Little Prince's Festival Party 1yr

For my son's 1st birthday, I decided to make it a prince themed party.  Most times you hear about princess parties, but I have 2 boys and decided I shouldn't have to wait for my girl to have a fairy tale themed celebration!  For the INVITATIONS, I came up with the idea to make it into a story.  I used the Avery Greeting Cards found relatively cheap at Wal-Mart.  (Later I discovered that Dollar Tree also had some which were even cheaper.)  The front cover read: Prince xxxx and the Birthday Festival By Queen Mommy in a really creative way.  There was even a little blue crown over the P in Prince and I used a variety of fonts and placements to make it look like a story book cover.  In the lower half of the outside cover I put a castle picture that I found in clip art and added a flag with our last name's first initial on the tallest tower.  I trimmed the front page with multiple colored lines as a border.  Inside, I used the Imprint Shadow font which looked regal and the story read: Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, the King and Queen of xxxx Palace decided to host a royal celebration in honor of their Little Prince's 1st Birthday.  Scrolls reading: Hear Ye, Hear Ye It's Time for Some Royal Fun, Our Little Prince xxxx xxxxx is Turning 1! were sent to every prince and princess in the neighboring lands requesting the honor of their presence at the Birthday Festival which was scheduled to be held on the xxxx day of xxxx in the year two thousand and eight at half past three in the afternoon.  Everyone was asked to come adorned in their finest swim apparel as the guests would partake in water activities.  Reservations were to be made to the Queen by the xxxx day of xxxxx so she could plan the seating for the royal feast and festivities.  His Royal Highness and Family anxiously awaited this most splendid occasion!  And after all was said and done, they lived Happily Ever After.  On top of all that, as my final touch I bought mini gold tassels from Hobby Lobby (3 for $.99 but on sale for half off) punched a hole in the top of the greeting card using a diamond hole puncher and looped the tassel thru so it looked like it was hanging from the inside of a book.  The invitations were a HUGE hit!  I began the Once with a colorful O found in Word clip art which made it look like a real story along with the fact that it was written in paragraph form, with only the details about the scrolls and the bottom portion centered.  At the very bottom I put the Castle location (our address) but one thing I'd like to note is that directions should be added as well, because I spent a great deal of time on the party day leading people to the location after the internet sites got them lost.  I sealed the invitations with crown shaped address labels that I made by putting our address inside a crown shape found in clip art and printing a sheet full of those on the Avery full sheet labels.  It took FOREVER to cut them out, but it was a nice touch.  The party was held at our subdivision's brand new amenities center.  For ACTIVITIES, I had a castle bounce house and slide combo and had a water hose hooked up to the slide which the kids loved!  There was also a pool behind the building and an adjacent area with water shooting from various structures.  I bought a castle kiddie pool from Walgreen's on sale however we never unhooked the hose from the big slide to attach it to the kiddie pool because none of the babies came dressed in swimsuits.  Inside I had a coloring castle with lots of crayons and markers for the kids to design with.  Some of the children spent almost the entire time coloring.  During the party I played a CD called Baby Jamz which had some hip remakes of old children's songs.  So the kids were free to play inside or outside, but of course they mostly wanted to get wet outside.  I had planned to have a dragon egg hunt but never got a chance to blow up the inflatable dragon nor fill the eggs, so I was disappointed about that.  I had also initially reserved a Jester to entertain the kids, but the day before I decided that with my oldest son being so scary, that it probably wouldn't have been a good idea.  I still go back and forth on my decision to cancel.  It would have really put the party over the top, yet I know from experience, having children scared of your entertainment is not at all fun!  For the kids at heart, we rented a basketball double shoot electronic GAME and as you can imagine they loved that too.  Most of the men from teenagers up played that the entire time, while the little kids ran away with the balls every chance they got.  When guests first arrived, they were greeted by the first of my DECORATIONS which was a sign I made using Avery Sign Software that said Welcome to the Birthday Festival Honoring Prince xxxx which also had a huge picture of my son in his royal attire.  