Cinco de Mayo is the perfect excuse to throw a party, eat Mexican food and drink margarita’s.  Here are some tips to help you plan your party.

Evite has a variety of invites that you can choose from for Cinco de Mayo.

Decorate with lots of wonderful colors, and include fun items like sombreros, Mexican blankets and pinatas.

This Cinco de Mayo Table Topper would add great color to your table.  You can make it easily with dry beans.

Hostess Jo has fiesta items like this one on sale right now!

Entertain Exchange has a tutorial on how to make these easy and fun centerpieces.

If you are having a large party, don’t foget to hire a Mariachi band to really get your guests in the mood.

Pinatas are a Mexican tradition so this is always great to have for the kids or the adults.  Martha Stewart has instructions on how to make your own pinata.

Of course, for food their are so many great recipes to serve.  Have a buffet and serve fajitas with beans, guacamole and queso to go with it.  Don’t forget the margaritas!!

Toast Mexican culture and celebrate Cinco de Mayo in style!!

Last weekend we had my twin girls 2nd birthday.  They are obsessed with Elmo and Abby so even though I had many other theme ideas for twins I did something that I knew they would be excited about!

Here is the set up of the table with the cake on it.

I am so lucky to have some of the best cakes made for my girls!  This cake was two layers with Elmo and Abby coming out of the top layer.  They also each had an individual cake so they could blow out their own candles and enjoy some cake on their own.

I used paper lanterns to decorate above the table.  I added a face to the center one to look like Elmo.

The party was in the afternoon so I just had snack foods set out.  Since pizza is Elmo’s favorite food, I served mini pizzas that I made with crackers.  Elmo also loves bananas and fruit so I served banana and strawberry kabobs drizzled with chocolate.  Elmo has a pet fish, Dorthy, so of course there were gold fish in a bowl.

I made banners with their names on them to hang on the mantel with the presents.

Here is a close up of the shirts that I made for them to wear at the party.

We had an Elmo pinata for all of the kids to enjoy.  Obviously, the pinata was bigger than the girls.

For party favors, I made Elmo and Abby bags and filled them with cookies, gold fish, crayons and elmo and abby bracelets.

The party was a lot of fun but the best part was seeing the girls faces when they first saw all of the decorations when they woke up from their nap.  They were so excited and that is PRICELESS!

I found a new product that I had to share.

TapeSwell carries decorative tape that you can use in a variety of ways.  This great tape can be used as a decorative touch to craft projects, baked goods and of course decorating for parties.

They offer some great Combo Packs with fun colors for different occasions.  I would love to incorporate these into a table setting and also use them to make party favors.

Be sure to check out their Tacky Ideas for other great uses for their tape.