Ballerina Birthday Party

My second child loves all things girlie. So it was no surprise when she HAD to have a Ballerina Birthday Party. This was such a fun theme to run with. These pictures were taken just for remembrance for my daughter and I, not for a blog post. So, bear with them. ;) Obviously, the gift of the day had to be her first jewelry box! These are harder to find than I thought they would be!

I know you can’t see this banner very well. However, the part that I love about this banner is that it shows a picture of my daughter on each of her Birthdays. I always love have something that shows my child through the years!

I find it a good idea to have a staging area. This is where the Birthday Child can sit while opening presents. Group shots are great here. Those ballerina shoes are actually 3 feet tall! I just found a picture of some ballerina shoes that I loved (do a google search for coloring pages on any theme). I used these shoes on the invitation, backdrop, cupcake toppers, gift bags, etc. I enlarged the shoes and printed it out on pink paper. It took quite a few pages that I had to cut out and piece together. I laid the finished piece on top of foam core and glued it down, use a razor blade to cut it out, paint the edges black to seal and give a more finished look, and your done! This now hangs above my daughter’s bed.

I used that same ballerina shoe image for my cupcake toppers. I just made up a template with the shoes all over a page and then another page that said, “(Child’s Name) is 6”. I circle punched all of this out and then sandwiched a toothpick between 2 circles. Make sure to have one side be the words and the other side be the picture.

Those are her ballet slippers that I used for decorations. I also used her dance bag, her super cute dance box, and all other dance stuff for the decorations. I’m a big advocate on using what you already have. I find it to be more personal, besides economic and “green” to boot! ;)

For some of the activities I had the kids make wands and crowns. These were princess wands from a kit I found. For the boys I had painted some wands black and painted a white band around one side. So, they were magician’s wands! The boys also got to decorate visors instead of crowns.

I always make my own gift bags. This year the main give away gifts were the crowns and wands they made, and skirts that I made for each of them. As soon as they arrived they got one of the skirts, so they could wear it for the rest of the party. I just took pink tulle, gathered it, and then sewed ribbon to the top. I left long sides on the ribbon and that was used to tie the skirts on. I knew we had girls of all sizes and so I was not going to guess on all their waists! ;) This is a perfect solution to that, plus having a large bow in the back was cute. For the gift bags I took that ballet slipper, printed up a bunch, cut them all out, and then ran them through my xyron and stuck them all on. I also painted up a bunch of clothespins pink. I had made some extra (smaller) ballet slipper stickers and attached one to the top of each clothespin. Then, each clothes pin had a child’s name on it. I find it helpful to always have the gift bags be labeled or there is unnecessary confusion. I also backed each of these clothespins with magnet so they could go on their fridges once the goody bags are long gone!

I understand why food is not a big deal for a lot of my family due to dietary restriction. However, for me I still get really into the food and always have a huge spread. I just went with pink details. Malt balls, rice krispies, cake oreos, muffins, and even the ice cubes were all pink. Also notice the cups with the name tags in front of them. When a guest gets their first drink, they just find their name and put it on their cup (they were stickers!). Keeps everyone’s drinks straight. I don’t know why but it grosses me out to share drinks.

We also had all of my traditional games, but I’ve already posted about them! ;)

Rebecca

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