Ain't No Party Like A Pizza Party!!!

June 22, 2024

We recently celebrated my niece Frankie's first birthday. Pizza has been a theme in her life since day one. Her parents did monthly photo updates with slices of pizza to denote her months. It was super cute and becomes a really great reason to get pizza once a month (I call that a win-win). My sister and brother-in-law live outside of Chicago, IL, so they take their pizza a little more serious up there!

My sister knew early on that she wanted to do a pizza theme for her first birthday, so we had plenty of time to get a little extra! My mom constructed the fabulous backdrop out of snow fencing and plastic table cloths from the Dollar Tree. I was on stationary duty.

Growing up in central Illinois, we would regularly go to Monical's Pizza... with the exception of the short period of time when they switched to shredded lettuce for their salads, at which time my mom boycotted them, before they went back to their old lettuce cutting techniques. A core memory of eating at Monical's was getting the placemat with the games, so I knew I needed to recreate that for Frankie's party. I included all the standard faire of a word search, maze, tic-tac-toe, and picture search. I had so much fun making it that I wanted to make it available to others for their parties. You can find a link to the customizable play mat here.

I had the brilliant idea of creating custom pizza boxes for the party. The design process was pretty straightforward but the screen printing was a different story. I knew I wanted to screen print the tops and had gotten Xtool's laser-able screen printing station that I was eager to use. I uploaded the design and got my laser set up to engrave the screen. When I hit print, it gave me an estimated time of over 549 minutes! I don't know how many hours that is, but it's a lot and I sure wasn't going to be held hostage by my laser for that long, so I broke out the trusty Cricut. I cut the design out of HTV then heat pressed it on to silk screen. I found out regular silk screens don't fit in the Xtool jig, so I had to resort to a Speedball frame. I'm glad I bought the big pack of boxes because I wasted a bunch before getting it right. I'd like to consider myself an expert crafter, and this just about brought me to tears. That is why I've retooled the design so that others don't have to fight that fight! I made this printable version that can be printed at home or the UPS Store and adhered (I'd use spray adhesive) to the top of the box. Learn from my mistakes.

I come from a very crafty family. At Christmas, we like to hand make gifts rather than purchase store bought as none of us want for anything. I decided to hand make Frankie's birthday gift; Italian felt play food. I don't have many pictures, but it included pasta, sauce, meatballs, garlic bread, and lasagna. I even made a parmesan shaker with a Dollar Tree craft container full of "pasta" scraps and a vinyl dots on the inside top of the lid. Because of my amazing husband taking on the entire drive from Louisville to Chicago, I was also able to make a felt grocery bag too. It was definitely a labor of love and a one of a kind gift!

The morning we left for her party, I decided to make her a custom cake topper for her pizza cookie cake. It turned out so cute! You can get your own here.

The party was a blast and was so adorable! I hope you consider a pizza theme for your next party. It is so versatile and can be a great theme for bridal showers, bachelorette parties, and baby showers. I've included a list of resources below for each occasion along with some more pictures of the party, under the resources links.

-Anna

Founder, Busy & Company

Resource List

Customizable/Printable Pizza Party Invitations

Pizza Party Play Mat

Checked Heart Shaped Paper Plates

Customizable/Printable Pizza Box Topper

Disposable Red Gingham Tablecloth

6 inch Pizza Boxes

24 Chef Hats

Pizzeria Backdrop

Heart Shaped Large Pizza Balloon