Unicorn Birthday
Recently our middle daughter turned 5 and requested a unicorn themed birthday. Colorful, unique, and lovely, it was a wonderful theme that reflected my daughter. Here is how my kids and I created an easy and affordable birthday party to celebrate with her family and friends. Hoping these ideas and printables can help your kids to enjoy some simple yet still magical fun.
Decorations:
When planning, we always start by looking at what we already have. My daughters have been obsessed with unicorns for years. I am actually surprised it took us this long to have our first unicorn themed birthday. We gathered all their unicorn toys as well as anything white that could be turned into unicorns.
We cleaned out the playroom and lined all the shelves with their unicorn friends. We added unicorn horns, ears, and flowers to white plastic boxes to make the square shaped unicorns above. The horns are just plastic soccer cones covered in gold foil. To complete the look, I took a Sharpie and drew on some curved eyes and lashes.
As we also had an abundance of white posterboard, we decided to make a lot of large flying unicorns. I found clipart here and used my projector to trace and cut out the large scale unicorn pictured above. We used plastic tablecloth we had leftover from sister’s L.O.L. birthday to create flowing unicorn hair. Finally, white paper plates were adhered to the wall with double sided masking tape to create textured clouds.
My kids made the hanging stars above out of star shaped plates we found at the Dollar Tree. We simply cut out the center, covered them in contact paper, then sprinkled gold confetti on them. We ended up making sixteen of them, hanging them with fishing wire everywhere, inside and out. The cost ended up being less than four dollars as we already had the huge roll of contact paper.
We made more unicorns out of white poster board to fly around our kitchen. Each unicorn took about fifteen minutes to put together with my kids helping. Again, I used clipart I found here, enlarged the image with my projector, and cut them out, omitting their hair. My kids and I adhered wings with white cardstock to their sides to add some fun dimension. We followed this wonderful tutorial from Cupcakes and Cutlery to create ruffled hair and tails on our unicorns out of plastic tablecloth. We have used her same tutorial previously to create jellyfish tentacles for sister’s mermaid birthday.
These paper unicorns really added a wonderful whimsical feel to the kitchen.
We made pool noodle rainbows and balloon clouds. The pool noodle rainbows were made by hot gluing three pool noodle segments together and curving them a bit, adding white balloons to the ends. Everything was strung up with clear fishing wire. We used white pipe cleaners to help secure our clusters of white balloons. For less than ten dollars, we were able to decorate this large space. Each pool noodle rainbow took about fifteen minutes to make (most of that time spent blowing up and securing the balloon clouds). We love using pool noodles to decorate as they are lightweight and also make resilient outdoor decorations.
We created a large unicorn head out of white poster board. I found the clipart here. We used more pink plastic tablecloth for hair, and added a simple paper flower. I again took a Sharpie to draw a little curve for the unicorn eye. Everything was secured to the wall using command strips and clear push pins. I find push pins work best for securing plastic tablecloth to the wall. This decoration took about 15 minutes to put together and was an easy and inexpensive way to decorate the large wall in our living room.
Over the windows in our living room, I made large paper flowers and added paper unicorn horns and ears. I followed this tutorial from Abbi Kirsten to make the large paper flowers. Each took about fifteen minutes to make out of pastel cardstock I had on hand. This was a nice and inexpensive way to further tie in the color scheme and theme of the party together. My daughter really loved these flowers and they have since been moved to decorate her bedroom.
Over the cake table, I made this banner for my daughter. I made more large scale unicorns out of white poster board, added horns out of gold glitter foam, and attached more hair from ruffled plastic tablecloth. I made a few more banners for her that I displayed throughout the house. They are available here and just were an easy and inexpensive way to quickly decorate a room.
Outside, my brother-in-law helped to hang these felt unicorn heads that we found at the Dollar Tree along with more of the stars the kids had made.
Party Activities:
As my daughter’s birthday is in the middle of summer, usually with ninety degree plus weather, we like to make sure to have plenty of indoor activities in case people want to stay in where it is air conditioned. 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 printable rainbow banner that is free to download below. I cut out some unicorn heads out of white posterboard, attached more plastic tablecloth to them as hair and rolled up a piece of darker pink plastic tablecloth for flowers. I laid out four activities. I find that any more can be too cluttered and overwhelming.
The banner is best printed out onto white cardstock, cut out, and hole punched on two sides. You can use either ribbon, twine, or yarn. We hung our banner up with white yarn. This banner could also be used for a rainbow themed party, classroom, or serve as an everyday playroom or art room decor.
