1) Choose Your Theme

The first thing to start the ball rolling is to set the THEME. There are many fun themes to work with rather than sticking to old fashion ones like Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty and Minions.

For Example:

Girls - Bumble Bee, Rustic Glam and Rainbow Unicorn.

Boys - Cowboy, Panda and Vehicles.

2) Choose Your Theme Colours

After you have choose your theme, it's time to choose A SET OF COLOURS to stick and follow to, so your party and decorations look organize. Try to stick to a maximum of 10 different colours so it still looks neat overall.

Bumble Bee - Yellow, Black and White.

Rustic Glam -White, Brown and Gold.

Rainbow Unicorn - Pastel Colours and White.

Cowboy - Green, Brown and Yellow.

Panda - Black and White with Grey/Bamboo.

Vehicles [Cars] - Red, Black and White.

Vehicles [Construction] - Black, Orange and Yellow.

3) Choose Your Items

After you have choose your theme and theme colours to follow, next is to choose the FOOD ITEMS for your dessert table. I feel about 5-7 items is a good number, matching to your theme. Items chosen should preferably be petite - bite-sizes, and should look presentable, so it gives yours guests a chance to try more items rather than forcing themselves to finish one huge piece of cake, and that's it. Everyone wants to try everything. Keeping the items small also allows you to prepare more numbers with the same amount of ingredients.

Here are some ideas:

Cupcakes - simple and easy to match to the theme. Just add food colouring to the cake and/or the frosting. Bake them in cupcake cases of matching colour.

Rainbow Cupcake for Rainbow Unicorn theme.

Cactus Cupcake for Cowboy theme.

Cupcake with Cars cupcake topper for Cars theme.

Small plastic cups - these disposable cups that can be found at SKP are 85ml each and are pretty affordable, 100 cups for $2.20? They are great for making tiramisu, jelly cups, mousse cups and no-bake cheesecake shots.

Tiramisu Cups.

Rainbow Jelly Cups

Mango Mousse Cups

Blueberry Cheesecake Parfaits.

Petite baked items - cream puffs, cookies, meringue cookies/kisses, brownie squares, cake squares, cheesecake squares. For cakes, you can just bake it in a large rectangular/square pan and then cut into an inch squares. Place them in paper cases and decorate as desired.

Mini Eclairs.

Brownie Squares.

Froot Loops Marshmallow Treats.

Meringue Kisses.

Tartlets/small tarts - custard fruit tarts can be an easy item to match to the theme colour(s). Just place fruits of the corresponding colour onto custard-filled tart shells. Coloured white chocolate tarts can be a good choice as well. Other choices can be mousse filling, cream/frosting filling, or something savoury like cream cheese with smoked salmon and dill.

Mini Fruit Custard Tarts.

Mini Hazelnut Chocolate Tarts.

Mini Blueberry Cheese Tarts.

Mini Egg Tarts.

Skewered items - skewered items are great if you want a hassle-free party preparation. Marshmallows, candies and fruits are great choices, and they look pretty and presentable.

Cake Pops.

Marshmallow Pops.

Fruits Skewers.

Strawberry Pound Cake Sticks.

4) Decoration Details

After you are done with the food component, you can start brainstorming for the DECOR component. I feel table cover, table skirting, food labels and cupcake toppers are a must. You can add in other matching decoration like the birthday boy/girl's name in large painted letters; string decorations like tassel garland, bunting flags or happy birthday banner at the edge of the table, or as a backdrop; helium balloons; poms poms; streamers; flowers; etc.

Here's an example I did for a Tsum Tsum themed in blue and white.

And this based on Disney movie 'UP', in rainbow, white and sliver.

5) Place Items at Different Levels

When you have got majority of the things settled, one last thing that you should do is to PLACE YOUR ITEMS AT DIFFERENT LEVELS. By placing your items at different levels, it ensures you that all the items that you have painstakingly prepared can all be seen from the front view. It would also appear prettier and more presentable on photos. You can use boxes, tissue boxes, books, or anything that you can find to act as risers. If they don't look presentable, just wrap them in large plain coloured papers that are matching to your theme colours.