DIY : Princess Party

We celebrated Rylee's fourth birthday just the other day. A sparkly pink princess party is one I never in a million years thought I'd be planning, but alas, my girl is one of the most girly girls there can be!

Everything I tried to do myself, my husband calls me insane, but honestly I have a lot of fun doing these themed parties. Its my creative outlet in my world of chaos. To another mom or parent it may seem crazy, and thats ok, but this is my niche, its something I'm happy doing... do what you love and love what you do, right!?

As our guests entered princess Rylee's kingdom we had swords for our little princes, made out of cardboard and felt. And for the little princesses there were crown headbands (dollarstore headbands, homemade fabric stiffener, lace ribbon, and gold paint),  and sparkly wands (felt, sequins, polyfill, and bamboo skewers).

In our party room our only decorations was a canopy overhead made of three dollarstore tablecloths cut in quarters and six balloons. I was so pleased with how it turned out and I can say I will probably never use streamers again... ever, this looks SO much better! 

And the hardest thing I created from scratch was this cupcake masterpiece. I am not a baker, it is not my forte and totally stresses me out. But, Rylee and I did a trial run a few weeks ago so I felt somewhat comfortable that I could make this happen, and although its not perfect, it far surpasses anything I have ever baked. I used this recipe for the cupcakes, and this recipe for the icing and used a 4B Wilton decorating tip. I finished it off with Wilton candy pearls and some dollarstore trinkets to make it look more like a princess dress. Everyone seemed to enjoy so I think I can say it was a success... a stressful, messy success!

For eats we kept it simple since it was an afternoon party. There were fruit wands, skewers of grapes and pineapples cut into star shapes; Cinderellas pumpkin patch, mandarin oranges with celery; and Cinderella's coach, chips with soardough loaf filled with artichoke dip (bread wheels attached with toothpicks) 

And last but not least our party favour, snow whites poisoned apples (minus the poison of course). Another first for me, candy apples and to add to the learning curve doing it without a candy thermometer... key phrase for that experience is "be patient, don't panic!" I'm not sure how they actually taste, haha, but it was more for the novelty!

Not pictured is our craft activity for the kids. We had some mosaic crowns the girls could decorate with jewel stickers. For the boys I cut shields out of foam and got felt pens, sparkly star and dragon stickers for them to decorate with. And additional entertainment was provided by queen Gramma Jamma who read the classic and my personal fave childhood story, "The Paperbag Princess" by Robert Munsch.