Peanuts Ice Cream Party

This Peanuts Ice Cream Party is courtesy of our contributor Chantelle of Dolled Up Design…We held our third annual Ice Cream Party at the end of August and I came up with an adorable Peanut’s theme that I am excited to share. It is hard coming up with a theme that will appeal to both kids and adults, but I knew everyone would be familiar with these popular characters since the adults grew up with them and the kids were recently introduced to them in the 2015 The Peanut’s Movie.

I began my party planning with the invite and, for that, I decided to DIY a couple simple costumes for my kids. With a bit of black fabric paint I was able to paint Charlie Brown’s iconic chevron on to a bright yellow shirt for my son and add some black polka dots to my daughter’s blue dress to transform her into Sally.

After a quick photo shoot, I was able to add the party details to one of the photos and print off our simple 4”x6” invitations at a self-serve photo kiosk. My 6 year old was then more than happy to pass them out to all the neighbours.

Peanuts Ice Cream Party:

Set-up on our front driveway was a bit of a battle as I tried to deal with windy conditions and very excited kids underfoot. After I got the black and white comic strip banner up and layered my yellow chevron and grass printed tablecloths on the table, it was time to start bringing out the ice cream and variety of themed toppings.

For the ice cream, I went with large pails of chocolate and vanilla as my two choices again this year. These were served out of a cardboard box I had transformed to look like Lucy’s advice booth from the comic strips and movie. Instead of “The Doctor is IN” my booth read “Scoop some IN”.

For my toppings, I wanted something fun and colorful to serve them out of that represented Charlie Brown and all the other characters. I ended up finding great bamboo flowerpots in a rainbow of colors, and with the help of a Sharpie marker and freehand drawing, transformed them to look like each of the character’s signature articles of clothing. The flowerpots then served double duty to glue these Eureka bulletin board decorations to and create a sturdy figure to place beside their matching topping container.

I love coming up with topping names and labels to match the theme, and the different Peanut’s characters made this so fun and easy to do. For the labels, I designed simple comic inspired speech balloons, then cut them out and glued them to clothespins to clip to each of the containers.

Store-bought brownies made the perfect Charlie Brownies, and I was excited to find mini York Peppermint Patties for Peppermint Patty. Pig Pen’s cloud of dirt was easy to represent with crushed chocolate Oreos and I added in a bit of freshness with Sally’s chopped fresh strawberries.

For Lucy, I chose bright maraschino cherries to match her fiery red temper, and quiet and brainy Marcie got mini marshmallows renamed Marcie Mallows.

A big hit with the kids and adults alike was Schroeder’s piano keyboard that I created from Cookies’n’Cream Kit Kat bars layered with treat sized milk chocolate Kit Kats.

Finally, I couldn’t forget Snoopy and Woodstock. I found these wonderfully soft plush versions of both at Hallmark I couldn’t resist picking up both as party decorations. I knew Snoopy would look great on top of a wooden doghouse I already owned, and a small nest from Michael’s craft store would make the perfect home for his small bird pal.

Bonz candy served out of a dog food dish were the perfect topping to represent Snoopy, and a bowl of sprinkles was labelled to mimic the sounds Woodstock makes in the comic strip. I loved all the pairings, but I am particularly proud of how cute my stuffed Woodstock looked in his little nest with his bowl of sprinkles and speech balloon label!

The kids were all excited to load up their bright red plastic bowls and I think most went back for seconds when the grown-ups weren’t watching. For the messy faces afterwards, I also had a stack of light blue Linus’ Blanket napkins for easy clean-up.

Despite the frustrations with set-up, it turned out to be a great night. I was having a bit of a crappy day and the wind started to get to me, but the kids excitement was a good reminder of why it is all worth the effort. The kids played late into the night fuelled by all the ice cream and candy, and the grown-ups were able to actually sit and enjoy a nice visit.

We’d like to send a big THANK YOU to Chantelle for sharing these fun Peanuts ice cream party ideas with us! Her parties are always easy to recreate and kids love them! Be sure to follow her on Facebook to stay updated on all her fabulous ideas.