Photo courtesy of and with permission from the Mom in High Heels blog

Get a good sharp knife and get to work. This is actually healthy fare for your pirate birthday party or pool party or luau party, and the kids will go nuts when they see what you’ve done. My thanks to the Mom in High Heels blog for posting this creation where I could find it to pass along.

Just like a great looking cake, give this guy center stage by bringing him into the party at a time when he’ll command everyone’s full attention. That way, you’ll get your due for your creativity and the time spent- I’m hearing about an hour to make.

You’ll find complete instructions for making this scary fruit guy here. In addition to your watermelon, knives and spoons to scoop out the melon, you’ll need two marbles for the eyes and a couple of toothpicks to attach the dorsal fin.

The instructions suggest adding swedish fish candies to the scooped out watermelon balls. I’d prefer to see other fruits and melons added in, some cut into other sea creatures like the starfish you see in the picture- I’m betting they’re pineapple. There’s plenty enough sugar in the melon- no need to add candy too.

It’s not often you can serve kids birthday party food that’s actually healthy and that the kids will really eat AND get a kick out of the way it looks. This watermelon shark may be mean looking, but he’s a party winner for your pirate birthday party or your luau party or pool party.

There’s something about little girls that has us moms sometimes going for the over-the-top, fussy, frilly things that they so love. I’d put this princess birthday cake in that category. She will certainly make quite an entrance to your princess birthday party!

If you’re so inclined, this really isn’t as hard as it looks, as the video will prove. All you need are 3 8″ round cakes and one cake baked in a glass bowl. Box cakes will work fine, and since this idea comes from the Betty Crocker kitchens, I’m sure that’s what they would prefer you use! In addition to the cakes, you’ll need a good amount of pink tinted buttercream frosting, your pretty cake plate, and of course the princess. The doll can be an extra gift for your princess.

You might want to have all your princess party guests bring one of their own princess dolls with them to your party to join in the celebration when you bring out this cake. This gives them all something to play with at the table while you cut cake and serve, and perhaps play some more after the cake is eaten.

But before your cut her apart for serving, be sure to get pictures of the princess cake and all your princess birthday party guests for your memories. Maybe even use the photo on the front of your thank you notes?

Kids don’t need fancy birthday party food and designer birthday cake to have a great time at your party, but sometimes it’s just something that you want to do.

The perfect complement to your jungle party, safari party, or zoo party – a teddy bear cupcake puzzle. If you prefer, it can also be configured as a fish or a turtle, and instructions for doing so are included.

Basically, these are silicone cupcake cups, washable and reusable, in various shapes that can be configured to make these three animals. There’s also a transportation set that makes up into a train, rocket or dump truck cupcake puzzle.

[DISCLOSURE: If you make a purchase through the link on this page, I make a commission from Amazon. Seems reasonable to me…..]

Given that these silicone cupcake cups are totally reusable, these are a good value at the $14.99 price tag as of this writing.

Easy to make- just place the cups on a cookie sheet in the proper configuration as per the directions, fill with your batter and bake. Frost as  shown when cool and VOILA- ready to party!

When served, the kids get to pull the cupcake puzzle apart. You know they’ll enjoy choosing which piece they want and extracting it.

It will look like a professional designer cake but the cost will be as for homemade. That’s a good deal.

So for your next jungle party or safari party or zoo party, keep the [cup]cake right on track with your party theme with this easy animal cupcake set. We’re always looking for easy yet creative birthday party food ideas for your next party, and birthday cupcakes always seem to be a winner.

Popcorn is one of your better choices for children’s party food and snacks.

You can make it yourself for next to nothing- provided you opt for the old-fashioned yellow popcorn in the little plastic bag and not the high priced branded stuff. FYI- Goya makes it and at least in my store it’s in with all their other dried bean choices.

Air-popped corn contains virtually no calories. But even if your a popcorn ‘purist’ like my husband who believes it can only be properly cooked in a pot on the top of the stove, it doesn’t require a lot of oil to make a good amount of popcorn, so it’s still cheap in calories.

Maybe best of all for parties- it’s sugar free!! BUT- I’m going to suggest you add some sugar in the form of white chocolate for a whole new taste, and with a little food coloring in the chocolate, a whole new look as well.

