My daughter Lea just turned 5! For her birthday, we threw a magical unicorn party at home with our family. She loves unicorns and her room is filled with unicorn stuffed animals, clothing, and pictures. So of course, she was so thrilled to have a unicorn party!
I didn’t want the setup to take a lot of time or cost a lot of money. I made it quick and easy for myself by only making two of the decorations and buying the rest on Amazon. This magical unicorn theme took about 2 hours to put together and cost under $100.
For the walls, I made a super easy DIY rainbow backdrop (see my tutorial below) by taping strips of different color streamers together. To add some sparkle and dimension, I layered metallic tinsel curtains on top. Then I made “clouds” out of white DIY tissue pom-poms to cover the top of the rainbow streamers and hung the star garlands I bought from them. To complete the look, I hung a matching pastel colored ‘Happy Birthday’ sign in the middle. If I had more time, I would’ve DIY’d the sign using the same template I used for my son’s Baby Shark themed party.
For the dessert table, I covered a 4’x2’ folding table with a white tablecloth and a rainbow ruffle table-skirt. I used an old cake stand (linked similar) for her homemade birthday cake and added another plate of colorful cupcakes to the table. As a final touch, I added a vase of flowers and some of Lea’s stuffed unicorns to the table as decorations.
I’m amazed at how beautiful everything turned out! What I love the most about this setup is that each decoration can easily be customized for any party occasion. The streamers can be in different shades of blue or pink for a baby shower. The tissue paper pom-poms could be made into flowers for a bridal shower. The tinsel curtain comes in a variety of shades and will add a lot of pop for any bachelorette or New Year’s Eve party. You can easily find different banners and garlands specific to your theme as well.
I hope my tutorial below is helpful for all of the parties you want to throw. If you try it, tag me in your photos, I’d love to see it!
DIY 9’x8’ Streamer Backdrop
Materials
- 5 Rolls of crepe paper streamers (81’ each), various colors
- Masking tape
- Scissors
- 2 8’x3’ Tinsel curtains (optional)
Instructions
- Measure and cut the desired length of the paper streamers. I cut the streamers to be 8’ to fill the length of my wall from floor to ceiling.
- Place a long strip of tape (sticky side up) on a flat surface and secure the ends with another piece of tape (sticky side down). I did this to make it easier to line up the streamers on the tape before placing it on the wall. Alternatively, you can make a long strip directly on the wall where the streamer backdrop will be or tape each piece up individually. I used three strips of tape that were each 3′ long.
- Take your first streamer color and stick it on the masking tape.
- Take the next color streamer and place it next to the previous streamer color, overlapping it slightly. Repeat with the other three colors.
- Repeat the pattern until your desired backdrop width is covered.
- Use tape to layer the tinsel curtain on top of the streamer backdrop.
DIY Pom-Poms (used as clouds for my backdrop)
Materials
- 15″x20″ Tissue paper
- Curling ribbon or string
- Scissors
Instructions
- Line up and stack the tissue paper together. I used 5 sheets to make a half pom-pom since the flat side will be placed on the wall. Use 10 sheets if you are making a round pom-pom to hang from the ceiling.
- Start with the narrowest side of the tissue and fold the stack of tissue paper back and forth using a width 1” wide, like an accordion.
- Cut off excess tissue to make it even.
- Tie a piece of curling ribbon or string around the folded paper around the middle. Loop and tie another piece of string here if you are hanging the pom-pom.
- Use the scissors to trim the ends into a curve/rounded edge. (I did this for clouds, but you can experiment with different shapes like points or waves for different styles of pom-poms).
- Carefully separate each layer of tissue paper to fluff out the pom-pom.
What kinds of party themes would you like to see more of?
