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
betterdifferent 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
