My daughter Emily is an aspiring ballerina and her 5th birthday was a ballerina bash! I found adorable ballerina invitations and they read: Come dance & twirl with the birthday girl!
It'll be "tu-tu" much fun. Curtain call is 2 p.m. So be on your toes! Ballet attire." I always decorate my door with wreaths to match the party theme. It is a nice welcome for guests and also signals the location. These were adorable: lots of pink tulle, pink ribbon and a ballerina doll on each one. All of the girls arrived in costume. (It was a sea of pink tu-tus!) When they arrived they received a tiara (that I found at the dollar store). They went into the backyard where I had set up two large white tents with pink ribbon and balloons attached to each corner...and the music from the Nutcracker Suite playing in the yard. The tables under each tent were draped with ballerina point shoe tablecloths and other ballet accessories from Party City. Under one tent the girls could color ballerina pictures. Under the other tent was the cookie decorating station: I baked ballet shoe sugar cookies and had icing and tons of sprinkles for them to decorate their own cookie. They decorated the cookie on a paper plate and when finished we wrote their name on the plate placed them inside to dry. When dry we packed them in a themed loot bag to take home. The ballerinas snacked on PB&J sandwiches that I made using both strawberry (because it is pink) and grape jelly and cut out into hearts an stars using cookie cutters. Another big snack hit was the chocolate fondue - using wooden skewers served in a pink bud vase the girls dipped strawberries, grapes, big marshmallows, pound cake, graham crackers and pretzels. Imagine....fondue makes a come-back!?! Then the show began...I had a young guest performer dance "on point" for all the girls who had been gathered round the "stage". This worked well - as we used my semi-circle shaped porch as the stage and had set the "audience chairs" in the yard. My daughter, the birthday girl, presented her with flowers and the rest of the party began dancing to the Nutcracker music. We served a beautiful white and pink cake topped with a ballerina sugar cookie and white chocolate covered strawberries. We served pink lemonade in plastic tea cups(and we kept it cool using an ice ring made from the lemonade, sliced lemons, strawberries and mint). I had pink flowers everywhere and used Ballerina Barbie in several centerpieces. After the little performance the girls lined up to have their name painted onto a ballerina tote bag (I found small "create your own tote" bags at Wal-Mart for $1.50 and my nieces painted little point shoes on them with paint pens prior to the party. We set them up in a big basket with flowers and tulle.) The girls took their final bows - loaded their tote bags with their tiaras and personally decorated sugar cookies and the curtain closed on Emily's 5th Birthday Party. Everyone wants to know if there will be an encore performance next year! We'll see what's next.....
