Princess Royal Ball - Lollipop Paper Flowers

My daughter had a fantastic princess party on her fourth birthday for 15 of her friends. For the invitations, I made a 1/2 page color printout with pictures of a princess and a Cinderella slipper. We rolled them and tied them up with a piece of curling ribbon. My daughter rode her bike to hand-deliver some of them to her friends in the neighborhood. 

For the big day, we decorated our basement with sparkly purple and gold garlands, balloons, and banners from the dollar store and art-work, handmade flowers & butterflies most of which came from our collection of my daughters take-home crafts from her pre-school. I also hung pink marshmallow peep birds, colorful flowers and other interesting fairy & princess cutouts at several places throughout the party area. We chose four of her favorite princess fairy tales for our party theme - Cinderella, The Frog Prince, The Princess and The Pea, and Thumbelina. I had emptied out a bookshelf in the party area and divided the space into four parts to put some really interesting exhibits for the theme stories.  For Cinderella, I made a small pink paper castle (http://www.dltkkids.com/crafts/birthday/mcastle.html) and in the turrets I stuck our fairy wands. I made them out of new pencils decorated at the eraser end with a heart made from pink chenille stick and a few pieces of glittery garlands wrapped around it (idea from http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/wand.html). The fairy wands were used later as a prize.

To create an enchanted look, I placed a toy watering can with a small leafy plant, and then there was of course, a small Cinderella doll.  For The Frog Prince, I put a little crown on a soft green Gund frog and a soft Gund ball wrapped in gold foil. I had the frog sitting on pile of frog prince coloring page printouts (http://www.coloring.ws/t/animals/frogs/16.htm) and little bunches of crayons with four crayons tied up with curling ribbon.  Next came, The Princess and the Pea, with a little doll placed on felt pieces in a small wicker basked shaped like a cradle. I decorated this basked with colorful bead necklaces and placed little bottles of bubbles around it.  Lastly, for Thumbelina, I place a tiny doll on a coffee filter paper flower (http://www.thefamilycorner.com/family/kids/crafts/coffee_fil ter_flower.shtml) in a flower pot decorated with glittery garlands. I made simple coffee filter paper flowers and stuck a lollipop in the center and wrapped a tiny bit of chenille stick to hold them together. These were to be used as prizes. 

My daughter was truly looking like a princess in pink flowing flower girl tulle dress with a pearly pink tiara. We welcomed our royal guests into a little crafts corner where I kept supplies to assemble their loot bags and decorate their glittery silver party hats (I didn't have time to make crown cutouts). For the loot bag, I gave them a paper lunch bag with hole punched on sides and had put the child's name on it and inside were a chenille stick (pipe cleaner) for the handle and a few small cutouts of hearts, crowns, flowers, leaves & butterflies made out of gold, silver & color paper. I also gave them some glitter glue, glue sticks, and markers. This kept the kids busy while they waited for a few late comers to arrive. I then gave them a small appetizer snack. I had cucumber slices made into a smiley face with raisins for the eyes and thin tomato slice crescents for the mouth, baby goldfish crackers, pink wafers piled up like a little castle and pink lemonade. 

We began each party game by first reading out a shortened & simplified version of the princess story (books from My First Library of Fairy Tales). We began with The Frog Prince and sat the children in a circle to play "pass the hot potato" game using the golden ball from my exhibit. Each guest won the prize tucked under our Frog Prince doll.  Next was the Thumbelina story and since I could not come up with any game relevant to this story, I simply asked the children to take turns singing any little song they knew or even the birthday song. Then they all got a flower lollipop.  For the Princess and the Pea, I placed a green plastic Easter egg under one of three decorated chair pads arranged next to each other on the floor. Each child took a turn sitting on these chair pads and tried to guess which one had the "pea" under it. The girls got the bead necklaces and the boys got the bubble bottles which came off of the decorations I had used for the princesses bed. 

We then cut a beautiful cake made from a flat cake decorated with icing in hot pink, lavender flowers, green leaves and on the cake were a small princess toy and a few heart shaped rings. The cake table was decorated with plastic table cloth with hot pink princess-y pony and balloon design. I used the same kind for the food table and for the present table. I didn't really go overboard with the cake plates, napkins or other tableware. They were in a bright colored floral pattern. Following this was dinner consisting of pizza, spaghetti salad, vegetable tray and pink apple & cherry punch. I served a pink dessert of home made strawberry ice-cream topped with cut cherry and strawberry slices.  While the children were finishing their dessert, I read the Cinderella story to begin our version of the "pin the donkey's tail" game. I stuck a poster I made by enlarging a beautiful image of Cinderella trying on the glass slipper from http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.coloring.ws/t/cartoons/cinderella/9.gif.  I had made Cinderella’s slippers using construction paper cutouts shaped like a slipper, punched a hole and made a little bow using a piece of curling ribbon. I put a little bit of poster putty to make them stick. Each child was given a slipper cutout with his/her name and took turns in sticking it on Cinderella’s foot.  All our royal guest had a great time. Royal guests got a goody bag along with the nice prizes that went into their loot bags. Goody bags for the boys consisted of small packs of Lego blocks, bubbles, and candy in bright printed cello bags tied up with curling ribbons. All the girls got a keepsake ceramic jewelry box with princess-y prints, a ring, a bracelet and candy in a little tulle bag with drawstring closure. In all, my princess and the royal guests were royally pleased with everything in this royal ball.