Hannah loves her American Girl dolls, so when I suggested we have an AG birthday party... she was more than happy to go along with that theme! We decided on a fun pajama party and that is when the craziness began. Here are the photos and details of her party.
I started with the colors. I used pink of course and used the raspberry and pinks of the American Girl logo and then I added other hues of pink for variety. And then of course i had to throw in silver/glitter!
For the invitations, I decided to do pajamas bottoms, since that was the theme of the party.
I asked the girls to come in pajamas, bring a pillow and blanket and an 18" doll (if they had one).
(I had made arrangements to have borrow extra dolls in case some girls didn't have an 18" doll.)
The front door entry... I have started taking pictures of the girls in front of the door. I think it will be a new tradition :-)
I decided that I had to make the girls and their dolls matching pajama bottoms. And so a few months before the party I started sewing. I found
this adorable pattern for both the dolls and the girls. It was really very easy and so darn cute. I had to make some adjustments and guess on some of the sizes of the girls, but overall they all had bottoms that fit.
oh and I realized I had to make shirts for the dolls (because what if the dolls didn't have shirts :-), so I
used this easy pattern too... again so cute.
It is hard to tell with my photos, but the fabric on the pj's had the cutes light pink dots. So, dainty and cute.... but you can't really see them :-(
Seriously, what cute girls! It was really nice to have a party with only 8 girls and have them be old enough to enjoy each other and the fun activities of the night (without a lot of help or assistance :-) We had fun chatting, playing, creating and just plain having fun!
After so many parties, I have figured out what areas of my house to decorate and so with each theme I create new way to decorate those areas of the house . The first area is my entry table. Here are the decorations for my entry table. We used some American Dolls as decoration. I created the banner with a glittered "AG". I had a frame with a list of the night's activities. I used my recently made glittered vase for the beautiful tulips! (
I wrote about that here) And then I sewed stars together in strands to decorate the branches on my table.
I also used the
honeycomb paper flowers to hang from the banister with Hannah's name, so it is the first thing people see when they walk through the door!
I usually can't set a table (in past parties there are just too many kids), but since we only had 8 I could make a place setting for each kid. I love that! So, I made a name tag and hung it on the chair. And then I set the table with coordinating place settings. I got the placemats at Party City. They are paper but I love the scalloped edges and I think you get like 50 for $4... love it! The come in a ton of colors too. I used my mason jars with my cute daisy lids. I love the cute paper straws that are all the rage, but they are paper and once a kid uses them they start to fall apart, so I opted for these and fun swirly straws I got at Michaels for a $1 for 6. Just as fun and cute and I can use them again :-)
So, here is what it all looked like. The other big thing I did was used fabric as a backdrop on other areas I decorate in my house. I used it throughout my decorations. I put strips of the fabric on the banister on my stairs... I love how the fabric makes it feels so pink and girly. I also used the fabric on the french doors going out to my yard.
Here is a close up of the fabric. I love the shades, textures and colors! Maybe I can use it in their bedroom somehow :-)
Some other details. I created another banner to go above my kitchen island and used tissue pom poms and more honeycomb paper flowers. I saw on interest the use of cereal and flowers. I loved it and thought I for sure have to do this. Since it was a pajama party, we had to have breakfast food for the party and the cereal in the vase was perfect for the theme!
For the menu we did a pancake bar with other goodies to go with it. For the pancake bar, we had sprinkles, marshmallows, mini chocolate chips, strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream and syrup.
We also had cereal, fruit kabobs, mini bacon and eggs, some mini pancakes (
I got the idea from here) and powered donuts.
I got the cute pink frames from the Dollar Spot at Target. They were perfect for my food labels!
And then there was the cake. I am not a cake person. I have not mastered cake making, cake decorating or cake tasting. I am not good at cakes. But I thought how hard could it be. Use a 9X13 cake and cut a section out for the pant legs. That can't be too hard. I wanted to cake to match the invitations, so that is what I went with. I could have been better, but like I said, I am not good with cakes, so I was just happy it was standing (with 2 layers) and the frosting wasn't running off the side of the cake. SUCCESS!
The party was set for 3 hours, but it could have easily gone 4-5 hours. I had three activities for the party.
1) decorate pillow cases (that is where all the time was spent)
The girls loves this. I made each girl a pillow case with there name on it. I got the pillowcases on ebay for like $2 a piece. I added ruffles to them using
this tutorial. Then I stenciled their names on it using Martha Stewart paint. Then I purchased tons of
Tulip fabric products (paint, markers, and stencils) for the actual decorating.
The girls loved this. They spent way more time on it then I thought. But I just let them go crazy and work on it as long as I could. They loved seeing each other's work and how the stencils would turn out once they took it off their pillowcase!
2) make sprinkle necklaces
I didn't get any pictures of this, but
I got the idea from here. She has all the links to products and how to! The only thing was since the party was at night, we didn't have daylight to cure/dry the necklaces, so I borrowed my friend's UV nail drying lamp and that worked perfectly!
3) play musical nails
I had all the girls sit in a circle and we passed around a AG dog from girl to girl while the music was playing. When the music stopped whoever was holding the dog got to pick a color of nail polish. I then painted one nail on each girl that color. Then we played again and when the music stopped and another girl was holding the dog, she got to pick another color and I painted all the girl's toe that one color and we kept going. We would have done all 10 or 20 digits, but we ran out of time, so I only did 5 nails and then we had to open presents. The girls had a fun time with this too!
4) watch an American Girl movie.
We were going to watch a movie, but I did this the last 10 minutes of the party as we waited for parents to arrive. It settled the girls down and they really liked the movie. My girls loved the movie! We had never watched one before and they LOVED IT! I got the dvd
here. 4 full-length AG movies for $11... that is a great deal! I am so glad I discovered these movies, they are wholesome, teach valuable lessons and the kids love them. WIN WIN!
So, that is it... whooo! It was a fun party to plan and to host for my little-big girl. I can't believe she is 9 now. She is so great and thoughtful! She kept telling me this is the best party every and thank you mom so much for throwing me this great party! That made all the hard work worth it. I love doing these fun parties for them, because they love that parties just as much and appreciate all the hard work (which is so nice :-)
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