Fancy Nancy Parfait Soiree Party -7yr- Ooh-La-La

Ooh La La!  For my daughter Hollyn's 7th birthday, she wanted a Fancy Nancy Soiree. She loves, loves, loves these great books by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser! The party was spectacular (that's a fancy word for great)!  My mom and I had a wonderful time finding all things fancy for this party and she had a wonderful time.  This party had girls age 3-8 attending and it was perfect, even for this wide age range.

INVITATIONS: We color copied a cute picture of Fancy Nancy showing her with a tray of parfaits.  We attached the picture, pink feathers, a small ring of pearl beads, sequins and some jeweled flower and butterfly stickers to pink cardstock scrapbook style.  We outlined a print out that read Ooh-La-La! You're invited to a Fancy Nancy Soiree! (That's a fancy word for party)!" with glitter glue. The font we used was Curlz - we found the matching fonts from the book on line but decided the cost was too much. For the words Fancy Nancy we shrunk down the lettering on one of the book covers.  Inside we printed a fancy border with pearls shoes teapots and flowers around the wording which read "Bonjour!  (Isn't everything fancier in French?) / It would be splendid (that's a fancy word for good!) / if you could join us to celebrate Hollyn's 7th Birthday! / Date time location / Respondez sil vous plait! Phone# Email / Please wear your most exquisite attire!" On the outside of the pink envelopes we glitter glued around a printout of Fancy Nancy putting mail in a mailbox and attached the girls' addresses in the same fancy font.  We also made address labels for my daughter with a little pink butterfly. 

DECORATIONS: This is the first party we held that wasn't at our house - I wanted a large banquet table set up with several additional small table stations for activities - our house is really small so we rented a room at the nearby YMCA.  Decorations were determined by each of several stations so I will describe them more below but at each station was a different bright colored tablecloth a bouquet that included a large bright colored feather curled floral items and other fancy things.  These bouquets were in vases made out of Pringles chip cans and covered with scrapbook paper in cute coordinating prints.  The bouquet also held a floral pick with sign for the station that had the Curlz font and a clip art picture on cardstock in the same color as the table cloth.  The cake table had a Fancy Nancy tablecloth from Birthday Express and was decorated with feather boas pearl beads and other fancy things.  We displayed all of the parfait items on silver trays of different shapes (Dollar Tree) and in glass bowls and pink candy dishes.  The long banquet table was covered with pink table cloths and had two cardboard Eiffel towers two bouquets and feather boas (Big Lots). 

The folding chair backs were covered with white kitchen garbage bags and we used pink and green tulle to tie a large bow around each chair (similar to wedding chair covers).  You never would have guessed these were trash bags! The birthday girl's chair was in the center of the table and we tied Fancy Nancy balloons and pink latex balloons to her chair.  We set the tables with doilies under each place setting and used Fancy Nancy napkins.  Each girl also had a water bottle at her seat with the label covered in a pretty printed felt and ribbon.  Each place setting also had a large tissue paper carnation made with pink purple and turquoise tissue paper green pipe cleaner and green cardstock leaves. On each leaf I wrote the girl's name who would sit in that seat and added a green adhesive jewel.  The place settings were very festive!  We also set all of the Fancy Nancy hardback books around the room on plastic photo stands and these added to the decorations!  The chairs looked great!  One decoration we ran out of time for was a poster saying "Let's get Fancy with lessons from Nancy!" which is in her first book.  The other decoration I meant to do was to print out fancy words and their definitions on cardstock and place these around the room on the walls. 

ACTIVITIES and GAMES: To get started I read the girls the newest book "Fancy Nancy and the Fabulous Fashion Boutique."  Then we started playing some music by Laughing Pizza and had the girls cake walk around butterflies I taped to the floor with numbers on them (with the number words in French!).  As their numbers were called they could select which station to go to then as they completed each station they could move to another.  This activity spaced out the girls enough to not have them all running to pick a station at the same time. I had moms helping at each station.

#1 - Fabulous Fashion Boutique - the girls got to select jewelry to wear - beaded necklaces (Walmart) hanging from a pink dress stand sticker earrings (Party City) and 'diamond rings' (Dollar Tree).  We were also going to order boas from Haloheaven.com but they were on back order after Halloween.  Big Lots did not have enough and Party City's were too expensive to do one per girl so we ended up not doing this. At this station the girls also decorated purses.  I got cute canvas purses in four bright colors (Hobby Lobby) and trimmed with thin maribou (Michaels).  The girls decorated with a stencil of their initial as a monogram using fabric paint markers and added adhesive backed jewels (Walmart but later learned a better option would have been Oriental Trading for the jewels). 

