Snow Angel Party (4-6yr) Homemade Snow

For my daughter's 4th birthday we did a snow angel theme. This party worked out wonderfully for her winter birthday in the South where many of her friends had never seen or gotten to play in snow.  This would also be great for a summer birthday where everyone wants to think about cool weather and would lend itself to great post-Christmas sales! 

Here is what we did, along with a few alternatives you might consider depending on age and resources:  Invitations - Due to timing and the busy holiday season, we purchased invites from Oriental Trading (OT).  These were blue cards that folded into packages with a sticker bow to seal them.  To make them more unique, we embellished by adding snow" - the flakes you can get at Christmas for decorating nativity scenes "Parents we will be playing in the SNOW so please bring mittens for your little ANGEL!"  On the inside we invited everyone to Hollyn's Snow Angel birthday and stated that wings and halo would be provided and Snowflake Cake and Snowballs would be served.  

Decorations - For decorations we easily found tons of items in blue white and silver as various stores in the holiday decorations.  One especially nice thing was that we had a banner printed (OT) on snowflake printed canvas saying "Happy 4th Birthday Hollyn!" (the ad shows a Happy Holiday message but the personalizing s free and you can have printed whatever you want).  We got packs of 6 blue sparkly large flake ornaments packs of 15 small white flake ornaments table clothes and snowflake plastic garland at the Dollar Store.  We got snowflake tablecloth clips from OT that were really useful as they kept my other child from pulling on the tablecloths and spilling things.  My mom had picked up foil snowflakes to hang from the ceiling at a garage sale.  Also depending on time you can always make your own snowflakes easily out of paper.  We sprayed the outside of the glass front door and on the guest bathroom mirror with snow in a can (the kind used to make frost tips on Christmas trees).  Also from Michaels we had gel snowflake glass clings that we put on the inside of the door so that they showed just a little through the frost from the other side. 

We also blew up a bunch of white balloons and attached the small white snowflakes to the end with blue silver and white curling ribbon at various lengths. These were attached to the mailbox chairs and floated around the room.  Under the cake instead of a table cloth we put a white "snow blanket" like what is often used for tree skirts (from WalMart).  We had two white snowflake picture frames and the sparkly snowflakes from the invites around the cake.  We also had a shimmery snowflake tissue box napkin holder and blue plastic angel containers (from Target).  In addition we had a pretty snowflake stand that my mom had in her holiday decorations.  With the food we put the silverware in a pretty paper snowflake bag - this is an easy and useful decoration - take any plastic cups you might have and put in tissue paper then stick in the silverware place cups directly in bag and the paper will stick up over the edge like a present.  We had glittery snowflake paper plates (50 from OT on clearance before the holiday season started).  We had white plastic snowflake cups (from Hobby Lobby 4 for $1) that we wrote the girls names on with Sharpies that they were able to take home after the party.  We had a snowflake glass holding blue and white peppermint sticks (Target).  We also wrote Happy 4th Birthday Hollyn! On a cheese slate (Pottery Barn) that sat in the center of the food. 

Arrival - When the guests arrived each girl was given angel wings and halo to put on (I got a bunch of these at Target for $1 during Halloween but not enough so ended up purchasing the rest at Party City for a $5 but I wanted each girl to have one and it really complemented the theme plus Hollyn has been going to tons of princess parties where the little girls wear crowns and this way her party had dress up too.)  While waiting they played in her room.   

Activities - After everyone arrived I asked all the angels to sit on a blue fleece throw with snowflakes on it and read a story "Snowflake Fairy Magic" by  Cecile Schoberle but inserted "Angel" for "Fairy" (these were pre-reader children but the pictures look like angels and the story still made sense). This calmed everyone down and kept them contained to an area.  Then I asked each angel to scoot to the outside of the blanket.  I then had help from other moms and "snowed" the angels with foam alphabet letter beads shaped like snowflakes (OT).  The girls hunted for all of the letters in their name and then took the beads to the table where they got a pipe cleaner and some white pony beads to complete a name bracelet.  When everyone was finished we then played a game which was a combination of Freeze Dance and a Cake Walk - basically we arranged snowflake cards (School Box) in a circle numbered on the floor.  We had all the angels dance around the circle and freeze on a number when the music (we used "Let it Snow!" and "I really love to Dance") went off.  I then called out a number.  That child received a prize - pink Angel or blue Snowflake soap bars (Michaels) and went over to the table where Hollyn's grandmother painted their hands white and stamped them in a V shape onto blue paper for the next activity. 