I’ve made this pink chocolate popcorn for kids birthday parties and taken it to things like soccer games (for the after-treats) and it’s been a big hit. The mixture of the salty and the sweet, plus the addition of color, get’s all the kids attention. Of course, your color needn’t be pink: you can use any color that works with your party’s theme, but recognize that it will only be bits of color here and there in the popcorn.

Take it one step further with these printable popcorn bags the kids can fill with your chocolate popcorn snack.

Easy on you, easy on the calories and the sugar high, pink chocolate popcorn is an all around children’s party food winner.

Birthday Cupcakes are the easy alternative to birthday cake, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be just as decorative and fun to look at as a cake. Leave it to Martha Stewart to show us how to make them stand-out cute yet so very simple.

I’ve already showed you how to make your own cupcake toppers in a snap just using graphics from the web,  a white drinking straw and a little glue. And I’ve given you a printable template for making scalloped edged paper cupcake holders. Make these even more decorative by adding graphics to the template before printing- be they polka dots or superhero images. Alternatively, cut out the wrappers from colored paper and then add glitter for your festive look.

What Martha has added to these two birthday cupcake tricks, very simple and lovely, is to add a small colorful ribbon to the cupcake topper stick. Pick ribbon that reflects your party colors and theme. You won’t need much to add to a whole lot of toppers, so the expense is minimal. Just tie the ribbon around the stick- no need to fool around with a bow as it’s too small a space anyways.

One last embellishment for presenting your beautiful cupcakes. Make a great big round version of your cupcake topper and glue it to a round piece of cardboard to function as your serving plate for the cupcakes. You could even add a big topper to the center of this serving tray.

Great chefs all know that presentation is almost as important as taste, and these are very easy ideas for making your birthday cupcake presentation as much fun as your party. See all out ideas for children’s party food and its presentation on our website.

If you’ve got any experience with teenagers or preteens, and you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, you know that if it’s in front of them, they eat. And, the longer you have them in your house, the more they will consume. So slumber parties require lots of eats, but you needn’t knock yourself out preparing them or overload the kids with calories.

My thanks to Valerie Holland Hughes for her post about keeping the slumber party kids fed in a healthy yet easy way. When you’ve got them for 6 to 8 to maybe 10 waking hours, you know they’re going to be eating a lot of that time, so keeping the calorie count down is especially important for a slumber party. Keeping the sugar crazies at bay is another good idea.

Rolled up and toothpicked lean deli meats and cheeses, perhaps with some olive or pickle accompaniment, out on a tray where they can help themselves is a great idea, easy to prepare and can easily be made pretty to look at.

I’ll take Ms. Hughes at her word that the veggie tray with the lo-fat ranch dip is always the one that needs to refilled during the party. Again, with a pretty tray and an attractive arrangement of the veggies, plus cute napkins, it will look as good as it is good for them. Perhaps have a second tray of fruits such as strawberries, pineapple, grapes with a different dip on another side of the room.

Trail mix or the homemade version Ms. Hughes describes is another good finger food- although a bit high in calories. Baked tortilla chips with salsa is also a relatively lo cal snack that always gets eaten up.

You can use some of these ideas for children’s party food at any type of party, not just a slumber party. Because it’s always a good idea to keep the sugar and calories under control.

You don’t always have the time or energy to come up with a designer birthday cake. But you can always find the the time to whip up a batch of cupcakes from a box mix for your children’s party food and then create really simple images for the top decoration- like these Pirate Cupcakes for your pirate birthday party.

Using simple buttercream frosting, food coloring and a small plastic bag with the corner cut out as your piping tool, you’re good to go.

I couldn’t manage a wavy line with my rinky-dink graphics software, but instead of a solid black beard, you can use your baggie with the black frosting in a zig-zag pattern to create a better looking beard than I could.

This Pirate is an example: simple geometric shapes (easy to make with your frosting) often combine to create images for your children’s party food that will complement your party theme.

You could serve up your Pirate Cupcakes on a platter covered with ‘pirate plunder’- chocolate gold coins and jewel-like candies that they also get to eat.

Use the same simple pirate design for some of your pirate birthday party decorations. Draw this fellow on white balloons with sharpie markers and then tack them up to the ceiling (or draw on helium filled ones that stay up there by themselves). Copy my graphic above and use it on your invitations or invitation envelopes. Print the graphic and cut them out to glue onto plain white paper cups to create themed party cups (without going to the party store).