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. My kids also enjoy creating examples of each activity to display.
I made some personalized coloring pages for my daughter featuring a unicorn cake, doughnut, cupcake, and more unicorns. They can be found here. I make more personalized coloring pages for kids here.
This unicorn birthday cake coloring page is free to download below. Hope it can be fun for your kids too!
I made unicorn crowns for the kids to color and decorate. I personalized them with my daughter’s name and the rest with her age and included a tray filled with markers, glue, scissors, glitter, sequins, and stickers for the kids to embellish, cut, assemble, and wear. I make more paper crowns here.
Here is my daughter decorating her crown with glitter.
My husband found these wonderful foam cutouts of unicorn heads on clearance just randomly while out picking up groceries. I guess unicorns are really everywhere. As a bonus they perfectly matched the clipart I had already used to decorate with. I hot glued them to some craft sticks and set out a tray filled with googly eyes and fun stickers. Some kids added so many stickers that the weight of their unicorn head drooped and they needed an extra foam head to be attached to the back.
I found these inexpensive tattoos at Party City. They were only a dollar for a package of eight which made this another low cost and fun activity for the kids.
I tried to use every possible corner in our downstairs space to invite kids to play. This activity setup was as easy as grabbing brother’s huge Lego bin filled with thousands of mixed up Legos and putting up a sign to encourage kids to get creative and build a unicorn.
I used the space in our hallway and hung up felt rings that I had cut out in varying sizes. I gave the kids a bucket filled with felt scraps, pieces of black yarn, and gold glitter triangles that had adhesive velcro on the back for kids to decorate unicorn doughnuts.
I had a large peg board that I have been meaning to use to get more organized. I drew a really simple unicorn head outline with a Sharpie and added on white pipe cleaners for hair. I laid out some beads for kids to attach to decorate the unicorn hair. For little sister (age two), this activity was a great way for her to work on her fine motor development. She also really enjoys vertical play set ups like this which has so many benefits for her. My other daughters (5 and 7) also loved this, at times, pulling out the pipe cleaners to make their own bracelets.
I turned my daughter’s play kitchen into a flower shop to carry on with the floral theme. Everything was priced at five dollars as the birthday girl was turning five. I printed out pretend bills with my daughter’s face on it and made a few flower shop signs that are free to download below. I purchased the blooms from the Dollar Tree and wrapped more plastic soccer cones with gold plastic tablecloth, and then tied them with some twine, to create the bouquets. I also added some watering cans and clear containers for kids to make their own floral arrangements and care for their pretend flowers. I create more personalized play money here. To see my other dramatic play set ups, click here.
We hosted a story time. Story time is always a low cost and welcomed addition to all of our kids’ parties. Daddy read Thelma the Unicorn by Aaron Blabey. It is a wonderful story about a horse named Thelma who wishes to be a unicorn but discovers in the end that it really is best to just be yourself. If Aaron Blabey sounds familiar to you, it is because he is also the author of the Bad Guys graphic novels which my kids love. His series has since been turned into a movie and was hands down, our family’s favorite this summer. Pictured above is little sister listening intently even though she has heard this story at least a few hundred times.
Outside we set up this tent which my youngest received from Santa last Christmas and filled it with some cozy pillows, blankets, and books for kids to explore and relax.
We also made a homemade pinata out of a moving box, some priority mailboxes (as the birthday girl had received several packages in the mail already), some tissue paper, and crepe paper streamer. My daughters helped me to wrap a plastic soccer cone in gold plastic tablecloth, roll some flowers, and create a ruffled tail out of more plastic tablecloth. My kids always enjoy helping me to make these larger than life pinatas and filling them with their favorite candy.
Here is big sister helping to make the pinata.
Here are both sisters filling up the pinata with some of the birthday girl’s favorite candy. As the cost of these homemade pinatas is next to nothing, we get to splurge on filling them.
We had some stale alphabet cereal which we quickly dumped into our large sand table to create a large sensory table. The addition of some toy unicorns which my daughters already owned, as well as scoopers, tongs, and bowls led to another easy and inexpensive invitation to play.
I had a large cork board that we weren’t using so turned it around and outlined a large unicorn. My daughters painted it white to make this pin the tail on the unicorn game. My niece helped us to cut out the tails from cardstock remnants.
I made a simple unicorn ring toss game by inverting a large white container we had and sticking another plastic soccer cone covered in gold foil on top as the horn. I just used plain rubberbands to secure the foil to the plastic soccer cone. The rings for this game were made by taping pool noodles together with clear packing tape.
