Being a fan of themed party's this was the most fun party that I have done to date. My daughter Jewell was turning two so I wanted to have a fun colorful party. I started planning for this party a couple months ahead of time to keep costs down. I tried to make most of the party decorations myself to be original and inexpensive. Inviations: Using my home computer I made our invitaions that said sugar spice and everything nice...that's what our little girl is made of" also listing the time place and RSVP#. I added clip art of hard candy candy canes gum drops and ginger bread men. They were adorable. Cake: I bakes two cakes...one circle and one square. I cut the square into two triangles placing one on either side of the circle with the top of the tiangle pointed in to the circle...to resemble a piece of wrapped hard candy. the two triangles being the wrapper and the circle being the candy. I iced the cake with white icing using different colored icing to make swirls on the hard candy portion of the cake. I took a knife to make lines on the triagle part of the cake to make it look wrinkled as it is the wrapper part of the candy. I placed the cake on top of a candy land game board for presentaion. We served all different types of candy in remembrance of the original game. We had different bowls of gum drops conversation hears peanut brittle candy canes and also served neapolitan ice cream. We used mixed color plates napkins and cups since everything was so colorful. Decorations: To start we lined the edge of our yard and drive way with large candy canes and large suckers that I had made. The candy canes were borrowed from a friend from her lawn Christmas decorations. The Suckers were made by taking two styrofoam place and stapling them together facing each other. I drew spirals and other designs that suckers would have. I bought several thin dowel rods to use as the sucker stick. I slid the dowel rod in between the two plates hot glueing them into place with a low temp hot glue gun. I wrapped each of those with different colored celephone paper and tied a curley ribbon around the bottom of the sucker. CUTE! I made an entire life size candy land game board for the kids to play on during the party that we put in the back yard. I collected card board squares from my office that are found in copy paper boxes. I spray painted each of those different colors just as the game has. From the start to finish line the colored squares led the way. Along the way there were large conversation heart that I made from large peices of styrofoam large gum drops made from the bottom side of a two liter bottle that I painted with tectured spray paint more candy canes and suckers that were used from above. I covered two rectangle boxes with pink brown and white paper bought at a teacher supply store to make two neapolitan bars. I layes these on an old blue bed sheet to make them look like they were floating on water. I also made large gingerbread men with dowel rods running down the legs to stick them in the ground. A couple of the ginger bread men had their faces cut out so that the children could stick their faces in them and have their picture taken. All along the way I there were "wooden" signs tell them how many miles until the end. I made those with cardboard cut out to look like a wood sign. I drew on them with a brown magic marker to draw the wood grain and shodoing around the edges. I covered wrapping paper tubes (left over fromt he celophane paper used for the suckers) with white and pink paper to look like candy canes.(white and pink both left from the neopolitan bars. All of this led to the end of the game board where there was a ginger bread house for the kids to play in. I made it out of cardboard that I spraypainted brown. I used white duck tape for the icing along the top. I used white bulliten board boder for the edges fo the house to look like dripping icing. It was completed with windows and a door all decorated as well. I cut styrofoam balls in half and spraypainted different colors to look like gum balls. I hot glued these to the top of the house and along the edges...anywhere there was icing. Everything was too cute adn well worth the trouble. I used this sight for a lot of cute ideas as I always do. I wouldn't be able to pull off a birthday party with out it. "