We settled on a theme -- Fancy Nancy -- about two months ago and it couldn't have been any more perfect for a six year old girl's birthday party. "Fancy Nancy" is a storybook character in books designed for little girls where the lead character believes in making everything French and fancy -- extra decorations and big words (often explaining in parentheses that a certain word "is fancy for" another ordinary word).
We made fancy invitations for Sam's friends at school by taking an already adorable invitation and enclosing it in a purse-shaped envelope that I cut out of cardstock and embellished with a fancy button and a fancy purse strap. On the invitations, we made sure to ask the girls to wear their fanciest ensambles ("a fancy word for outfits").
The birthday girl at the Accessories Table:
I put together a collection of rings, bracelets, necklaces, dress-up glasses, tiaras and boas for each of the girls to choose as their party favors.
I even set out bottles of my own nail polish to paint the guest's nails.
The mirror and frames for the party came from the Dollar Store (for a $1!!!) and I spray painted them with purple glitter paint to make them even more fancy, of course.
My fancy girls and me before the party:
I also set up a Posh Puppy Station for the girls.
Once all of the guests arrived, we sat down to read a Fancy Nancy story about how she received her posh ("posh is a fancy word for fancy!") puppy and how she named it.
Then, each of the girls got to take a poodle (Fancy Nancy's posh puppy is a poodle named Frenchie) from the table, along with some fancy ribbon and a name tag (Dollar Store!). They used the ribbon to make a collar and then I labeled their name tags with the name that each of them chose for their puppy. The girls LOVED this!
At the table, I had favor bags (cheap, dollar store gift bags) for the girls to make fancy using jewels and stickers -- all of which were just randomly from my craft box, just waiting to be used on a project like this.
They also got to decorate some Fancy Nancy fans. Also a big hit because girls this age enjoy crafts!
The Birthday Girl, hard at work:
For lunch, I made it easy on myself and ordered pizza. To accompany it though, I served fancy fruit skewers (Sam and Sophia helped me use beads to make the ends of the wooden skewers fancy).
Waiting to be served their pink lemonade and pizza:
For dessert, I had a sundae bar where they could choose various toppings to make their ice cream fancy. This was a great idea because I had the ice cream scooped up ahead of time in little cups.
Instead of a cake, I opted for cupcakes for the girls. This was just to make things easier for me, again.
The 6 candle received some extra jewels to make it even more fancy:
The girls went crazy with excitement over the sundaes, and I was glad that Steve was there that day to help me with the party and to keep Jack occupied.
After lunch, the girls got to accessorize. The squealing was contagious!
How adorable are these girls?
Opening presents before the parents arrived to pick up our fancy guests:
I would definitely say that our first "friend" party was a complete success, and as soon as the last guest was picked up, I put all of the kids down for naps while I set to work picking up the house and preparing for the family party that was scheduled for the next day!
********************
For the family party, I changed a few decorations around and made a pink and white checkerboard cake (definitely a fancier cake than just a standard three-layer cake). I used pink pearl candies to form the border and stuck a few candles on the top. Various cupcakes filled the table and the doll dresser.
(As a side note: That dresser (and another smaller now-pink one) belonged to my youngest sister 20 years ago. My mom gave it to me for my girls a couple of years ago and they have used it continuously ... scuffing off the paint and often drawing on it by mistake -- Sophia!). I decided to give both dressers, previously white, a face-lift before the party. I simply used spray paint that I already had on hand and made those colors work with the theme of the party. The girls loved it!)
We served chicken and beef tacos and all of the fixings, including rice and beans. After dinner, we migrated to the living room to open gifts.
Holding up her blanket that Aunt Deb made for her:
As is our tradition, we then headed back to the dining room to sing happy birthday and to have cake and ice cream.
Jack loved the cupcakes!
Happy 6th birthday, Samantha!
No comments:
Post a Comment