Princess PartyFor my daughter's fourth Birthday, we celebrated with a princess theme.    The invitations were made to fit in a standard size envelope.  A slipper cut from raindrop vellum was attached to a rectangular-shaped paper (elegant looking with a pink/cream design) by a cream-colored iridescent ribbon placed as a bow on the back of the slipper. This was glued onto a slightly larger solid pink cardstock.  The message read, You are invited to a Birthday party fit for a princess.  Please join ____ as she celebrates turning four. The party details were printed underneath the vellum. When the girls arrived, they were given a tiara which lighted when the heart in the center was pressed (local one dollar store) and a shiny bead necklace (4/$1 at the same store).    We alternated activities between a couple of crafts and a few games.  First, because every princess needs a mirror, we assembled small mirrors (Clik-It brand, 99 cents Christmas clearance) with hearts and flowers around the outside of the mirror. Next we played Pin the Jewels on the Crown, a variation of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, using acrylic stones which looked like jewels which I found at Wal-Mart. I made the crown from one side of a large metallic gold gift bag and pasted it on a half-sheet of white poster board.  Then each girl grabbed a hardcover book about a princess from my daughter's library and tried balancing it on her head to practice good Princess posture as they walked around the house for a few minutes.  After that, we headed back to the dining room where there were bowls of beads waiting to be strung into royal bracelets.  (I used stretch bead thread and pony beads found on sale at Hobby Lobby). Then we discussed the story The Princess and the Pea and the girls each left the room while a Koosh ball was placed under one of three pillows on the living room floor and they had to determine which pillow was covering the ball.  Of course, they all figured it out, and had great fun imagining that this qualified them as delicate enough to be a princess.   Refreshment time was fun.  Since princesses don't typically eat with paper plates, the girls sat at a nice table setting. Fresh flowers were the centered on a metallic patterned tablecloth; a gold star garland (Christmas clearance from the dollar store) was wrapped among the flowers and multiple pink votive candles.  We used our nice flatware and china plates, but we did use plastic goblets that I found after Valentines Day on clearance at Wal-Mart. They were translucent pink with a heart on the stem. The Birthday girl's chair was covered with light pink satin and draped with more of the gold star garland and some pink tulle bows.  The cake was shaped like a crown and decorated with candy jewels (jolly ranchers would be great for this, but we used M&Ms since we had some in the color-scheme we needed). Edible glitter would add a sparkly finish to this, or you could use sugar sprinkles.  The highlight of the table was a mint-chocolate chip ice cream castle.  I found the recipe in The Children's Party Handbook at our local library. Basically, you put a square half-gallon of ice cream in the center and cut another half-gallon into two rectangles to be stood up on each side (doesn't take the whole carton).  Centered on the side was a scoop of  ice cream with a chocolate-covered sugar ice cream cone upside down on top. Break up a milk chocolate candy bar into squares to decorate the castle with stones, battlements and the door with drawbridge.  The goody bags were pink tulle with pink ribbon handles.  They were filled with a makeup/nail polish/ring/stick-on earring set (another after Christmas clearance), princess fruit snacks, a candy bracelet, the mirror and bracelet that they crafted, the goblet from refreshments and of course, the tiara and necklace worn during the party.