We started by buying plates, napkins, and thank you cards from Dayspring. They were not a complete set but they were reasonably priced.
Based on the napkins I made an invite in InDesign. I made it to fit 4x6 since I had Ascend 4.75x6.5 envelopes from OfficeMax for the holiday cards we were about to send out.
Once the invites were made I decided to make a hanging Happy Birthday sign. I designed this based on the invite. I made them so that two would print on a 4x6 and I would just have to cut them in half. I had them printed at Targets one hour photo. After I had them cut and printed I decided they should be mounted on black paper. I lucked out. Michael's had a cube of multicolor squares with black that happened to be the right size. So I did not have to cut any black paper. I placed the printouts on the black paper with double sided poster tape from 3M so that I would be able to move the pieces if need. The I taped them on to black curling ribbon and my husband hung them up.
Outside of buying a balloon online for $3-$7, paying for shipping, and then going and getting it filled there were no options for Snoopy balloons. So I though why not make a Snoopy and have him holding regular balloons? I drew a Snoopy on two pieces of white poster board. I made him large enough so he would replace our painting over our dinning room table. Even though he is large the paper is white so all I really had to do was draw in the black and red. My husband replaced our painting with Snoopy and the balloons. He used 3M Scotch Multi-Purpose Fasteners to hang them up.
We did not want to spend a lot on a cake but we wanted a snoopy shaped cake. We made a boxed marble cake from Duncan Hines. We printed out the Snoopy picture we wanted and traced it on the top. My husband carefully cut out the Snoopy. Because we are not cake designers and had never really made one before we used a white glaze topping from Duncan Hines to make the frosting smooth (I debated on using rolled fondant but decided against it since I had no experience and most people said it is tricky at first). Lastly I drew on the black line with CakeMates writing gel.
