Strawberry Shortcake Party -4yr- Costume

My daughter wanted a Strawberry Shortcake Party (SSC)for her 4th birthday. 

We made her a SSC costume to wear to the party.  I took a striped sweater, used sticky-back felt and made a big strawberry to go on the front.  I used a blue skirt she had, put a small felt strawberry on the hip.  We bought white knee-his and used mary jane shoes she had.  The hat is the key! 

We bought a straw hat from Michaels($2) and spray painted it pink.  Then I used the sticky back felt (love that stuff!) to make 8 strawberries and put them all around the rim.  I glued a large red ribbon around the band and tied a green striped bow.  Under the bow I glued a plastic strawberry bunch.  (She is going to be this for Halloween too, so I made a candy bucket to go with it making the bow the same and using a pink sand bucket, and put a big strawberry on the front with contact paper.)  The outfit is sooooo cute and it makes the party feel like SSC is there! 

INVITATIONS:  I made them on my computer with Microsoft PictureIt.  The website disneyclips.com had pictures of the modern Strawberry Shortcake and all of her friends.  I put a big picture of SSC off to the side and wrote: You're invited to a BERRY special party for (name's) 4th Birthday!"  Then I put all the specific times and place (Strawberry Land) with my address next to it.  Toward the bottom I wrote "I'll be so berry happy if all my berry best friends come!" 

Under that I used pictures of SSC's friends from that website and put a row of them at the very bottom by the big SSC's feet.  I put each child's name who was invited above a picture of SSC's friend.  I had to use the Huckelberry Pie's picture 3 times since he is the only boy but all of the girls were different.  Then I took it to a Kodak picture maker and printed them off as a 4x6 photo.  They looked so cute and professional.  I got TONS of comments!   

DECORATIONS:I made 5 tissue paper puff balls (Martha Stewart.com for directions).  3 pink and 2 red.  Ended up costing only $1 apiece so total of $5.  I used pink and red curly ribbon instead of crepe paper.  I put 2 3'x8'pieces of lattice that we already had on their sides in front of our carport. We left a gap between them for the entrance. Then I cut 2 giant strawberries from cardboard- as big as my daughter probably 40" tall.  We painted them and put them on the lattice where the entrance was so the kids had to walk in between them into the carport. 

I printed off 30 strawberries on cardstock.  I cut them out taped each of them to a green pipe cleaner and wrapped the pipe cleaner onto the lattice at varying intervals.  I cut apart some fake ivy and weaved that into the lattace as well. We used a red tablecloth and pink dishes and plasticware.  I had also found some SSC posters at dollar store and used those around the carport. 

GAMES/ACTIVITIES: When the kids arrived they sat down and made their strawberry party bag at Strawberry Shortcake's House (carport). It was a pink lunch sack (Walmart 5/1.00) glued on a red strawberry and a green leaf topper.(I had made signs with a picture of the SSC friend and it said Name's House to put at each station) 

Then we went to Angel Cake's house(family room) and had a cake walk to the song "Have a Berry Happy Birthday" from the Strawberry Jams CD she got.  I just cut circles out of colored paper and then called out a color when the music stopped.  I had several of each color so we didn't have to do it 14 times. 

After that we went to Raspberry Torte's house (basketball court) and played Hopscotch.  I had drawn 2 hopscotch's with sidewalk chalk on the bball court. This was my daughter's favorite part of the party. The kids were cute to watch hopping all along the numbers!   After that we went to Lemon Meringue's house (living room) and danced the "Strawberry Shake" (also on CD). 

After that we visited Orange Blossom's house (backyard) and helped pick fruit (starbursts) that had fallen off of the trees and onto the ground. They used their strawberry bag to put the candy in. Here they found a pre-made party bag too- we put in a strawberry airhead a SSC frisbee strawberry bon-bons & SSC pencil.   

PRESENTS & CAKE: I set up two chairs so the person who gave the present to birthday girl could sit next to her as she opened it. I thought that worked out nicely because they are always so proud of the gift they bring. 

After the presents we had cake- a SSC head that I made from Wilton pan- and strawberry ice cream (of course).   It was super fun and relatively easy to prepare for this party and exactly on a 4 year olds level.  They thought it was great and so did I!"