(party) gingerbread man decorating party

I’m a Pearista and received samples for review purposes from Pear Tree Greetings. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.

Over the weekend, I hosted a gingerbread man decorating party for my preschooler and his little pals. If you are in the Phoenix area, you can catch me on Your Life A to Z 3TV at 10am tomorrow talking about all the fun details from this party. I know I probably say this about all the parties I style, but this is one of my favorites. I was all about easy for this party and used a lot of store bought stuff, but made it look crafty and cute. I love how it turned out and might just make this party an annual tradition!

The inspiration for the party came from Pear Tree Greeting’s Gleeful Gingerbread Invitations. They are beyond cute and I ended up ordering a few extra blank invitations to use in my decor – like the gingerbread bunting hanging above the dessert table. I love when I can tie in the invitation to the party somehow! I went minimal with the dessert table – store bought donuts, store bought gingerbread cookies and sixlets. I ended up making gingerbread cupcakes (stay tuned for the recipe) and put the cutest Gingerbread Man edible toppers from Wilton on them. The Gingerbread Man toppers are holding gumdrops, so I sprinkled gumdrops around my cupcake platters for a cute touch. The jar candles on the table are filled with fake snow, but you could also do gumdrops.

That darling Gingerbread Family is from Hobby Lobby and with a 40% off coupon, it was the perfect centerpiece! I crafted up a matching wreath for my front door out of Deco Mesh. This was my first time using Deco Mesh and it’s super easy to work with! I recommend looking up how-to videos on You Tube. I always love having my front door decorated to match the theme of the party. It’s the first impression and the last impression for guests. One of my new must have party decor items are the party circles from Pear Tree Greetings and they just so happened to have some that matched their Gingerbread Man invitations. I sprinkled them on the decorating table and they helped to tie the theme together nicely.

Once the kids arrived, we helped them into their chef hats, Gingerbread Man aprons (tutorial coming soon) and they went to town on decorating their GIANT Gingerbread Men (and Women). The big Gingerbread Men came in a kit from Costco and included icing and candies to decorate with. I added in a few extra sprinkles and the kids had a blast! So much easier than putting Gingerbread Houses together and just as cute! Once the icing was dry, I had cello bags ready to package them in for an easy transport home.

I painted that adorable Gingerbread Man Platter at As You Wish, a pottery painting place, especially for this party. It’ll be a treasured keepsake to have and we can use it for our now annual Gingerbread Man party! After cookie decorating, we read The Gingerbread Bear book and the kids played with their Gingerbread Play Dough Kits. Each kit came with play dough, a gingerbread cookie cutter and things to decorate their play dough gingerbread man with – googly eyes, pom poms, etc. The kids got to take home their play dough kits and aprons as party favors. Everyone had so much fun and we’re already looking forward to next year!