Puppet Craft

I purchased purple bags from the dollar tree and made simple cut outs from white and green construction paper. My older kids made their own cut outs from an example I showed them. They took a black Sharpie to draw his pupils and had fun making him talk and eat “jewels” that they created out of more colorful construction paper.

The kids colored and painted.

I really hit the jackpot at the Dollar Tree. They had small cardboard cutouts of ponies to color and display (four per a pack). They also had My Little Pony suncatchers to paint as well as more ponies on canvas that came with individual paint pots and a paintbrush. Unfortunately, they did not have anything with Spike that big brother wanted to decorate so I made him his own canvas to paint, using a Sharpie and looking at a free Spike coloring page I found online.

We painted faces.

The cutie marks are all relatively easy and quick to recreate.

The kids also decorated paper ponies.

I received this idea from Narelle at Cook Clean Craft. She did an amazing job throwing her 5-year-old daughter a magical pony party. Be sure to check her post out for more fun pony party ideas as well as for the link to the pony craft printable. As my kids often like to cut out their creations to make puppets, I printed this craft out onto cardstock for more durability. I laid out googly eyes, glue, scissors, yarn, crayons, markers, and let the kids go to town. There may have been glue and yarn everywhere.

They played with Pool Noodle Ponies.

These were really very easy to make. I simply bent the pool noodles to create the pony heads, tying them with a long strip of felt (you can also use ribbon). I folded sheets of regular craft felt in half and cut fringes at the end, then hot glued it to the pool noodles as hair. Lastly I hot glued eyes that I made out of stiff black and white felt that I roughly cut out to resemble their huge eyes. It took me about an hour (with excited kids running around) to make four (one has since been turned into a light saber and is not pictured). This was definitely a high yield project as it was cheap, quick, and has lasted through a lot of rough play.

We had photo props.

The kids received these great My Little Pony glasses in their Happy Meals a few years back. I also found these wonderful props from Vanessa Diaz at Brite & Bubbly She has a free printable that she used to create headbands. I printed her creation out onto white cardstock, glued them onto white posterboard for more durability, and then hot glued them to small wooden dowels for the kids to use as photo props. I adore Vanessa’s site and she was a great inspiration for me to start my blog.

I also made a Rainbow Dash piñata to break.

I projected an image onto a big piece of cardboard (think large moving box), then traced it onto another piece of cardboard. I then used the sides of cereal boxes to create the sides of my pinata. I adhered everything together with masking tape, then using a glue stick, covered everything with tissue paper, then on top of that, strips of crepe paper ribbon. Lastly I glued on details that I had cut out from painted poster board. This was a bit labor intensive but easy. The kids often enjoy helping me tape up, glue, and fill the pinatas I make. The cost is close to free, letting us splurge a little more on filling it.

Food:

I always like to incorporate the birthday child’s favorite food and theme into the menu. My daughter’s favorite food (besides chips, fries, and sweets) is spaghetti but this time for some reason, she requested tuna casserole. We love this recipe from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe. I appreciate this recipe because it can be made in 30 minutes and you use only one pot. The kids are also half Vietnamese so they always get these delicious egg rolls. We also ate rainbow fruit (different colored fruit arranged on a tray to look like a rainbow) and had homemade rainbow cake.

Favors:

Guests received a bag filled with goodies. I purchased these bags on Amazon and printed out free clip art I found to decorate. It works out to cost about 25 cents a bag. As I have four kids with lots of birthdays, I buy in bulk, and just print out free themed clip art to cater to each special birthday. I also made tags using free clip art that said, “Thank you for dashing on over!” The bags were filled with stickers and crayons from the Dollar tree, stampers, tattoos, free coloring pages I found online, and My Little Pony inspired worksheets that I created (see link to download at the bottom of the post).

Each guests also received…

Sugar Cookies

I purchased the Rainbow Dash cutters from this seller on Ebay. I used this recipe for the cookies and as they had a lot of great detail, I opted not to frost them. I packaged them in clear bags with a ribbon on top. I love these cookies as they stay fresh for a long time and thus, can be made well in advance.

Pony Cupcakes

The cupcake recipe can be found here. I used free clip art to make the toppers and had my Cricut Maker cut it out (using the print and cut feature). I also used free clip art to decorate the water bottles.

This year, as the birthday girl has been working on prewriting skills and number and letter recognition, I made some My Little Pony inspired worksheets for her. These are available to download for free here.

These worksheets are suitable for preschool and kindergarten aged children. They work best laminated or placed in laminated pouches for repeat use with dry erase markers.

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 fun for your little pony fan!