Princess Taytay's 3rd Birthday:Having raised a son, and only having had experience with grandsons up until this point, it was with great pleasure that I planned and held my granddaughter's 3rd birthday party. She lives 2000 miles away and none of her little friends were available, so I recruited granddaughters of friends to be her Pals. We had 3 little girls (I've heard 1 friend for each year old they are).
Taytay had her Cinderella Dress and Birthday crown on to greet the girls as they arrived under her Birthday Banner. We had Princess dresses and shoes for each of them to choose from, and soon I was in the midst of royalty! Our first order of business was to take a digital photo of each little Princess for a project we were going to do later in the party. I had purchased tiny bottlesof fingernail polish in assorted sparkly colors (green, blue, silver, purple, white, pink, & red) and a sheet of finger nail flower stickers (size very small). I also bought a bottle of top coat nail polish guaranteed to dry the polish in 30 seconds. The girls got to choose their colors and of course we got quite creative with color combinations! Once the fingers were dry - the girls danced around and sang some songs as I printed out their photos. I had purchased 3 sets of Disney photo frames, they were purple foam and included stick on foam flowers and
glitter glue. I spread a flannel backed tablecloth on the floor and let them get to work. The girls spent a while (with their helpers) decorating their picture frames. When they were finished Princess Taytay opened her presents and then we had cake and ice cream. The princesses played with Taytay's new toys and we used the blow dryer on some of the glitter glue that was squirted on a little heavy. We assembled their picture frames, and everyone pronounced them "Cute as a Button". In addition to their picture frames, each got to take home a goodie bag that had a packet of Princess gummy treats, a stretchy bracelet, a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses, and a stuffed puppy. Everyone seemed happy, and I spent less than $25 on the whole party, including princess napkins & cake!Party activities:
Make crafts projects as detailed on the crafts page
Do Face Painting and then do "Mirror Mirror on the Wall" to look at them!
Here is a recipe for face paint in case you do not have one:
FACE PAINT
1 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. water
1/2 tsp. cold cream
2 drops food coloring
In a small mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, mix well.
As a play on 'musical chairs' play Glass Slipper. Before the party take an old high heel and decorate it up (or if you have a glass slipper then use it!). The girls pass around the slipper as you play music. When the music stops, whoever is holding the slipper is 'out'. Play until one girl is left. She wins some small prize. Another variation is passing around a stuffed or rubber frog - the winner gets to kiss it to see if her 'Prince' appears.
Pin the Crown on the Princess - just like Pin the Tail on the donkey
Here is what Amy of Dallas, TX did for her daughter's 5th birthday party:
My daughter chose a Princess theme for her 5th birthday. She loves doing crafts so we decided to make crafts that would go with the theme, use up our party time, and serve as their "goodie bags". On the computer generated invitations we specified for all the girls to wear their best dress. On each table, I put a small paper plate with glue and q-tips, and a small bag of craft "jewels" for each girl to use as they wished. CRAFTS: Jewelry box - I purchased small hinged wooden boxes from the craft store (got them on sale for $0.50 each) and spray painted them gold before the party. They used their jewels and glue to decorate them as they desired. Crown Necklaces - Before the party I cut out large crowns out of the styrofoam plates meat comes on from the grocers (the grocery store gave them to me free). I wrote each girl's name on a crown with a permanent marker and punched a hole in it. Then, 3 at a time, we let them watch as we placed a baking sheet with their crown on it in a 350 oven. The crowns curled up and shrank right before their eyes. Once cooled, they were hard (just like shrinky-dinks). We laced pretty ribbon through them and they wore them the rest of the party. Crowns - Before the party I cut crowns out of yellow posterboard and laced elastic through each side to wrap around a child's head. The girls were allowed to decorate their crowns with the jewels, glitter and markers. Rings - We took flat buttons with the loop in the back (no holes in them) and let each girl chose a jewel that was big enough to cover the button. They glued the jewel on. Once dry, we threaded gold "pipe cleaners" through the loop in the back and fastened the ends together to make the rings. After all the crafts, we played a quick game of "pin the crown on the frog", then off to presents. After the presents were opened, I took a photo of my daughter with each "" to send with the thank you note. The whole party was inexpensive, the crafts took up almost the whole time and the girls loved making jewelry.