Sweet 16 Birthday Party Ideas

A Peek at the Fun: Looking for fun Sweet 16 Birthday Party Ideas? This candy themed 16th birthday party will be a huge hit with everyone! Decorations, favors, invitations, food and more. 

Over the past few years, we’ve spent TONS of time in Hobby Lobby and inevitably find ourselves in the party aisle drooling over the fun party decor…straws, cute plates, invitations, decorations, they have everything to make us want to plan a party!  To say our minds explode with ideas is somewhat of an understatement…we seriously can hardly contain ourselves!

Every time we went we said, “we need to plan a party.”  This happened so often, we finally decided to start a blog where we could do exactly that….throw parties!!  So here we are…throwing a Sweet 16 Birthday Party inspired by Hobby Lobby. Tons of Sweet 16 Birthday Party Ideas for you here!

Sweet 16 Birthday Party Ideas:

Nothing is sweeter for a sixteenth birthday than a candy themed party! Take that Sweet 16 theme and make it literal with this fun party filled with all things sweet! We did a lot of candy but you could do anything sweet-cake, donuts, cookies, you name it. If it’s sweet, it fits the theme.

We threw this Sweet 16 party on a budget of $100 and it was easy! You can keep this party inexpensive with fun touches and bold accent items to make it pop.

We headed to Hobby Lobby with $100 in our pocket and scouted out all of the great supplies.

We picked a bunch of fun supplies from the Candylicious line (find that on the party row) and then added our touches from there-all things bright and colorful to make this party fun!

A couple of tips if you are trying to throw this Sweet 16 party on a budget:

• Go for things that have a big impact like the bright color plates that we grabbed. They didn’t cost a lot but they really added to the party spread.
• Get your candy at a store that sells it in bulk. We have a local store that has bins of this stuff, so we hit them up and grabbed some fun (cheaper) candy.
• Remember that simple is great! Sixteen-year-olds aren’t going to need you to entertain them with a ton of fancy party games. Pick something they love to do (scavenger hunt, movie night, home manicures, etc.) and let that be the activity for the party.

Now let’s break down these cute Sweet 16 Birthday party ideas!

Sweet 16 Party Invitations:

A good party’s got to start off with great invitations and to get our guests ready for the “sweet” theme, we decided to attach our invitations to colorful lollipops.

Because you KNOW you’re going to be happy to be invited to that party when the invitation shows up looking like that!

We’ve got a free printable invitation for you to use for your party, and you can customize it to work just right for you!

(To use this, right click and save to your computer, then open in a program that allows you to edit. If you need help on this we’ve got a tutorial right here for you.)

Sweet 16 Birthday Party Decorations:

A key element for us that was pivitol to these sweet 16 birthday party ideas, was to have the party be bright and colorful, just like candy.

Did you notice the super bright and colorful backdrop we used for our party?  It was fast to put together and added so much to our party.  Here’s what you need:

• Foam Board
• Party Fans
• Candy Cut-Outs
• Packing Tape

All you need to do is arrange the fans and candy cut-outs how you like and then tape them to the board.

You can see how cute that looks all through the pictures from this party

For a fun punch of color on the party table, we made a candy birthday bouquet. Super simple to make and it made the table look GREAT! This could be used then as party favors-let them take home a lollipop-or make it as a gift for the birthday girl (or boy).

To make this fun Candy Birthday Bouquet, you’ll need:

• Candylicious Birthday Favor Box
• Floral Foam Block
• Lollipops and Suckers
• Tissue Paper

Start by cutting your foam block to fit inside the box:

Start sticking your lollipops in, making sure that your tallest ones are in the back and that the weight is evenly distributed.

Keep filling until you’ve got a bunch in there, then cut your tissue paper into small squares and stuff it in around the candy until your bouquet is full and colorful! Put that in your party spread and it’s going to look GREAT!

If you are setting a table for dinner or the cake or any food, layering several plates makes a nice impact on your table (and we can’t resist polka dots!). Aren’t these adorable! We rolled utensils in napkins and tied more curly cue ribbon on and attached a little candy tag.

Sweet 16 Birthday Party Favors:

We also loved these little plastic candy favors and filled them full of colorful Sixlets (both found in the party aisle at Hobby Lobby).

Such a simple touch to add to the party and a very easy party favor!

And, no Sweet 16 Birthday Party is complete without a candy station so that the guests can take home candy of their own! We got a variety of jars and filled them with an assortment of candy. And how cute are these little scoops?!

You can let your guests fill a bag and tie it up cute with these tags: (found in the scrapbooking section and knew we had to do SOMETHING with them!)

Here is a PDF with little candies that you can print and cut and use wherever you want in this party!

Candy Printables

Sweet 16 Birthday Party Food Ideas:

When we were brainstorming sweet 16 birthday party ideas, we knew it had to involve all things SWEET!

We already showed you the candy station and that could, of course, be part of your food for the party. If you want to go all in on the “Sweet” theme, you could have anything sweet. Here are some ideas:

• Donuts (how about a fun donut bouquet)
• Cake or Cupcakes
• Brownies
• Ice Cream Sundaes
• Parfaits
• Crepe Bar

OK, let’s be honest, this list could go on and on. It’s just fun to throw a sweet 16 themed birthday party because there are so many fun ideas!

Sweet 16 Birthday Cake:

For a big impact for the party table, we decided to do a fun cake. We grabbed some cake pans, sparkly numbers, and a super fun cake stand that worked perfectly for our party.  We knew we could use a 40% off coupon at the register for the cake stand-so this still stayed well within our budget!

We love how this cake turned out! So simple to make and just looks so cute!

To make this cake you will need:

• Round cake pans (we used 6 inch)
• 1 cake mix
• White frosting
• Curling ribbon in lots of colors
• Glitter numbers (on the cake decorating aisle in Hobby Lobby)

Bake your cake (1 layer at a time for a total of 2 layers if you only have 1 pan) and allow them to cool completely. Frost the cake, then top with curling ribbon and the numbers. This adds such a fun element to the party table!

We also did some colorful cupcakes using bright cupcake wrappers from the Candylicious product line. We designed cupcakes toppers to match and we’ve got them for you!

Here are the images for you to use (right click and save to your computer), or we have a PDF with a bunch of them ready for you:

Sweet 16 Cupcake Toppers

Hobby Lobby Shopping & Price List:

• Candy Scoops $2.99
• Cake Pan $7.99
• Glass Jars $6.53 (they were 50% off)
• Cellophane Bags $2.99
• Napkins $2.99
• 4 Curling Ribbon $7.96
• Foam Floral Block $2.99
• Sixlets $5.99
• Cake Stand $14.99 (with the 40% off coupon, print below)
• Clear Candy Wrapper Candy Holders $2.99
• Candylicious Paper Fans $5.99
• Candylicious Happy Birthday Favor Box $1.59
• Foam Board $5.99
• Candylicious Cut-Outs $2.99
• Candylicious Cupcake Wrappers $1.99
• Sparkle Numbers $3.98
• Large Plates $3.99
• Small Plates $2.99
• Polka Dotted Plates $4.99
• Pink Tags $1.49
• Utensils $1.99

For a grand total of $96.39!

We also grabbed a cake mix and some candy at the grocery store!

Not bad right? We love how this sweet sixteen birthday party turned out and that we were able to do it on a budget.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Hobby Lobby. The opinions and text are all ours.

Have FUN with these Sweet 16 Birthday Party Ideas!

We’d love to see what you do with it. Tag us on social media using @FunSquaredBlog so that we can see pictures!

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