Styling a Disney Pixar Coco Party

This year Tully's 6th birthday is all about the Disney Pixar movie Coco. We saw it before Christmas and she hasn't stopped talking about it since. It's about the Day of the Dead and the importance of family and it's the first Disney movie that focuses on Mexican culture. It has an amazing soundtrack that will stay in your head forever! Since the moment we saw it she was stick on a Disney Pixar Coco party! Here's what it looked like:

Theming a Disney Pixar Coco party

As the film is based on the Day of the Dead (or Día de Muertos), I took the central decoration themes of sugar skulls and marigolds. We have all seen the amazing sugar skull decorations and marigolds play a central part of the Day of the Dead celebrations. They are placed on the altar, the graves and also left as a trail or walkway back to the world of the living. The flowers are used in Coco in a big way so they were a must for the table. I purchased some strings of paper flowers from Etsy and some fake petals from eBay.

The altars, or ofrendas, are a central part of Day of the Dead. It is said that if your photo isn't displayed on your family's ofrenda then you can not cross over to the land of the living. As many of Tully's close relatives have passed away we thought that creating our own ofrenda was a great way to honour both them and the spirit of the film. The finishing touches were completed with some fiesta flags (also key to the film) and some point of sale merchandise from my lovely friend at Disney Home Entertainment, which really brought the theme to life.

Food for a Disney Pixar Coco party

We went for a Mexican theme for the food as well. Because the party was over lunchtime we served up Mexican beans, salad, chicken, guacamole, wraps, corn chips and salsa so everyone could make their own.

On the party table we had sugar skull cookies that I made from scratch, skull shape fairy bread, coloured popcorn, cupcakes and lollies. We didn't want to go too hard on the sugar! I used colourful cupcake wrappers and popcorn cups from Kmart.

The cake was baked from scratch by me. It was chocolate mud cake, iced with buttercream and decorated with sugar skull cookies. When I made sugar cookies I always use this recipe from Sweetapolita. The toppers were from one of the Busy Books.

Games for a Disney Pixar Coco Party

No Mexican Fiesta is complete without a pinata! We picked up a donkey-shaped one from Kmart, as well as some prizes. The kids played some traditional party games, jumped on a jumping castle and coloured in some Coco print outs! My father is a performer so he also did a show for them.

Disney Pixar Coco Party Shopping list

Paper Marigold chains from Etsy

Silk petals from eBay

Invitations from Etsy

Fiesta Flags from Parties in Packages

Cake Toppers from eBay

If you haven't seen Coco it is available now on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Digital Download