Who Says Hello Kitty Isn’t A Princess? When Two Worlds Collide ....
Jul 09 '05
The Bottom Line A good time was had by all but I am still sweeping up glitter!
When Annabelle’s birthday was less than a month away I realized that I’d never really done a party for a girl. When we lived in San Diego and had a party for her but it was small and simple but now that she is getting older and is heavy into the “girl stuff”, I knew that a cake, presents and trip to the mall wouldn’t cut it. Nope, she might still be a tomgirl that loves to play in the mud but she does have a softer side. She’s a sucker for anything that’s princess related - pink frilly skirts, her sparkly glitter and jewel encrusted wand, bag of pixie dust and pink satin ballet slippers would be hear daily attire if I didn’t gently suggest that maybe, just maybe, shorts and a t-shirt would work out better for a trip to the grocery store. That’s what really puzzles me about her - one minute she’ll be knee deep in the sandbox or throwing baseballs in the backyard [and that girl has one hell of an arm] and the next she’ll be fluttering around like a little fairy, granting wishes and tapping her wand on everything. This whole ‘raising a girl’ thing is still pretty new to me but I’m starting to get the hang of it.
I wanted to do something special for her birthday but I knew that there wouldn’t be a lot of girls at the party so I had to come up with stuff for the boys to do as well. We’d already done the medieval birthday party theme so that was sort of out of the question. I decided to combine a few different themes so that both the boys and girls would have fun. Since she has a hard core obsession with Hello Kitty I knew that I’d have to work that into the party as well. With three weeks and the clock ticking I started planning ... and shopping! There wouldn’t be a ton of kids at the party but their ages would range from four to seven and yes, there would be a few boys attending so I had a lot of things to take into consideration when planning this. Having the Hello Kitty theme to fall back on I didn’t feel too pressured to stick with the princess stuff and when it was all said and done, everyone had a blast at the party and left with some pretty cool treats.
Games
Every party has to have games so I decided to go with some basics like Ring Toss, Pin The Tail on The Princess [just like Pin The Tail on The Donkey but with a princess], the usual kids board games and Hide & Go Seek. Since I wasn’t sure what the weather was going to be like I also rented a few Playstation games for them to play if things got nasty outside but luck was on our side and we had plenty of sunshine. Annabelle’s Hello Kitty Etch A Sketch can in handy for the shyer kids but after they saw the fun that the others were having running around and acting silly they soon joined in and had a blast. One thing that the kids really loved was playing with bubbles. I guess that’s something that most adults forget about when they turn ten - but bubbles are something that really seem to captivate them and get them running around so they burn off some of that sugar from the cake and goodies. I picked up some cool bubble necklaces for the girls and a couple of water gun styled bubble blowers for the boys. You would have thought that I reinvented the wheel the way they reacted to these things and the girls were perfectly content with wearing the necklaces around for the rest of the afternoon. Another great option to this is to use Pez Spin Master “Yummy Bubbles”. These are edible and unbelievably fun to play with just remember to keep the edible and non-edible ones separate.
Arts & Crafts
Knowing that there would be at least five little girls there, I decided that it would be cool if they could all make their own magic wands. This was the biggest hit of the party and something that all the parents raved about. It didn’t cost much to make these either. All you need are some thick pieces of wooden dowels, wooden stars with holes cut in the bottom, paint, glitter, glue and jewels. They can paint them any way that they like, attach gems and jewels, cover them with aluminum foil, what ever they like. I’d suggest doing this early in the day so that you can spray them with a sealer and let them dry.
For the boys I broke out the Spin Master Incredible Shrinky Dink Maker and let them work with some of the activity kits that I had on hand. They seemed to really like coloring in the plastic sheets with colored pencils and markers and making key chains and zipper pulls for their backpacks. I also picked up some blank Shrinky Dink sheets [available at most craft and art stores] and let them make their own designs. A parent should be around to help them get the Shrinky Dinks in and out of the oven but when it came to coloring and creating the designs they were more than happy to be on their own for a while. This gave the parents a bit of a break but not for long - as soon as they were done they wanted ... more games!
Treats
I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone and let the kids have some fun decorating cookies. I made some basic cookies and some batches of royal icing in basic colors that they could use to decorate the cookies with. This was something that I had them do early in the party so the icing could have some time to set up and harden. A few of the older kids liked working with the Wilton Food Writer markers but the younger ones wanted to dig into the icing and create their own unique edible party favors. Since it was impossible to find a princess or Hello Kitty shaped cookie cutter in time for the party I went with some basic shapes like hearts , hands, fish, bears and little girl shapes. This was a very cool project but it was a little on the messy side so if you are thinking about doing this, make sure you do it outside or lay down a lot of newspaper on the floor. A nice way to finish these off and pack them up for the kids to take them home is to slide them into a treat bag and seal them up.
I also made cupcakes topped off with different types of sprinkles and left some of them plain so the kids could decorate them the way they liked. You can top them off with regular colored sugar or go with something specific like the Wilton Barbie Shaped Sprinkles. The cake was a large Hello Kitty one but Annabelle had one small request - it had to have pink colored sugars on it somewhere. I didn’t let her see the cake before the party so she spent a good bit of the morning trying to find the hiding spot - not exactly an easy task when there are tons of animals in the house that would have loved nothing more than to sink their teeth into it I used some small Hello Kitty plastic toys around the base of it to add a little extra color to it and the girls thought it was so cute they didn’t want me to cut it. When faced with the fact that it was either hack Hello Kitty to pieces or go without cake they looked at me, then the cake, me and then the cake and ultimately chose the cake over preserving Hello Kitty.
Party Favors
Since I was dealing with younger kids that wouldn’t really care one way or the other if they left the party with some kind of a treat bag or favor I decided to go the easy route and pick up some of the Arrow Plastic Pack-A-Snack containers that I could paint each of the kids names on. Inside I tucked some sweets and treats for them; on the girls I put a coating of glitter nailpolish to give it a little extra sparkle, on the boys I went with some ‘manly’ stickers so they wouldn’t feel left out. The girls also got to leave with their own unique magic wands and the boys their cache of Shrinky Dinks. It was only in hindsight that I thought of having the boys make crowns from cardboard and aluminum foil - I’ll have to remember that for the next party if we go with a princess theme. They also had the cookies they decorated to take with them - something that I am sure sent them into sugar overload the next day.
The Bottom Line
All the kids had a great time but I sort of felt like the party was missing something. Sure there were decorations hanging everywhere and Annabelle was running around in her princess outfit, sprinkling her pixie dust [glitter] all over everything but when I looked around it just felt like something was missing. I did blow up a bunch of pink and purple balloons to hang from the trees, and added left over tinsel from Christmas to the branches I couldn’t reach. That might sound tacky but it looked so awesome when the light hit it and it reflected all over the place. I guess I waited until the last minute for some things and that didn’t sit very well with me; I am a plan-o-holic and usually start brainstorming things more than a month in advance. Annabelle had a great time and promptly fell asleep on the couch, one leg hanging over the side, magic wand clutched at her chest ...
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
Other birthday party themes and ideas ...
Medieval Madness, The Castle Cake & A Knight In Shining Armor! Yeah, I Am Insane!
A Scooby Doo-rific Birthday!
3 - 2 - 1 BLASTOFF ! A Totally Spacey Birthday Party!
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