Princess Party Planning and I Hate Beauty Pageants--- You know because they go together..

Just to make sure that I received the official crazy stamp, I ended a week of being a single parenting with a princess birthday party for my newly, seven year old.  Sleepover to boot!  Now that our Knight in Shining Armor is back in town, and we're safely protected, I can let the cat out of the bag and let you know that I was here for almost a whole week by myself with my two little angels..  And really, they were angels.. But, Chloe had a fever five out of the seven days which prevented me from having interaction with any adult humans.  And, Emma, being the conversational magician that she is, put me officially over the edge with her oh so endearing questions.  Typically, her habit of making use of dead air by asking her companion questions, while showing an extreme interest in their thoughts and feelings, is quite endearing.   Normally, it's quite impressive to come across a child that naturally possesses the communication skills that all the Self-help books try to teach... People always love to talk about themselves.  Right?  The first time she asked her question of the week, "Mom, who do you most admire?",  I answered with my beauty pageant answer, the one that I'm most certain scored me a place in the top ten in The Queen of Hearts pageant when I was in seventh grade.  "My mother. Because, she taught me good morals, and the difference between right and wrong"... COME ON  JUDGES!  That's about as generic as "World Peace"..

 And on a side note, you would think that placing in a beauty pageant for 7th, 8th, and 9th graders would be quite the self-esteem builder for a seventh grader.  And, perhaps it would have been had it not been for the phone calls that I got that went something like.  "I heard you got in the top ten in "The Queen of Hearts".  My mom said you must be really poised".  Seriously, I mean seriously.  I was in seventh grade but I wasn't an idiot.  I knew what that meant.  I must have been more poised in seventh grade than I am now.    Because now, those critics that were dismayed at my beauty pageant placing would get a poised little foot up their poised little.....Anyway.... back to the real story before I started telling the story about how placing in a junior high pageant crushed my self-esteem... 

By the end of the week, I was making up people to admire because my little socialite wasn't satisfied with my generic, beauty pageant, answer.  But really, the whole point here was to share some of my party planning ideas and, though it was CRAZY to plan a sleepover at the end of a week of single parenting, Emma's expressions every morning when she woke up and saw the progress I made the night before: "Wow mom!  I mean wow!  You are amazing!  You are the BEST mother ever!"...  Yeah, those expressions were totally worth it and are totally on video for the time that is coming when she thinks I'm completely and totally stupid and tries to beat my self-esteem down like Junior High Beauty Pageant!  And, really and truly, it was nice to have all the party planning to keep me busy...

So without further rambling about my traumatic Junior High School experiences:

I am proud to say that I stayed pretty close to my $150 budget.. Mainly, because I have awesome friends and family that were willing to contribute to our "Happily Ever After" night.. But still, there was some resourcefulness on my part, if I do say so myself...

I ordered the satin chair covers, organza chair bows and the organza table scarf from Table Cloth Factory.

The chair covers were $3.49 , the bows were $.69  and the scarf was $2.49... Score!  The table scarf was simply laid over a white sheet.  The hot pink cloth napkins were actually dish towels from the Dollar Tree. 

Please excuse the noise in the pictures.  I was shooting in very low light!

Emma and I had an unforgettable time making the Cake Pops.  Click on, "Cake Pops" for directions on making those from a previous post.  We displayed the cake pops in a piece of Styrofoam that we encircled with a Burger King Crown painted pink and finished with silver glitter paint and rhinestone brads..

The castle didn't really factor into this budget because I had it from a "Happily Ever After Girls Retreat" that I organized during our time in youth ministry.  But, I wanted to include it because it's unusual origins.  It is a castle for a  giant fish tank.  Found at a pet store.  I spray painted it white with pink tips and finished off with silver glitter paint.

The biggest how to questions have been about my tulle canopy so I have given it it's own instructional post found HERE:  Building the canopy was a delicate learning process but I think that I narrowed it down to a science that could keep the next mother that tries it from breaking her neck.

The floating candles were also left over from the girls retreat but can be found at any craft store and were essential in my eyes for our blowing out candle festivities since cake pops don't have candles.  I sat them up on a cake server to give them some height. 

 

Party dresses monogrammed by Aunt Jan-- Tutorial for Princess skirt found HERE

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The girls were also supplied with a luxurious satin bag filled with princess accessories supplied, largely, by Nana.. And by luxurious satin bag, I mean, a wine bag from the Dollar Tree. 

Our professional hairdresser was none other than my wonderful mother..

And our fairytale princess, played by my spotlight lovin, kindergarten teaching OLDER sister, wore this dress that I found on Ebay:   Pictures of our fairytale princess coming in the actual party post. 

And maybe the most surprising of everything that fell into place was our party activities.. Klutz brand had contacted us on The Mom-tage asking us if we'd like to do a giveaway of a new product called Glossy Bands that they have coming out.  I quickly e-mailed them back asking them if they'd be interested in sending us some to try out at my daughter's birthday party.  They were all for it and immediately got me several sets in the mail!  The Glossy Bands were a hit!  I even made a few myself.  And you can get your chance to be one of the firsts to try out the Glossy Bands when we do a Glossy Band Giveaway over at The Mom-tage on June 28th!

Emma has already started making her pitch for a Hawaiian Luau for her Birthday party next year.  You got a love a girl that knows what she wants..

Coming soon, pictures of our actual fairy tale evening.

Blessings,

Dana