This past weekend, our 3rd born child turned three. She is our firstborn daughter, so it's always a huge treat to plan her girlie birthday parties for this party-planning-loving mama.
As we did for her past two birthdays, we had her party at home. Her first birthday was a Hello Kitty French Bakery theme (which I need to do a post on), her second birthday was outside in the scorching Carolina heat and humidity (not my best idea) and was an Alice in Wonderland themed party (go here for that post). This year, she wanted nothing other than a Frozen party.
I cringed. Not only is Frozen anything sold out everywhere, this mama being very much into a third trimester of pregnancy didn't have the energy, nor the funds to search out all things Frozen. But she tickled me because when I asked for details for this Frozen party she always said "pink cupcakes, pink balloons, and lots of candy". So....I ran with her details and created Avery's Candy Shoppe party and decided to give her some Frozen gifts to compensate for the lack of Frozen party.
She never mentioned anything negative at all after her party was over. She was completely satisfied.:) Success!
Here's what we did:
We used an old barstool height kitchen table we used to use before our family nearly doubled in size. I used this higher table for the candy display since I knew a bunch of little hands would want to pick at it. This encouraged parents to help their children grab whatever they wanted and deterred constant handfuls of candy going missing.:) I got all of the candy at Walmart. Cupcakes were ordered and were only $6.50 for the dozen, also from Walmart. I left out fill able treat sacks with a pink (of course) sharpie so names could be written on each bag by the parent.
Next, I simply covered a smaller table with a tablecloth from Walmart and used a giant lollipop balloon I found at Party City (I added her name for $.15/letter) and that became the gift table.
On the opposite side of the room I created a dress up station for the little girls. I had miraculously found a dress up Elsa dress and Anna dress from Target days before and had already gifted them to her. I took all of her other dresses, dress up jewelry, shoes, pocketbooks, accessories, etc and stuffed them into that $5 pink treasure box container I found also at Walmart. We are redoing our master bathroom and had previously taken down the framed mirror in there. I remembered it was hanging out in our closet, so I brought it out and simply propped it up against the wall. Worked perfectly. The dress up station was a BIG hit and it cost me virtually nothing. (We had planned on playing outside, but it rained all day of her party, so I had to think of something to do indoors and fast! This saved the party!)
As you can see above, in the kitchen, I had a giant bowl of popcorn I colored pink. I found the cutest paper containers for the popcorn station at Walmart in their ultra chaotic clearance section. I had found paper straws at Walmart too and used my dollar store cups I bought many years ago. I made strawberry lemon sweet tea (a recipe I always keep on hand) and put it in a glass dispenser. Two tablecloths and four coordinating balloons went on the kitchen table. The cake was $7.50 at Walmart and I added lollipop candles.
Overall, the party was a huge success and most importantly, it made my sweet Avery very happy. I'm already looking forward to next year!
Love, Alicia