Your children’s party food needn’t be professional, designer grade for the kids to enjoy both the eye candy and the actual treat.  Kids aren’t that sophisticated- they just want to have a good time.

It’s been a VERY hot summer here and in much of the US, so even just the thought of a tall, cool glass of lemonade is refreshing. That goes for kids too- they play hard at your summer outdoor parties and they need to hydrate. Lemonade is a perfect summer drink to serve at your party, and you can engage the kids  and keep them busy for a bit of time by having them make it up themselves.  What could be better than having the kids make and serve their own birthday party food!

Set up an outdoor table (that can get wet because they WILL spill) with a pretty tablecloth. Borrow a whole bunch of juicer’s from neighbors and friends so you have plenty for the kids to use. Buy LOTS of lemons – I find they’re juicier if they’re just a bit squeezable rather than rock hard. The lemons are also easier to juice if you roll them on a hard surface with pressure from the flat of your hand before you cut them in half to juice them. The only other things you need are sugar, ice for the glasses, a pitcher and cups for the kids to drink from.

As recommended for making the tastiest lemonade, make your sugar syrup ahead of time: dissolve 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of HOT water.

For every cup of sugar syrup, the kids need to squeeze 1 cup of lemon juice. Give them several measuring cups so they can do the measuring themselves. Let them experiment with the proportions, but I’d suggest putting a card on the table advising them to use 1 cup of sugar syrup to 1 cup of lemon juice.

Mix it up and have a few limes for them to squeeze too.

Childrens party food that’s delicious and is an added activity for your outdoor summer party – PERFECT!

Cupcakes are an easy alternative to hours in the kitchen decorating a designer cake. They’re kid-sized and kid friendly too. And you can fancy them up to match any birthday party theme with cupcake toppers you make yourself in very little time.

Once again, we turn to the internet to make a D-I-Y chore as easy as possible.

Find a cute graphic that projects your party’s theme. I always say a great place to start is Microsoft’s Image Gallery. You want to choose an image that will size to under 2″ across so as not to overwhelm your cupcakes. Print 2 copies of each image for each cupcake onto cardstock and cut them out into either circles or squares, 2″ across.

Using either plain white or transparent drinking straws or plain white paper rolled up tight to make sticks. Cut your topper sticks to be about 3 1/2″ or 4″ long. Put your images back to back with the stick in the middle and glue the two sides together so they are securely attached to the stick.

Make sure your cupcakes have icing that’s good and thick ( which the kids will love for all that sugary goodness) so it can support your cupcake topper when you stick them into your cupcakes.

For the cost of a little printer ink, you’ve got yourself custom cupcake toppers for whatever theme you choose for your birthday party. And it took you very little time to make them. That’s a Win-Win.

With cute toppers, your birthday party food joins in the fun as a birthday party decoration too.

You CAN have an eco-friendly kids birthday party without depriving anybody of anything on that special day.

My thanks to mygloss.com for pointing me in this direction with their article by Sophie Uliano, the NYTimes best-selling author of Gorgeously Green.

Quite obviously, the place to start is with all that paper and plastic we all use for serving the childrens party food. Let’s face it, nobody’s going to use their good china, or even their not very good china, with a bunch of rowdy kids. But there are now some good alternatives to both the paper/plastic route and the broken china route.

First off, use cloth not paper napkins. Either invest in some inexpensive but fun and colorful ones that you’ll use all the time at home with your own kids, or dredge up all the ones you’ve got around and don’t give a second thought to the fact that they don’t match- do you really think the kids will care?

Same for your tablecloth- got an old sheet that they can write on or a colorful printed one that would look festive? Or you can have your party guests create your table covering by making big drawings (related to your party theme if you wish) on newsprint that you’ll then have a helper tape together to create your table covering.

And here’s my favorite green tip- using these ‘On the Go’ plastic plates and cups that are made out of recycled yogurt cups. Have some educational fun and tell the kids the story behind their tableware and how maybe even one of the yogurt containers they put into their reclycling bin might be part of their plate! These are reasonably priced, colorful and fun, and can be washed and re-used many times so they’re a good value.

When it comes to doing things in an earth-friendly manner, every little bit helps. The big bonus here is the story behind the plates that can get the kids thinking about being green too – I really like that. So serve up your childrens party food in a green fashion, and pass it on!