A Kung Fu Panda Birthday Party Features a Panda Sanctuary

Forget how ridiculously adorable this pink and green “Kung Fu Marley” Birthday Party that Ebony of Sparkling Events & Designs created for her daughter is. What’s really impressive is the kid-sized pink Pagoda built from scratch with her family. Add in the “Panda Art” table and the too-cute “Panda Sanctuary” and you’ve got a party you want to give a bear hug to.  “Planning this party for my Marley actually started way back before the sequel of the first Kung Fu Panda movie even came out.  Last year we had a sweet shoppe party for Marley because she was really just the sweetest baby ever.  Well, in year 2, she has turned into a true spitfire with tons of spunk!  So it hit me to do a Kung Fu Panda party for her, but of course with a twist.  My challenge was how I could make this party fit for a little girl because the theme traditionally seems a bit boyish!  Changing up the colors did just that!”

“The invitation was the starting point for the party and I wanted it be Kung Fu Panda but different, so adding the hot pink pagoda is where it started and went from there.  I love pink and green, so I added a touch of black to complete the color palette.  A little glitter to the pagoda was the finishing touch.”

The party guests were greeted with kid sized wooden Po figurines from Kung Fu Panda in three different moods. ”My brother sketched these out by hand, my dad cut them out and then my husband painted them.  It was truly a family working together to create something beautiful.  We were able to get photos of the children with Po as they arrived.”

Ebony’s first vision for the main prop for this party was to have a kid sized hot pink pagoda.  “My husband kind of scratched his head and looked at me like I was crazy and then my brother-in-law said he was up to the task and got to work immediately.  We got free wood off of freecycle.org and he built it from the ground up.  It was truly a work in progress and took months to perfect.  We painted it hot pink added some glitter and Chinese writings, including Marley’s name in Chinese.  The project probably cost us about $25 total but lots of love and care went into creating it.  The children (and adults) were amazed by it.”

At the end of Kung Fu Panda 2 (spoiler alert) Po’s father is living in a panda sanctuary where the pandas are harvesting bamboo.  “I instantly knew that I wanted a panda sanctuary incorporated into the party somehow.  So I created a panda stuffing sanctuary using some greenery and canvas board.  The children stuff small panda bears from  The Party Animal .  The panda stuffing sanctuary was a huge hit; the children (and adults) loved stuffing the panda bears and of course throwing the puffy filler all over the place.” Ebony also had a ‘Panda Art’ station where each child received a Kung Fu Panda 2 coloring book with markers, crayons and glitter glue to decorate the pages of the book.  Throughout the room she strung lanterns in pink and white from corner to corner to add some festive décor.

The backdrop for the dessert table was a screen made out of scrap wood.  “We use those disposable paper blinds for the actual screen.  I painted it black and adding fans with glittered chopsticks. How clever and inexpensive! For the dessert table I really wanted to make it kid friendly because I feel like I missed the mark on their other parties.  I wanted it to be low to the ground because the guests were little tikes and I wanted them to be able to reach everything, So it was about 2 ft. tall.

While those beautiful apothecary jars create visually stunning dessert/candy displays and may be ok for an older child’s party, they are not practical for a bunch of 2 – 5 year olds.   Since the table was so low, we served the treats on bamboo trays and cups.” We’re sure the kids loved the fabulous cake complete with edible bamboo to amazingly detailed sugar cookies and darling glittery glassine bags filled with popcorn and “panda treats”, there was definitely some talent that went into these sweets… and this entire party.

The amazingly gorgeous cake was created by  Mimi’s Mocha Treats, which she created after seeing the invitation. “The pink pagoda sketch on the front of the cake was fantastic!  Everything on the cake was edible too, including the bamboo stalks.  Jen from  JP Creatibles  created the most beautiful and dazzling cookies, also based on the invitation that I designed. The Purple Pug created beautiful panda glassine bags and panda stickers. We put popcorn and panda treats in the bags. The pink glittered bow fit my Marley perfectly.  Once I received those glittery treats, glitter started popping up through the entire party. We also had some custom hot pink fortune cookies made with a special message for Marley’s celebration.”

“Overall, I think that this is my absolute favorite party. 95% of the decorations were all handmade by family and I think that is absolutely wonderful and so very special.” Thanks Ebony for sharing your Kung Fu Panda party with us!

Panda Party People

Planning, Stationery, and Event Design: Sparkling Events & Designs, LLC.

Glassine Bags/Panda Stickers: The Purple Pug

Cake:  Mimi’s Mocha Treats

Custom Cookies: JP Creatibles

Panda Skins:  The Party Animal

Photography:  Sweet Pea Studios