Scarlette’s 2nd Birthday Library Party: The Goodie Bags Unwrapped (& Unreal)

Because of Scarlette’s preemie lungs and impending winter quarantine, we opted to hold her party early before RSV/flu season hits. So this week, I’ll be posting some about her party because I love throwing parties and since we didn’t get to have a big first birthday party due to a super strict quarantine last year, I am probably over excited about this one.

I threw a library themed birthday party because we all know how much Scarlette likes to read, right?!  I found the “presented to” page in an old book and just added some stickers + a frame for the goodie bag table. My favorite party detail was the goodie bags- I wanted to do something different than lots of plastic toys so I created a set of personalized bookplates for each of the kids that attended the party. I used the headliners digital kit from Paislee Press to create the bookplates for the girls, the up & away digital kit to create the bookplates for the boys and the meant to be alphas for both (there’s a tutorial on how to make the bookplates using shipping labels + some free printables here)

I included one on the front of the goodie bags so that the kids would know which one belonged to them, plus using a label on a brown paper bag was really simple + inexpensive. Inside the goodie bags I added a set of bookplates, a small book and some treats from the Unreal candy company.

This past summer I saw Unreal candy bars at Kroger – they were advertised as no artificial ingredients, no dyes, no preservatives, no gmos, etc. So I picked some up to add to Jeff’s birthday present, because I like tying random objects to my gift wrapping. And because his gift was a book on natural eating so I thought it was funny. I mentioned on twitter how much we liked them and how happy I was to find them.

Unreal offered to send me lots of candy to pass out to friends if I wanted to host a party in October. I was already planning Scarlette’s birthday party for the same weekend and thought that might be a fun addition.

Plus, my best friend’s children have food dye allergies and it’s always hard for me to find special treats to take when I visit them. So I was really excited to put out candy bowls and package up goodie bags full of candy that they can actually eat. That was a big catalyst in agreeing to work with Unreal, because prior to their invitation I wasn’t planning on including any candy in the party at all so that Miss L and Miss M wouldn’t feel left out when they couldn’t eat it.

This is what candy looks like when it doesn’t contain artificial dyes. And when it’s been half-eaten by party-goers before you remember to take a photo.

Inside the goodie bags the kids got Unreal peanut butter cups and some Unreal candy coated chocolates (which are like M&M’s) which were hands down voted the the top favorites of everyone, followed closely by the candy coated chocolate with peanuts.

And we didn’t leave the adults out either, they each got a goodie bag to fill with Unreal candy bars (like chocolate caramel peanut nougat bars) because you totally deserve a little treat when you spend the afternoon with a bunch of two year olds and a bounce house, right? Thanks for coming to our party, y’all!

I can’t wait to share the rest of the party photos because it was so sweet to see Scarlette so excited about having all her friends around. (And thanks to Unreal for giving us some sweet treats, it was a fun addition to the party. Plus, we’re going to replace Scarlette’s trick or treating candy this year with the Unreal candy coated chocolates because she loves them and I’m happy to let her have those in moderation since I don’t have to worry about the ingredients.)

*Disclosure of material connection: Unreal provided me with a small party package w/candy in exchange for writing about their products, which is nice since I was already writing about their candy and how much I liked it for free prior to that. All opinions are 100% my own because seriously, I wouldn’t put candy I didn’t like in my kid’s party goodie bags. Actually, I purchased some of the candy myself because the candy coated chocolates are my favorite and I wanted to be sure everyone had their own bag of those.