So for his COSTUME, I had purchased him a Birthday Prince crown a long time ago from Babies R Us when I first had the idea, and later had him a cape made that was embroidered with Prince xxxx on the back.  I then found an iron-on rhinestone crown from Hobby Lobby and that added the finishing touch to the cape.  He wore the outfit at the party and people kept commented on how cute he looked!  I had the tables set up in a U shape with blue table covers and gold placemats at each seat.  I had purchased gold knight's mugs from Oriental Trading and put one at each place setting along with a plate and fork.  I used play money, coins, and gold beads to decorate the table and had a red carpet runner going down the center of the U with my son's high chair at the head of the table.  I used lots of yellow, baby blue, and royal blue balloons, as the Lil Prince party decorations offered exclusively by Birthday Express.com were in those colors.  I purchased the plates, napkins, dessert plates, bib, and pinata in the Lil Prince theme.  The cups as I mentioned earlier were the knight's mugs, and I also bought some additional blue plates and napkins just in case we ran out of the theme party ware.  The PARTY SNACKS consisted of dinosaur (or dragon) chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs with chili and cheese, and chips.  I had Hawaiian Punch in a drink dispenser and had rented a sno cone machine with 2 or 3 flavors.  The centerpiece at the table was his CAKE.  It was indeed a spectacle because I had it made by a wedding baker.  It was 3 tiers and the very top had a crown on it that was decorated with his first initial.  The bottom tier was iced with a shimmery baby blue butter cream frosting and had fondant royal blue diamonds accented by yellow fondant dots.  The next tier up was white butter cream with alternating baby blue shimmer, royal blue, and yellow stripes.  The crown on top was made of yellow foam but that foam was wrapped around a shimmery royal blue tier of cake.  Not only did it look good, but it tasted delicious!!!!!  Butter cake with fudge filling for one tier and strawberry cake with strawberry filling for another.  His top tier was strawberry cake with butter cream filling.  He ate his cake off his special royal dinnerware.  The plate read, The Prince Eats and the fork and spoon had the same phrase on it.  There was a cup and bowl also included in the set.  I bought it new off eBay but later found it on several other sites.  Before the kids left they got FAVORS or riches in gold bags purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I put money beach balls, money bouncing balls, money notepads, gold coins, ring pops, candy jewelry, Rolo Candy (which looks like gold nuggets), fruit gummies, and bubble gum that looked like coins all in the bags.  Most of the items were found on Oriental Trading.  I also baked sugar cookies and put them in plastic bags found at Hobby Lobby and then attached a personalized circular sticker that I made in Word.  It had a crown with a 1 in the center and read Prince xxxx's Birthday Festival with the date.  I tied the bags with curling ribbon in blue, yellow, and white.  Everyone commented on how good those cookies were, and I plan to include them in my party bags in the future.  We also made candy apples the day of the party which is why I didn't have time to fill the dragon eggs.  I used my son's picture in his royal attire to make favor tags that thanked the guests for celebrating his special day and tied those to the candy apple sticks and wrapped them in clear wrap.  Everyone who wanted one got one of those.  My intentions were to have the candy apples turn out blue but after the first batch came out a pale green, my family decided to just do traditional red.  I hope to try again when I have more time to test it out.  This time around I had planned a big party the day before my son's, so the items that needed to be made more fresh had to be done the day of my son's party!  For the THANK YOU NOTES, I bought some of the Avery note cards and printed a poem on the front that read Once upon a time, there was a little prince named xxxx who was turning 1.  He asked his family and friends to join him for some birthday cake and fun.  Everyone gathered in his honor sending good wishes his way.  Because of you his royal highness had a very special 1st birthday!  I decorated the front with a border, his first initial and a crown, and wrote personalized messages to the guests thanking them for their gift inside.  All in all I enjoyed planning this particular party.  Using ideas from this site and others, as well as my own creativity, made this party memorable.  I look forward to getting better and better each year Good luck planning for your own Little Prince!