Elliott’s Starbucks-themed 13th Birthday Party

Our oldest, Elliott, just turned 13 this past month. And just like that, I became the mom of a teen! The last few years we did the house up Harry Potter style and celebrated his tween birthdays with a touch of magic, but this year, he wanted it to be “fun, but also a little grown-up.” So we went with his favorite…Starbucks! There were a few things that we considered when planning this shindig – all of which I’ll discuss in this post – but ultimately, our one goal was a fun, simple, and relatively budget-friendly way to celebrate the birthday boy and his love of all things Starbucks!

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Invitation:

With E’s favorite Starbucks treats being breakfast items and the drinks potentially being a caffeine-injection for his guests, we decided a morning party would be best. I found this customizable invitation on Etsy that showcased our theme perfectly (note: I did make adjustments to the design and coloring changing the layout and substituting red for green). When I do invitations, I prefer going digital for kiddos as phone numbers and emails are usually the contact info I have for parents. Although a website like Evite or Paperless Post is a great option for this, it does become tough to find what you want if your theme is branded or as specific as this one.

Now, I do have a trick up my sleeve when it comes to picking a digital invite: find one that utilizes Corjl to edit. I love this editor, because it usually doesn’t merely allow you to edit the words, but all the design elements as well. Besides precise customization, this also offers a way to create additional customizable pages that can then be used for decor. In this case, I copied the invite file and created a thank you tag for the favor bags. This option can provide a great (and cheap) way to keep your decor consistent throughout the celebration.

Decorations:

Surprisingly (or maybe not) it is quite hard to find branded Starbucks party decor. After exhausting all my usual party resources (and with budget in mind) I decided to just go to the source – Starbucks themselves. I visited my local Starbucks store during their slower hours and explained our situation. And guess what, they were more than happy to help! We were given three sleeves of different types of cups (including the super cute and tiny “pup cups”), brown shopping bags, a couple ribbons of stickers, sticker name tags, and then just grabbed some napkins, straws and cup sleeves on the way out. Perfect – and free! Additionally, I grabbed this Green & Gold party pack and this Gold Fringe Backdrop off of Amazon and added a couple of cups and cup-sleeves to the mix. I love this Balloon Arch Table Kit and added the green and gold balloons from the party pack to it as a backdrop for the food.

I created a couple different spaces throughout the downstairs: one for food and drinks (in the kitchen), one for active games (the living room) and one for passive games and crafts (the dining room). For the latter, I set the table with everything our guests would need for the tumbler craft and bingo game we had planned. I also added a custom cookie by The Sugary Cookie , who dreamt up a gorgeous cookie set based on our theme. It was meant to be part of their favor bags, but WAY too pretty to hide away until they were opened, so naturally they became a focal point at each setting and a great snack during bingo!

Food:

Now food was where I knew we’d have to be creative to not break the bank. We did decide to splurge just a little and have each invited guest’s drink of choice waiting for them at arrival, while our espresso machine served all the parents. Of course we wanted all the delicious Starbucks breakfast treats, too, but $5 for a scone? For 10 kids and their parents? No thanks. So I put on my bakers hat and created a menu that we (and our bank account) could live with:

• Starbucks Copycat Pumpkin Loaf – see the recipe by Big Bear’s Wife here!
• Homemade Birthday Cake Pops – made with leftover cake scraps and a dollop of frosting before dipping in pink candy melts and sprinkling with white non-pareils.
• Parfaits – vanilla yogurt in the pup cups and toppings of blueberries and granola in larger cups.
• Mini Bagels & Cream Cheese – just from the grocery store.
• Sous Vide Starbucks Egg Bites – this was the one thing I didn’t have the courage to take on, and we happened to find a couple of boxes of 10 of these at Costco. Easy peasy in the airfryer!
• Starbucks Drink of Choice – as I mentioned, we did treat each kiddo to their drink of choice and had our espresso machine serve the adults.
• Store-bought bottles of Starbucks Frappuccino.