After everyone's freeze dance number was called and everyone had their hands painted we had them gather around the table.  We turned their papers around so the V shape was upside down to turn their handprints into angel wings.  They glued on a circle cutout head (pre-cut) at the top of the V and a white triangle between for a dress.  They glued on googly eyes and a gold or silver pipe cleaner halo.  They drew on a mouth with marker and decorated the faces if they wanted to.  Then they painted the angel's dress with sparkly glitter snowflake glue (Michaels).  Parents painted on with blue glitter glue "Hollyn (or whoever)'s Snow Angel".  During this a glass jar with blue and silver foil covered chocolate balls was sent around to parents to guess the number using a snowflake pad (Target) and giant snowflake pencil (Dollar Store). (The final activity was the snow described separately below which was after cake etc.  Due to time we did not get to the activity to pass out goody bags which was going to be a take on hot potato - freeze a balloon filled with water place in an old but clean white sock and pass the "Cold Snowball" - when music ends that child gets their goody bag until everyone gets one.)  

Cake - Next they all washed hands and got ready for cake and snowballs!  Earlier in the week I had scooped vanilla ice-cream and formed small balls that I rolled into crystal cookie sprinkles.  I refroze them in the deep freezer to make them keep their ball shape.  We served these next to the slices of cake.  My mom made the cake in the shape of an octagon painting on a snowflake shape in blue with 4 angel candle holders in a circle around the center.  On the sides she wrote "Happy Birthday Hollyn!"  It was really pretty and very tasty!   Other food included cheese fruit chips and pretzels.  Anyone who stayed after the party enjoyed pizza as well.  

The MAIN EVENT - SNOW!  - As stated in the invitations we had SNOW at this party!  For us southerners this was a big deal!  We decided between two options - one we didn't do was to rent a foam snow machine (like those used at malls or outdoor holiday events).  Instead we purchased faux snow off of Ebay (about $50 for enough to make 30 gallons).  Basically you add water and it just foams up and makes a substance that truly looks like snow.  It feels like a powder but it isn't cold. We filled my kids' baby pool with it and added shovels and buckets etc.  It turned out to be the warmest winter day here in a while (almost 75 degrees) so we did it outside and the kids played without coats or gloves which was really humorous.  They enjoyed the snow and the afternoon warmth and played alternating between snow and swing set.  

Goody bags - On the way out the girls got their goody bags.  I took white paper bags with handles and added pretty snowflake ribbon bows with large blue and small white snowflake ornaments tied on (all from the Dollar Store).  I filled the bottom of the bags with the snow and glittery snowflakes like in the invitations.  Then I added the following: snowflake erasers (School Box) Snow Angel notepads (a nearby Christian bookstore) a snowflake pencil (OT personalized to say "Thanks for coming to Hollyn's 4th Birthday!" silver snowflake foil chocolates (Cost Plus World Market) make your own crystal snowflake kits (OT) and stickers (WalMart). They also took home their wings/halo plastic cups bracelet angel art and soap.  (A search for snowflake on OT produces hundreds of options for related prizes so we narrowed down to the ones above.) 

The afternoon went very well and Hollyn really enjoyed this party. Someone asked my how long it took to plan and I have to say that I wish I had gathered more things earlier on sale (after Christmas last year and also around Halloween for the wings/halo) but the actual planning did not take very long at all. 

The party was unique but still pretty and the atmosphere was "princessy" without actually being a princess party.  The girls had such a good time! "