A soda/candy shoppe type of birthday.

I don't know what the deal is, but since the beginning of this year, I love to bake. Early twenties me wouldn't even know what to do with myself if she saw me in the kitchen, wearing an apron, and mixing up ingredients.

I love throwing parties together, and I am lucky my sister pretty much lets me take over my niece's for a while now. Last year we did an Alice in Wonderland theme (back before everything came out for it - I'll do a post on that some other time), and this July she was turning 12 (!!). I wanted something kind of fun to do and not exactly movie/character themed like her past parties. I bought a cupcake magazine which is pretty much the bomb dot com. Inside of it has a Soda Shoppe themed list of cupcakes so after a few brainstorms we put together a Soda/Candy Shoppe Birthday!

For decorations, I kept things a bit simple. Just bought some lanterns and I made some pin wheels. My dad had a crate of old soda bottles so I used those to prop them up with.

All the candy jars were displayed with ribbon wrapped around with a tag. And we had candy. Good lord, did we have candy. We had clear goodie bags and dished out candy to all the kids when they left.

The best part (at least in my humble opinion) was of course the cupcakes!

Root Beer Floats

Orange Cream Pops

Hot Fudge Sundaes

(These were the biggest hit!)

I stress out a lot when trying to put things like this together. I learned that I am not a pro at making icing at all which may have resulted in a tossed bag across the kitchen knocking over a glass and busting it. After it was all said and done I think it went great!