Birthday Cake:

Fortunately, with me being a baker and decorator, we always save a significant amount of money on a cake. I make whatever flavor the birthday boy/girl wants and design it according to the theme. Elliott specifically asked that I incorporate his favorite drink (a Strawberry Acai Refresher with Peach Juice & Lemonade). So, I made a strawberry cake with peach filling and Vanilla buttercream. I designed it to look like a white and green ombre cake with his drink spilled all over it. I used one of the cups they so graciously gave us and added a couple of freeze dried strawberries running down the side. I also bought this clear cake topper from Hobby Lobby and stuck a large Starbucks sticker (from the generous baristas) and added it to the top to pull it all together.

Games & Activities:

We had two hours to fill with this party, so we came up with a couple easy games and a craft that they can enjoy together:

• Grandma’s Ball-in-cup Game – We are so lucky to have my mother-in-law living close by and she is just a ball of fun, so I tasked her with running the games, while I tend to the food and craft. She is great with games and the kids love her – she even came dressed up as a barista! She started the day with a simple ball-in-cup game: 6 cups in a triangle weighed down with coffee beans, a starting line from which they would throw and a couple of ping pong balls. Each guest had a turn to try tossing ping pong balls in the cups and would pic a prize from the prize box if they made it. Y’all, what a hoot! As much as these kiddos are entering teen-territory, there’s nothing that beats a simple party game like this one – especially if you add prizes and the most fun grandmother to run it all!
• Customizable Tumbler Craft-turned-favor – I found these “create-your-own travel mugs” from the Dollar Tree (online only) and bought a pack of stickers from Amazon. I traced and pre-cut some mug inserts from scrapbook paper and set out markers and crayons. The guests had a blast making their own tumbler to take home and it was fun to see each of them get creative.
• Coffee-themed Bingo – Bingo is always a favorite in our house, no matter the player’s age – when there’s bingo to be screamed and prizes to be won, anyone can have a great time! I found this coffee themed bingo set on Etsy and since we only had 10 kids, I printed 20 bingo cards (it has 50 if your party is larger) and we played a couple games with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. They absolutely loved it and were begging to “just keep going because I only need one more for a BINGO!” by the time we needed to move on to cake and presents.

Winners got to choose something from the prize box. We had an array of things to pick from, including $5 Starbucks cards, Starbucks gum packets, extra cookies, and a few Halloween items (as we were a week away from October 31), just to make it interesting.

Favors:

For favors each kiddo got to take home a gift bag (the brown shopping bags from the generous baristas with a name tag and thank you tag created from the invitation file) filled with their newly created tumblers, a couple packets of Starbucks hot chocolate (bought on sale at our local grocery store), stickers, their custom cookies (if they hadn’t already been eaten) and any prizes they had won.

What a fun party this was. Our birthday boy was in his element and loved sharing his love of Starbucks with all his dearest friends.

Comprehensive list of all items purchased for this party:

• Starbucks-themed Invitation (customizable)
• Green & Gold Party Pack
• Gold Fringe Backdrop
• Balloon Arch Table Kit (balloons sold separately)
• Green & Gold Plates
• Customizable Tumblers
• Inspirational Sayings Stickers
• Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites
• Bottles of Frappuccinos
• Coffee Themed Bingo Set

As an amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

* A note about “Budget-Friendly” in this post: I wanted to mention here that my use of the term “budget-friendly” in this post is pretty loose. I wouldn’t say this party was super inexpensively done, but I also know what it could have cost had we indulged the Starbucks theme without having considered the budget. Additionally, we have specific party costs that we don’t incur, as I am able to make most of the food, bake and fully customize the cake myself and have friends in the industry with whom I love to exchange services and goods. With all that said, I do believe that this is one of the most budget-friendly ways for us to have thrown Elliott his Starbucks-themed dream birthday party without compromising on quality or taste (of food).