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our sweet and sassy little bella turned 3 back in november.
(yes, i should have blogged this 4 months ago, but life is busy :) thanks to all of you that have been asking about my parties. i'm working on getting a bunch of them up, so we'll be taking an even greater leap into the past)
both she and her big brother, jackson, are in LOVE with the Pinkalicious books. auntie melanie & uncle john had given bella the first book and the matching jammies for christmas 2009, and it was an instant hit. both kids could "read" the entire book. a few months later, burger king put their toys in their kids' meals. i broke my rule to never eat there and purchased way too many chicken nuggets in order to get the crown (actually, crowns. jackson insisted on having one too), wand, and figurine.
(cute kids in all their pinkalicious memorabilia, circa early 2010)
so, when the time came to plan bella's party, it was so easy! book parties are the BEST for little kiddo parties, because it gives you a great chance to get all the kids together and settled before the cake. and, reading books is just awesome.
my idea was to just do a little, simple party with a few little girls at our house on a weeknight. nothing huge. what i totally forgot about was.... toddlers have parents. so the little party did turn into a much "fuller" event than i had anticipated. but it was very fun, and super easy. i really wanted to stick to a tight budget for this one... i think the entire party cost $60-75.
the invitation
the entrance into the party... the books and a pinkalicious doll (an early gift from gramma)
i made a "pink treat" area in the kitchen. i filled vases/jars i already had with various pink cookies and candies (most of which i found at the dollar store). the pink whoppers were quite a hit, along with those pink, icing-filled cookies. add some white doilies, pink ribbon, a pinkalicious figurine, and voila.... cuteness.
close up
i kept the decorations simple but fun. pink, pink, pink!!! i bought a package of pink balloons, and two colors of pink streamers. the dollar tree had a whole set of pink party decorations, so i incorporated some of those into it. if i was spending a lot of money, there are definitely cuter things out there, but we were going for budget :) my friend, cam, helped me decorate.
i personalized little fancy plastic cups and added pink ribbon. we had pink lemonade to drink.
(ps.... looking to save money at a party? avoid a meal!!! plan your time so you can just do dessert and drinks)
everyone who came to the party had to wear pink. here is the birthday girl in her party clothes holding her dolly
cute little girls all pinked out
just in case you didn't come prepared..... there were lots of extra pink accessories. the girls just loved playing dress-up, too.
don't mind the broken basket and sign... those little girls got a little excited!
i am a huge fan of stations at little kiddo parties. especially when there are parents involved. the free-flow seems to work best. kids can do what they want to do, for however long they can pay attention. i like to vary the activities so they can be modified according to the child's age.
the first station was 'crown making' just like pinkalicious. i bought pink foam crowns and used silver glitter glue to pre-write their names on them.
they were able to decorate their crowns using foam shapes, sequins, glittery pom poms, etc. they all looked really cute.
the next station was beading. i picked all the pink and white beads out of my big bag-o-beads. i had several spools of string out... there were lots of cute bracelets and necklaces happening.
i always have a coloring station. so easy, but there inevitably are kiddos that just love to sit and color....
....like this cute little bear
we have a little pink kitchen in the big kids' room, so i brought that into the living room. i picked out all the baking tools and cupcakes, and they could "bake" in the kitchen
i loved that everyone got into the pink.
even the boys and daddies.
and the doggie (which bella was thrilled about)
after 30 minutes of stations, we got the kids all together for storytime. daddy read Pinkalicious while mommy and her helpers got the kitchen cleaned up and ready the next activity.
all the kiddos ready to hear a story.
love these little faces listening to the book
in case you didn't know, Pinkalicious is all about a little girl that eats WAY too many pink cupcakes and ends up turning pink. so of course, the main part of the party had to be the cupcakes!
rather than frosting them myself, i thought it would be way more fun for the girls to frost them themselves and add their own decorations.
here are the plain cupcakes (also... what a timesaver!!!! :)
all the little cups filled with pink icing, a pink knife, and lots of decorations
each girl's place setting. they had a cupcake, their frosting, and their personalized cup with pink lemonade. we spread out the cups of sprinkles throughout the 2 tables.
the girls LOVED decorating their cupcakes. here is bella spreading her frosting.
her finished product.... that girl just loves her sprinkles!
time to sing!
i love how sweet her big brother is next to her. he was so excited to watch her blow out her candles.
savoring her handiwork. she was the last one sitting at the table, enjoying every crumb. that girl has never met a cupcake she doesn't like.
the entire party was one hour. yup. the perfect amount of time. all the guests got to take home some pink popcorn. i made a little tag that i stapled across the top of the bag. simple and super cute!
our pinktastic little family of 5!
overall, it was a great party for the girlies. very fun, very simple, very affordable.
in a word- pinkerific.
more parties to come soon! :)
posted by mommy
thanks to the super-fab erin arnold for many of the photos
