A Ballerina Birthday For Evalyn

Evalyn turned 4 this past weekend! To celebrate we had a a few of her friends over for a Ballerina Princess Dancing Party. This was the first "friends party" I'd planned and I had all sorts of fun thinking of activities and crafts and goodies for it (one of the many reasons I've gotten so behind in my blogging!). Mind you I'm not a craft-o-holic, but I always enjoy it whenever I find a reason to make something. Evalyn's requests when we talked about a party included rainbow balloons, a piñata, and ballerina princess dressup.



The party was on Friday. The Sunday evening before I planned out the whole week (including my new running regimen and sorting through/storing the girls clothes: yes I was being ridiculously unrealistic, albeit optimistic). It looked something like this:
make castle piñata,
buy fabric/notions for wand and skirts,
buy goodies (stickers, tattoos, pencils, balloons),
buy piñata goodies (bracelets, rings, candy jewelry, dum dums),
paint piñata,
sew 4 tutus and goodie bags,
make dancing wands (a la Angelina Ballerina),
burn ballet music CD,
not to mention make cake, decorate, blow up balloons, rearrange furniture, clean carpet, etc.

Monday started off well but as the week wore on, fatigue from my new intense workout totally dogged me. Wednesday I went shopping in Medford for most of my "to buy" list and scored at JoAnn's dollar item bins at the checkout, finding the perfect party hats/tiaras. By Thursday night the homemade tutus and tulle bags were long crossed off the list. But the castle piñata was good to go with painstakingly layered paper maché and two coats of paint. (That was the funnest project by far! And a post all of it's own to follow.....)


Needless to say I was up til almost 2AM the night before figuring out how to do a trap-door/pull-string piñata since there was NO WAY I was going to have the 10+hours of labor get smashed to bits. This was partly because I'd decided to go to a church ladies night of dessert and socializing that I REALLY needed at that point. But because I went, I had the last minute brainstorm to ask one of my friends to send her 11yo daughter along with her 3yo to be my "party assisstant". That totally saved the day since I hadn't been able to find a sitter for H&L. A trip to Walmart and The Dollar Tree provided the remainder of what I needed.

That night I was gluing/wrapping fabric to wands and cutting tulle/ribbons; filling goodie bags, filling piñata, hanging streamers, wrapping gifts, burning cd's, setting table, etc. The cake had cooled but I'd hit the wall and decided to frost it in the morning.

The morning was a little hectic needless to say. When the guests arrived I still hadn't gotten the "Pin the Bow on the Ballerina" game ready or finished the cake. I'd also been hoping for the Prima Princessa present Swan Lake DVD to arrive in the mail but no luck (I'd actually been way ahead of the game on this one, but opted for Super Saver Shipping, rats! it came on Monday of course). My iTunes playlist had to do for the "Freeze Dancing" game.

All in all it was a great party. We released the Painted Lady butterflies from their tent (a gift from Insect Lore: thanks Grammum!) that the kids had watched change from caterpillars. Only one got a little injured by overeager Henry. He was also a little sad that he didn't get a pink tiara. But I did make him his very own dancing wand!



The only other hitch was funny in hindsight. I was a little preoccupied when my helper, Miriam, arrived with her little sister (not wearing her ballerina leotard, but pink clothes none the less) and handed me a brown paper bag that she said was Evalyn's gift cuz her mom couldn't find a big enough gift bag for it or something. I offered to find something else to put it in but quickly got distracted. A little while later just before cake and present time I suggested we find something else a little prettier but again didn't (if I'd just looked inside!!). So when Evalyn opened it up she pulled out a beautiful ballerina costume and sparkly skirt that was much frillier than the one she'd opened from Mommy earlier that morning. When she pulled out Linnea's baby bottle that'd been forgotten at their house it finally dawned on my sleep deprived mind that it was Natalie's costume to change into and Evalyn's gift wrapped present was the final item in the brown paper sack. DOH! DOH! DOH! Evy was a little disappointed at first when I explained the mix-up but fortunately the real gift was a Princess Aurora dress-up doll so everything was okay. I mostly felt bad that Natalie only got to wear her ballerina outfit for the last 15 minutes of the party! We had her change and took some parting group shots of the girls.

After everyone left, I put Henry and Linnea down for naps, swept/wiped up the most offending bits of cake crumbs and sticky candy and then crashed. It was a lot of work and a good learning experience, but I really did have fun doing it. After all, birthdays come just once a year, right? Most of all, the girls had a good time and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they all got along, even during the piñata dive and letting the butterflies go. And I learned that glitter glue does come out of our new-to-us microfiber couch. Phew!!

I think my original "budget" was $50 or something (hah!). After I take back all the stuff we didn't use/need, and thanks to the dollar store, it probably came closer to $75. Still not bad for a party based on the crazy favors and things you can buy online. The piñata was time consuming but super cheap. The paint of course cost the most, but since we'll use it for other projects it almost doesn't count. ; ) Way better than the $30 online version!