For my little girl’s third birthday,  I knew I wanted to have it at the house.  The year before we had it at a park and it was sooo windy, we almost blew away.  Our gazebo was like a wind tunnel and we almost lost all the cupcakes.

Okay so having it at the house, meant I needed a theme…my kid is OBSESSED with princesses and fairies so I wanted to incorporate this somehow, but I knew there would be little boys there as well so I didn’t want it to look like princesspalooza 2011.  I found this tutorial for a storybook themed party at Kojo Designs.  This blogger really knows how to put on a great party with amazing details.  Mine wasn’t as fancy as this, but with this inspiration;  I decided to throw a storybook themed birthday party and ask that the kids come dressed as their favorite story book character.

The invites were an actual booklet (Why didn’t I think to take a freakin picture?).  I used regular card stock and my home color printer and created four- 4×5 “pages” with the words “you’re invited”, the party details, a little poem detailing the costume idea, and then a “the end” page.  I used clip art to add little princesses and knight color graphics.

The poem read:

Come one! come all!

To Princess Addy’s fairy-tale ball!

Wear a costume from your favorite story

to celebrate at Princess Addy’s third birthday party!

We hope to see you there, don’t be late

There will be fairy-tale food, fun, and cake!

For the favors, I went to the local Dollar Tree (I love this place) and chose a book, cupcakes, whistles, wands, and animal crackers for their goody bags.  The problem I discovered, was that I didn’t have an actual bag to fit all this stuff into…  So on Thursday- two days BEFORE the party- it dawned on me that I can sew!  I’ll make the bags!

This is the design I came up with:

• I did end up choosing a better different fabric, but I had to test my pattern first to make sure it worked.  I plan on doing a tutorial for these soon! They were super duper easy and fast!

I decided to make the cupcakes myself, because I’m cheap I love to DIY; so I chose a plain jane chocolate and yellow cupcake mix and filled them with creamy filling and topped with pink cream cheese icing.

For the cupcake stand, I simply stacked books at different levels and topped with a cardboard cake circle. 

The cupcake toppers were little “books” that were printed onto mailing labels and wrapped around a toothpick.  THANK YOU Google Images.

My lovely sister helping me craft.

Then we had the Dollar Tree Banner:

The drink table and favors:

Birthday girl sharpening her bossy skills:

Big castle bouncy house (fun for the kiddos AND adults):

Later I couldn’t find the birthday girl and after a thorough search of the house, discovered her OUTSIDE sneaking another cupcake, which I believe was her fourth.

What a sneaky stinker.

She had a blast though, and I had fun planning.  I’m not the most creative person in the world, or the most detailed, but thanks to awesome inspiration- I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out!

~Elizabeth