It's A Birthday
Have I mentioned I love birthday parties for kids? Oh. I have. Well, nevertheless we had so much fun celebrating Ashlyn's birthday! She LOVED helping plan it and get ready for it. So here are some pictures and helpful hints, if you ever want to do this party--or parts of it. (All my links for templates, activities and decorations are on this post. Sorry I don't feel like relinking everything.)
1. strawberry cupcakes with chocolate m&m's 2. eggs for the egg race (hardboiled so they wouldn't ruin the girl's dresses) 3.paper doll party craft 4. party hats (the girls decorated them with flowers, fringe and pom poms they made from tissue paper)
The cupcakes were super easy. I made jumbo ones this time and I think I'll do that every time from now on. They are so much cuter. A packaged cake mix made ten for me (but me and my helpers do quite a bit of batter sampling.) The polka dot confetti on the table was made from one of those big circle paper punches. I used leftover paper from the doll dresses.
Girls this age (pretty much any age) love crafts. They could have spent a lot more time (I would guess probably 30 minutes) doing this, but I saved it until the end, and parents were starting to arrive. I used a large variety of leftover scrap booking paper scraps, and had the dolls and dresses pre cut. They cut out the accessories themselves.
Making the actual party hat was a nightmare, and I had to put myself in time-out a couple of times. I thought I was being really savvy by buying a piece of poster board for $0.39 and making ten hats from it. No. Poster board is not fun to work with. Use card stock.
The reasons I didn't do premade hats were: I couldn't find them in white at the two places I tried, and I bought into the smaller-is-cuter idea. Not really worth the effort of making them myself. The girls did seem to enjoy decorating them though (and they looked so cute in them), but it took them a lot longer than the twenty minutes I thought it would take. More like fifty. If I had to do it over, I would have given them more time with the paper doll craft instead, because I think they liked that a little more.
1. the invitation (ashlyn was so pleased everyone wore there fave party dress) 2. ashlyn gluing on dresses 3. dresses cut from coordinating papers
The invitations turned out so cute and Ashlyn had so much fun helping make them. I used card stock for the paper dolls and the dresses too. Later, when I cut more paper dolls out for our party craft, I used construction paper for the dolls and it was SO much easier. The card stock was really hard to cut through since you triple it up (I was thanking my lucky stars I only had to do ten.) Using construction paper went a lot quicker and I think they're just as cute (picture in box 3 of first set of pictures.)
1. the girls writing their wishes; they took this very seriously 2. decorations included balloons, pink flowering branches, urns filled with rice with old fashioned lollipops stuck inside 3. up, up and away go the balloons
The favorite part of the party was the balloons. They were cute decorations with one tied to each chair and the rest floating around. Each girl chose three balloons and wrote down three wishes, each on a separate tag. Each wish was tied to a balloon. Then we went outside and let the balloons go. They love, love, LOVED this. It was really fun to watch.
The best part: I had no balloons left in my house. This will become a new party staple for me I think, along with my usual scavenger hunt. I will write about the scavenger hunt another day. I think I may be all partied out for the moment. Can you believe it? Impossible.
Happy, happy birthday my sweet girl. I love you.
1. strawberry cupcakes with chocolate m&m's 2. eggs for the egg race (hardboiled so they wouldn't ruin the girl's dresses) 3.paper doll party craft 4. party hats (the girls decorated them with flowers, fringe and pom poms they made from tissue paper)The cupcakes were super easy. I made jumbo ones this time and I think I'll do that every time from now on. They are so much cuter. A packaged cake mix made ten for me (but me and my helpers do quite a bit of batter sampling.) The polka dot confetti on the table was made from one of those big circle paper punches. I used leftover paper from the doll dresses.
Girls this age (pretty much any age) love crafts. They could have spent a lot more time (I would guess probably 30 minutes) doing this, but I saved it until the end, and parents were starting to arrive. I used a large variety of leftover scrap booking paper scraps, and had the dolls and dresses pre cut. They cut out the accessories themselves.
Making the actual party hat was a nightmare, and I had to put myself in time-out a couple of times. I thought I was being really savvy by buying a piece of poster board for $0.39 and making ten hats from it. No. Poster board is not fun to work with. Use card stock.
The reasons I didn't do premade hats were: I couldn't find them in white at the two places I tried, and I bought into the smaller-is-cuter idea. Not really worth the effort of making them myself. The girls did seem to enjoy decorating them though (and they looked so cute in them), but it took them a lot longer than the twenty minutes I thought it would take. More like fifty. If I had to do it over, I would have given them more time with the paper doll craft instead, because I think they liked that a little more.
1. the invitation (ashlyn was so pleased everyone wore there fave party dress) 2. ashlyn gluing on dresses 3. dresses cut from coordinating papersThe invitations turned out so cute and Ashlyn had so much fun helping make them. I used card stock for the paper dolls and the dresses too. Later, when I cut more paper dolls out for our party craft, I used construction paper for the dolls and it was SO much easier. The card stock was really hard to cut through since you triple it up (I was thanking my lucky stars I only had to do ten.) Using construction paper went a lot quicker and I think they're just as cute (picture in box 3 of first set of pictures.)
1. the girls writing their wishes; they took this very seriously 2. decorations included balloons, pink flowering branches, urns filled with rice with old fashioned lollipops stuck inside 3. up, up and away go the balloonsThe favorite part of the party was the balloons. They were cute decorations with one tied to each chair and the rest floating around. Each girl chose three balloons and wrote down three wishes, each on a separate tag. Each wish was tied to a balloon. Then we went outside and let the balloons go. They love, love, LOVED this. It was really fun to watch.
The best part: I had no balloons left in my house. This will become a new party staple for me I think, along with my usual scavenger hunt. I will write about the scavenger hunt another day. I think I may be all partied out for the moment. Can you believe it? Impossible.
Happy, happy birthday my sweet girl. I love you.
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