Tinkerbell Fairy Princess Party {Happy Third Birthday, Ella!}

I loved this "Tinkerbell fairy princess" party because I used Ella's list to dictate the details, decor, and food for the party (see the paragraph at the bottom for more details) pulled the decorations together from items we had around the house and recycled decor from previous parties, and in general we kept it simple. Well, relatively simple. Would you believe that I've been working on this blog post on-and-off for two weeks? Ah, life.

Let's play a little game, shall we? I spy with my little eye {or as Ella says, "I spy wiff my wittle eye..."}

• lunch and ice cream scoops made to "fairy scale"
• a strictly imposed dress code
• decorations on a 3 year-old's level
• a special seat for the birthday girl
• a unique alternative to lanterns or helium balloons (for $2!)
• a cake decorated entirely with stickers (got the idea from Ella's bday cake)
• a game of "find the fairy wand"

Ella's list of requests (that I carefully adhered to after this experience): Tinkerbell party, dancing, balloons, decorations, eating lunch with juice boxes, rainbow cake, ice cream, and a desire to be "the queen of the fairies"

How I accomplished what she wanted (but in my own way)- Tinkerbell Party: I interpreted this loosely, as I didn't want it to be too theme-y (I kept the same mentality for her Charlie & Lola party last year) Dancing: playing "guess who" based on everyone's costumes and then having them each do a fairy princess turn in the middle of the circle + dancing to the Tinkerbell movie credits in pairs. The latter was Ella's favorite part of the party. Balloons: Helium balloons here are expensive and ridiculous to transport, so I opted for a $2 bag of bouncing balloons in rainbow colors, blew them up as large as I could, and then suspended them from a strand of crepe paper. They almost looked like big round helium balloons, and the kids loved them. Decorations: I tried to put as many of the decorations on their level as possible. We made a gallery of pictures of Ella down our hall (at their eye level), the butterfly garlands (recycled from last year's party) were low, just above their heads, the flower garlands Ella and I sewed came down from the doorways to the floor, and the huge balloons had such a whimsical feel and they almost looked like lanterns. For the doorways and to border the other garlands, I used simple white crepe paper and it looked so simple, yet so beautiful. I also put up the canopy from Ella's room and it really transformed our space and made a very special seat for the birthday girl to open gifts (more details below) Eating Lunch: My favorite part of the part was the lunch we served with components sized to "fairy scale." They ate on my Wedgwood china (yes, I'm crazy) and the girls absolutely loved it. I bought berry flavored juice and called it "fairy berry juice, " which was a hit. They watched part of Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue while they ate. Rainbow Cake: The recipe I used for her birthday cake on her birthday made two, so I froze one and saved it for the party and assembled it that morning. The green layer got clobbered and I was hoping she wouldn't notice, but she did :) oh well! I followed this tutorial I found a few year's back, and used this absolutely incredibly almond sour cream white cake recipe, which made two 6-inch layer cakes (with 6 layers each) and about 12 cupcakes. It's a life changing cake recipe, I tell you. Ice Cream: I put the ice cream in mini cups that were scooped with a melon-baller, and the girls ate them with baby spoons. They were thrilled. Ella as "the queen of the fairies" We requested that all the attendees come in their best fairy princess dress-ups, and Ella was dressed as Tinkerbell (her Halloween costume has been an amazing investment). I also suspended Ella's canopy in our doorway and put it over our ottoman to create a sit fit for a queen. We put the presents there and Ella got to open her presents while her friends sat around her on the floor. It was fantastic. The fabulous cupcake toppers were ordered from cupcaketopper.net. We also made flower hair clips for all the fairy princesses, and they were able to choose the color that matched their dress-ups best.

The end.