Welcome to the Strawberry Shortcake Party!

You may be asking yourself, who the heck is this Strawberry Shortcake anyway? Well, she’s a cartoon character who got her big shot at Hollywood from a series of several Hallmark cards. When this cute redhead’s face hit the mainstream, the cards became so popular that Hallmark came out with cards featuring some of her friends: Blueberry Pie, Apple Dumpling and many more.

After that, an entire brand of merchandise came out, featuring her, and pretty soon she was the new hot toy for little girls.

Her popularity began to rise to the point where she received her own television show, which eventually lead to movies. While the cartoon series had ended long ago, Strawberry Shortcake’s popularity continued to rise until they reinstated the series. Upon closer inspection, the new cartoon character is a modernized version of her 80s self. Her fashion may have changed, but the little girls still love her.

That being said, it makes perfect sense for you to throw a Strawberry Shortcake party, especially if you have a daughter. In addition to having a ton of ways to have dessert (hint hint!), with all the memorabilia that she has, decorating will be a cinch. The secret to throwing a party with this theme is simple: liberal use of the color pink. Things like pink balloons, posters and streamers should be easy enough to find. Also, the Strawberry Shortcake party theme is so popular these days there’s specialty paper plates and plastic ware you can buy with her image on it.

Keep the girls entertained with a garden party in the Strawberry Shortcake theme. You can turn it into something of a tea party as well with all the dessert items you are bound to have at the event. Coloring books and crayons make a great quiet activity for the guests to get into when you get tired from running around. Last but not least, pop in a Strawberry Shortcake movie for everyone to watch.

But what kind of party should you throw? What should the activities be? Here’s an example to get you started, taken from my own experience throwing a party for my 3 year old daughter.

For the invitations, I stole a picture from the internet with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake on a bicycle. The caption read: “A ‘berry’ special day…’” Cute. Obviously, I entered in the party schedule.

As far as the decorating is concerned, we went all out. We bought stuff to make a giant pinata and went to work on making one shaped like a strawberry. Once we filled it with treats and added another two layers, we flipped it over, added some red and green color so it looked like an actual strawberry.

Then, I went to a local drug store and to make cutouts of Strawberry Shortcake & Co. and put them up around the room. On the tables, we put red and pink colored table clothes, lightly decorated with colored streamers and napkins. For an added effect, we added strawberry scented candles on the tables just to make sure that everyone knew this was a STRAWBERRY Shortcake party. We didn’t want there to be any confusion.

As far as costumes are concerned, we died my daughter’s hair pink and put her in a red strawberry costume with a whipped cream hat.

For activities, we had a little treasure hunt where the kids needed to find Strawberry Shortcake party themed items that we hid around the house. We also had the pinata all made up, so we let the kids take a few whacks at that before the summer sun kicked in. Knowing how easy kids are, we blew up some balloons and just scattered them around for the kids to play with.

I set up some games ahead of time for the kids to play, one of them was a strawberry shortcake version of hide and seek. We made a giant cardboard paper strawberry and had fun as we watched kids try to play pin the tail on the strawberry donkey.

The cake was a strawberry flavored (of course) pink and white cake. At $20, it was the most expensive single part of the party. The whole thing cost less than $200 to put together, including the food and decorations. But the memories will last a lifetime!