I always let my daughter choose her theme, this year she wanted one based on the Italian Street Festivals we attend in Boston. She wanted all her family and cousins as well as her closest friends, so we ended up with about 60 guests. Invitation: I printed out green/white/red flyers advertising" Victoria's Italian Street Party and asked everyone to dress Italian (colors fashion New Jersey - whatever their inspiration). As each guest arrived my daughter met them with green silver and red beads (bought at JoAnn Crafts).I was happy that everyone came dressed so festive for the occasion. I also had many classic Italian/American CDs playing throughout the party. Decorations: We set up in my driveway and part of the cul de sac in front of the house to keep in "on the street". I cut out pennants out of green white and red fabric (remnants for JoAnn Crafts)and glued them onto ribbon to string up around the tents (16x20 BJ's Wholesale) we had set up. I also sewed Italian flags and hung them around. In the dining tent I had corks with green/white/red ribbon strung through them hanging up and large bowls with grapes on each table. I got extra large empty tomato sauce cans from a restaraunt and used them to define the party space from the rest of the yard and street. It was very windy that day which proved to be a challenge keeping everything in place. Food: So important for an Italian party! I made antipasto meatball sandwiches Italian grinders and my cousin brought arrangini (rice balls - a must at Italian festivals). For drinks we had grape juice lemonade water and wine for the grown ups. Games: To get started I did face painting and had a bounce house. Then the kids made macaroni necklaces (I painted ziti green white and red)and decorated their treat bags that were filled with tickets (from the Dollar Store in coordinating colors) to be used with games later. I set up a tent as a game tent and we opened it after lunch with adults manning each of the 6 games. There was Pizza Pass I painted boxes to look like brick ovens and frisbees to look like pizzas and the kids had to get the pizzas into the ovens. Tomato Toss a ball toss into empty 28 oz crushed tomato cans. Ring Fling ring toss with wine bottles. Pluck a Duck using dowel rods with hoops at the end they had to catch green white and red duckies out of a kiddie pool. Make Some Dough a bean bag toss with bags decorated to look like yeast water and flour. Meatball Mania ping pong balls painted brown had to be thrown into bowls filled with pasta. Kids had to give a ticket to play each game then got tickets for winning to be redeemed after. Once they had run out of tickets they redeemed them all for their prizes - assorted balls bracelets cars and trinkets bought at I Party. Most of the kids still played the games for fun after as did the adults! Cake: my daughter and I made assorted Italian cookies and neapolotin cookies with the colors of the flag. For the cake my daugher chose 3 different cakes; the bottom a vanilla cake with the Italian flag in fondant draped over it middle was a lemon cake (her favorite) with Italian pillars in frosting around it and the top was a chocolate Mt Aetna volcano with sparkler candles coming out the top. The chocolate went over the best with everyone. In the end everyone had a wonderful time the adults were dancing to the music and having a wonderful time socializing and the kids never stopped the whole time and none of them wanted to leave at the end - in fact we ran 2 hours later than I'd planned. I did flyers with pictures from the party as thank you notes. I have received so many thank you's from family and friends many telling me their kids talked about the party for weeks later."