Ladybug Party -4yr- Ice Cream Ladybugs

Every party starts with an invitation.  For my daughter's 4th Birthday party, she chose a ladybug theme and then helped me make the ladybug invitations.  I cut out 5 black circles, 4.5 red circles, and 2 black circles.  I had my daughter glue the black circles together to be the head and body of a ladybug.  She also cut the red circles in half which I then attached to the black circles with paper fasteners.  My daughter glued small black dots on the wings and google eyes on the head.  Underneath the wings we glued a printout with all the party specifics and mailed them out.    I had so much fun with everything for this party! 

For food I made a bowl cake decorated as a ladybug (red with black spots and a stripe down the middle in addition to a black head with black licorice antennae).  Abby, my daughter, helped me make ladybug cupcakes.  We frosted them red, piped black icing on for the head and stripe, then used mini chocolate chips for the spots and black shoestring licorice for antennae. 

I also made the ice cream into ladybugs!  I used strawberry ice cream scooped into balls with mini chocolate chips for spots.  For heads on the ice cream, I combined chocolate graham cracker crumbs and butter and formed it into balls. I used black shoestring licorice for antennae.  I also bought some ladybug beads and froze them in ice to float in the punch.  You could also cut leaf shapes out of green craft foam to float in the punch.  I made peanut butter balls (peanut butter and powdered sugar), covered them in red Wilton chocolate, added half a black jelly bean for the head, and piped some black icing for the spots. 

As the girls arrived, they threw balloons around and colored some ladybug pictures I had printed. We only planned three other activities, in addition to cake and ice cream, gifts, and free play time.  I ordered ladybug bracelet kits from Oriental Trading that the girls put together. 

I also ordered ladybug bean bags which we used to play toss the ladybug on the leaf (I glued a flower and some leaves I had cut out from craft foam onto posterboard).  The girls each got to take one of the bean bags home too. 

Our last activity was to decorate bug houses that I had bought at the dollar store.  Then they went outside and filled the houses with rocks and leaves and lastly we added live ladybugs to their houses that I had bought at a local nursery (only $8 for 1700 ladybugs).  Each bug house had instructions for caring for the ladybugs attached to it. 

At the end of the party, the guests each took home their ladybugs in the bug house, a ladybug bean bag, a ladybug charm bracelet, some ladybug stickers, their coloring pages, and a lollipop in a paper sack adorned with the same kind of ladybug as the invitation. 

As for decorations, we did the typical streamers and balloons.  We also made Happy Birthday banners for the garage and the wall out of butcher paper (from Sam's).  I cut Styrofoam balls in half and my daughter and I painted them to look like ladybugs.  I used poster putty to hook them on the wall and cabinet doors and chairs and all over!  There were even some that appeared to be on their way up to our vaulted ceiling.  We figured if the kiddos got restless we could play a game of  count/find the ladybugs. 

I covered a card table with a red tablecloth, then made a ladybug face out of construction paper with pipe cleaner antennae which I taped onto the front of the card table.  I put a stripe of black crepe paper down the middle and used oreos as spots so the table itself looked like a ladybug.  This was the cake/gift table.  I made a similar face which I glued on a small bent piece of cardboard.  This was a plate rack to make the red paper plates I had look like ladybugs. 

Abby opted to not dress like a ladybug for her party, but I did want her to feel special, so I glued some fun ladybug felt I found onto a cone party hat which she wore.  Abby was so excited to help prepare for her party and it made her that much more excited when the time finally came for her friends to arrive.  She had a wonderful time and thanked me repeatedly. 

I was so thrilled at how the party turned out.  When all was said and done, we counted 17 different TYPES of ladybugs integrated into the party!  And many of the ideas I used I got from reading your wonderful website!  Thanks so much for everyone who submitted their ideas and for putting them together for me to read.