#2 - Ooh La La Beauty Spa - the girls put on make-up and received a little compact with brush lip gloss eye shadow (Walmart).  They also got their finger nails done.  We had traced hands onto poster board and painted the nails with 5 different polish colors marking each finger with the color name in French. 

#3 - Sensational Styles - The girls got their hair done into fancy 'dos including braids and split mini pony tails etc. There was silver glitter spray to add a sparkle to their hair.  Then they got butterfly barrettes to complete the look. 

#4 - Hopscotch - Great idea for any party!  We took sheets of large scrapbook paper in coordinating themes and colors and set them up as hopscotch squares taping them together. We added white cardstock swirly numbers and put out bean bags.  We attached the paper board to the ground with tape and as the girls finished with other things they were able to go play hopscotch or read the Fancy Nancy books all around. 

#5 - Perfect Portraits - as they finished getting fancy at the other stations the girls came over to this station to get a fancy picture made.  We had a purple fuzzy rug to sit on; a small side table decorated with a vase of the fancy floral items; a white clothes tree with boas wings jewelry and other fancy dress up items; a small white chandelier hung from the ceiling with floral wire and decorated with a feather boa tiny pink mirror balls and battery operated tea lights; my daughter's Fancy Nancy doll sitting in a wicker doll chair; and the piece de resistance - a life sized Fancy Nancy cut out which we made by attaching a giant wall sticker (Amazon) to foam core and trimming around the sticker edge using extra foam core to make a stand. After all of the girls completed these stations we brought them back to the circle of butterflies and read "Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy".  We then played hot potato with a pink webkinz poodle that has a jeweled collar spelling out my daughters name.  As the children got caught with the poodle they went over again to the photo station to get placed into a group photo.  When all of the kids were 'out' they were all arranged into on great group shot. 

COSTUMES: All of the girls came either dressed up in fancy clothes or wearing costumes similar to Fancy Nancy.  They added the items from the various stations to their ensembles. 

PARTY SNACKS and CAKE: We only served cake and parfaits due to the time in the day.  Each girl had the opportunity to build her own parfait in clear plastic fancy parfait bowls (Dollar Tree) with neapolitan ice cream.  We had out trays of candy including M&Ms Oreo Cookie crumble lemon tarts sprinkles etc.  These were arranged in pink and clear glass bowls and containers and made cute decorations!  We also had chocolate sauce whipped cream and cherries to top off their creations.  The cake was tres magnifique!  My mom made the cake in several small layers (like a wedding cake) and sprayed it with bright pink purple and blue.  The cake was on a white scroll stand and had beads etc. woven up and around.  Out of the cake poked floral wire butterflies feathers and gerbera daisies in the same color them.  We used sparkler candles that were also in the same color theme. 

FAVORS: The girls took home everything they got at the various stations in their purses.  They also got to take home a Fancy Nancy notebook and pencil (Target Dollar Spot) that was at their place setting.  Each girl also got a large red/pink swirled sucker that we had displayed all together in a bouquet.  We used a pink plastic cocktail drink cup from a cruise covered the logo with maribou and feathers and added a Fancy Nancy sticker.  My daughter got to keep the biggest sucker which was the middle of the bouquet. 

THANK YOUs - We sent thank you notes in the mail.  We purchased pink flower printed paper from Office Max with matching envelopes.  On it we printed "Merci Beaucoup! (That's Frency for Thank You Very Much!  Isn't everything fancier in French? / Dear (friend) Thank you for coming to my Fancy Nancy Birthday Soiree and for the (present)! You made my birthday spectacular (that's a fancy word for really great)!  Love Hollyn XOXO"  We added a picture Fancy Nancy a picture of Hollyn blowing out candles a picture of the group and a picture of Hollyn with her brother West looking dashing in a top hat next to the foam core Fancy Nancy.  Hollyn hand wrote the names and gifts in the blanks.  We also printed used Walmart's collage feature to print out a picture of each girl from the Perfect Portrait station with "Fancy (friend's name)" printed at the top in a swirly font.  We included these with the notes.  After the party was over we submitted a picture to www.fancynancyworld.com and are planning to make a photobook for Hollyn to remember this terrific party!"