Flower Party 4yr - Flower Shaped Sandwiches

FLOWER PARTY  For my daughter's 4th birthday she wanted a flower party. This is a great theme to work with because it is so broad and there are so many things that can be done with it. There are many, many ideas out there for planning a flower party; besides coming up with some of my own plans, the two places where I got most of my ideas were this web site and Family Fun magazine.  

Invitations:  The idea for this flower invitation came from the Family Fun web site. They had a template for a petal and center of the flower, which I used to cut pink petals (6-8 will work well) and yellow centers from card stock. The wording on the petals can either be handwritten or printed from the computer (before the petals are cut). The petals are then stacked with the flower circle at the bottom of the petals and all fastened together with a brad fastener. So to read the invitation you open one petal at a time and once all the petals have been opened you have a fully bloomed flower. I received several compliments on the creativity of these invitations. You can make up any wording you want, but here is what I used:  Roses are red; Violets are blue; I'm having a party; And inviting you!; Please help me celebrate my 4th birthday; [date and time of the party]; [party location]; [guest of honor's name]. I put the invitations in plain envelopes but decorated them with flower stickers and stamps.  

Decorations:  Decorations mainly consisted of what we had set up for the food table, games, and goody bags. See details below.  

Activities:  To start the party each guest got a white gift bag to decorate for their take-home treat bag. We made flowers by dipping a pinkie finger in yellow finger paint and dotting the bag for the center of the flowers. Then we dipped a thumb in red finger paint and made thumbprint petals around the yellow centers. While I was helping one guest make flowers, the others could further decorate their bag with butterfly stickers and markers.

The next activity was a game tossing bugs into flower pots. On our driveway I had drawn with sidewalk chalk three flowers of varying heights and placed a flowerpot in the middle of each of them. Each guest took a turn standing on a leaf at the base of the flowers and trying to throw bugs into the pots, scoring three points if they got one in the farthest pot, two for the middle one, and one point for the closest one. The large leaf was made from green felt and was left over from last year's ladybug party. The bugs (butterflies, caterpillar, and dragonfly) were toys I found around our house, stuffed animals and plastic ones. The guest who scored the most points got first choice picking the color of the flower necklace and bracelet set, which everyone received.

The next game was one my daughter wanted to play, Pin the Leaf on the Flower. I made the game using poster board and decorating it with a large foam flower, stem, grass, ladybug, and sun, and also a butterfly that my daughter had made in preschool. Each guest got a green foam leaf with their name on one side and double-sided tape on the other, and after they were blindfolded place their leaf on the poster, trying to get it somewhere along the stem. The guest whose placement came closest to the stem got first choice picking the color of a flower sucker, which everyone received. The guests then had free play time while the adults prepared lunch. After lunch the guest of honor opened her gifts and then it was time for cake and ice cream.  

Food:  The table was covered with a green plastic tablecloth. The lunch plates were yellow and I taped white card stock petals around each plate to make each setting look like a flower. The plastic eating utensils were orange, yellow, and white (to coordinate with part of the serving dishes) and were wrapped in light green napkins to sort of resemble flowers and stem. For table decorations, each setting had a mini clay flowerpot lined with green plastic wrap, filled with jelly beans, and had a round sucker stuck in it that was taped to a foam flower. Pink lemonade was served from a watering can (that had been thoroughly cleaned).

Flower-shaped sandwiches (made with a cookie cutter) of peanut butter and jelly and turkey and cheese were served in a ladybug serving tray (left over from last year's ladybug party). Also served were bug-shaped graham crackers using a plastic garden trowel. I wanted to make a centerpiece basket of flower-shaped fruit (watermelon, grapes, pineapple, and kiwi) on skewers, but ran out of time to get that made. The cake was made from a Wilton flower-shaped pan and was served on colorful flower and bug paper plates with coordinating napkins. Along with the cake we served raspberry sherbet that I had dipped the night before the party into cupcake liners and used M&Ms to make a flower on top. 

Treat bags:  The treat bags were filled with a decorate your own flower pot, packet of flower seeds, grow your own daisy kit, flower hair barrettes, flower stickers, flower pencil, and flower-shaped paper. Each guest also got to take home the flower necklace and bracelet set and flower suckers they received for playing the games, along with the table decoration mini flower pots filled with jelly beans and sucker flowers. We also had a large vase of fabric happy face flowers as a decoration and each guest got to pick one of those to take home.  

Thank you cards:  I found brightly colored thank you cards with flowers on them at a dollar store and again decorated the envelopes with flower stickers and stamps.   I purchased party supplies over the course of several months and didn't closely track the cost, but overall it wasn't very costly since most things were bought at discount stores. The party was successful and I had fun planning it and putting my creativity into it. My daughter loved it too and is already thinking about what next year's party theme will be.