I found some unicorn confetti and these unicorn rubber ducks from Walmart. My daughters helped me to freeze some flowers along with the confetti and some gold glitter for some water play. The birthday girl’s middle name is a combination of both her grandmas. We planted these Black-eyed Susans around our home in memory of her grandma Becky as it was her favorite. Unfortunately her grandmother Becky was never able to meet our daughter. Adding these flowers to her water play on her birthday helped to tie in a piece of her.
We added some scoopers and ladles from the kitchen along with some measuring cups and spoons and dumped everything into our water table. Funnels also would make a great addition as well as warm water in condiment bottles. We had planned to add the warm water but ended up using the condiment bottles for our shaved ice.
We also fortunately live across the street from a large community pool so the kids were able to cool off there as well.
Food:
We included the birthday girl’s favorite foods as well as a lot of kid friendly favorites. My daughter loves mac and cheese, corn on the cob, and of all things… roasted cauliflower. We also served hot dogs, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, shrimp chips, as well as these delicious egg rolls that my daughter helped us to roll and ordered queso from her favorite local restaurant.
Here is my oldest daughter helping to roll egg rolls.
Here is the birthday girl helping as well.
I used a few Sharpie markers to decorate a plate of unicorn string cheese. As getting everything ready on the day of the party can sometimes be a bit crazy, I always like to have some food like this already prepared ahead of time and ready to go on party day.
I made unicorn fruit kebabs out of marshmallows and edible food markers and skewered rainbow fruit on them.
As the weather is usually so hot on my daughter’s birthday, we wanted to make sure guests had plenty of beverages. We found this wonderful recipe from Tastefully Frugal and made homemade shaved ice. The kids really enjoyed this, requesting several refills.
My daughter requested a rainbow cake. She had a rainbow cake for her third birthday and still talks about it like it was yesterday. This time, I stuck to only four layers of vanilla cake, adding Wilton’s gel based icing color to match the colors in her rainbow banner. The vanilla cake was made using this recipe. I also always use Two Sister’s recipe for buttercream frosting.
Here is the birthday girl enjoying her big slice.
I used my daughter’s photo and added a glitter unicorn horn, some ears, and flowers to make these simple cupcake toppers. I adhered them to toothpicks and inserted them into these delicious chocolate cupcakes. The custom toppers are available here.
I found an inexpensive unicorn cookie cutter at Walmart and used this recipe to make unicorn sugar cookies. I baked them and left the decorating to the kids as another party activity. The kids always really enjoy this although their cookies often end up reminding me of something from Voodoo Doughnut l.o.l. As an aside, I see they now are offering a unicorn doughnut there that we are going to need to try next time we visit.
I also made this simple dessert using two packages of boxed berry blue flavored jello mix, piped some homemade whipped cream clouds, and stuck on rainbow Airheads Xtremes Rainbow Berry Candy. My daughter and her friends really loved this.
Favors:
I found rainbow twist lollipops at Walmart as well as these adorable unicorn shaped crayons at Party City and made these favor bags for her classmates at school. I also included more of the foam unicorn heads that my husband found and hot glued them to popsicle sticks for the kids to decorate. To keep it simple for her class, I only included the white unicorn heads for the kids to decorate with the markers they already had at school. I made her 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 her birthday party contained some noise blowers (from the Dollar Tree) and these unicorn slap bracelets from Walmart and were given to the guests to fill with pinata candy as well as any crafts they wanted to take home.
Here are sisters and Aunt Jill helping to put the favor bags together before the guests arrive. Everyone needs an Aunt Jill who usually comes one to two hours early ready to wipe down the windows and do whatever else it takes to get ready.
As a bonus, we found that the unicorn bracelets were also rulers on the backside and when straightened could be used for measuring fun.
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 unicorns and rainbows. She was so appreciative of everything and kept picking flowers and drawing me more presents to express her thanks. She gave the party in her words, ten hundred thumbs up. I also enjoyed having the chance to show my kids that we don’t have to buy the latest and greatest and can make a lot from simple everyday supplies. They all now look at plain white bins and soccer cones and see lots of possibility.
Your child may also enjoy:
Free Unicorn Printable Activities (coloring page and craft template that can double as a math mat)
Free Unicorn Sight Word Flash Cards
Unicorn and Stars Sight Word Workbook
Unicorn Themed Tracing Worksheets (name, days of the week, months of the year, with reward tags)
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 and magical with and for your young unicorn whisperer!
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