Butterfly Princess Party 3yr - Butterfly Catch

My daughter turned 3 this March, and for almost a full year, she told me she wanted a butterfly princess party!

Invitations:  We sent out invitations that were homemade from scrapbooking paper. The outside of the invitations were solid pink, secured by a ribbon tied in a bow. The inside, I picked 2 different patterns and did half-and-half between the patterns. The invitations were very simple, but elegant and fun.

Decorations were mostly homemade, I used clear contact paper and spring colored paints to paint spring sayings and stick them to the wall throughout the house (ie: Spring is mother nature's way of saying let's party" - Robin Williams). Because my daughter's birthday is so close to Easter and the beginning of spring I was able to find a LOT of butterfliy decorations.

Activities/Games:  I wanted at least four activities for the party; the initial activity I purchased small flower pots and pottery paint from a craft store. The children were able to paint their own flower pot and I bagged soil and flower seeds for them to take home and grow.

The second event was called "Grow my garden". I used 2 metal flower tubs (for 2 teams) with a floral arrangement stuck in the floral styrofoam (flat and round). I then took fishing string and ran a line from the styrofoam around a shepards hook and tied a butterfly to the other end of the string. We split the children into 2 teams gave them watering cans full of water and let them race! The idea of the game is to put water into the pot so that the water would lift the styrofoam and drop the butterfly. Which ever team makes their butterfly land on the flowers first wins!

The third game is "The Catepillar Crawl"! I took six floral styrofoam balls (split into 2 sets of three). I painted the balls bright spring colors and then put 3 of them in a white stocking. Then I glued the crazy eyes (that you find at the store) to make the face. I tied a string around the neck and let them children race them! They loved it!

The fourth game was "Butterfly Catch". I used fishing wire to suspend fake butterflies (that I found again at a craft store). I used velcroe circles to stick them to the end of the strings but also for easy removal. Because the fishing wire was not visible the butterflies actually looked like they were flying!

Food:  We had a snack table set up with the following dishes: Veggie tray fruit tray BBQ smokey links Worms in dirt (gummy worms in oreo cookie/pudding mixture) and ants on a stick(Graham cracker sticks apple jelly with raisins).

Cake:  We had three cakes; my daughter had a personal cake with a kelly (Barbie) doll in the middle. The cake surrounded her looking like a ball gown and then we put butterfly wings on her back. I also made a larger cake with a Barbie as well with butterfly wings. The thrid cake I made because of the unusual large amount of egg milk and peanut allergies that we had. The 3rd cake was allergy free with (homemade) strawberry icing. We put sprinkles and 2 kelly dolls having tea on top with butterflies. The kids loved it. Because some of the children had allergies it was the first time they didn't have to bring their own cupcake from home…they actually got to eat the cake with everyone else!

All- in- all...the kids had a blast. They got to take home a few party favors. I used brown paper sacks and the same paper I used for invitations to make their name tags for the bags. I tied them on with the same ribbon I used in making the invitations. "