PRINCESSES AND KNIGHTS PARTY 4 years old My twin daughters recently had this party for the fourth birthday.
Here's what we did: INVITATIONS: I handmade them on cardstock with a picture of my daughters dressed up in their Cinderella costumes with the wording "Our Little Princesses are Having a Royal Bash". I scanned in two princesses and a knight from scrapbooking die cuts and printed everything up on the computer with very formal wording … Princess Annemarie and Princess Kathryn request the pleasure of your company at their Royal Princesses and Knights Celebration … then wrote out the party details all spelled out (i.e. two thousand and three at two o'clock in the afternoon). I requested a RSVP to Queen Sylvia for a few days before the party. I tied pink ribbon inside the binding of the invitation, and sent them out with the princess or knight images on the envelopes, addressed to "Princess (or Sir) [FirstName] of the [LastName] Castle, address, etc. I received lots of compliments on the invitation. PARTY PLANS: We rented a castle moonwalk for the main party attraction. We bought printed corrugated cardboard that looked like bricks and cut panels to look like the top of a castle and attached it to our front gate with a sign that said "Welcome to the Royal Bash". We had a red plastic tablecloth on the ground in the gate entrance to look like the red carpet. We had pink and purple balloons tied in an arch over the gate entrance, with two silver star balloons as well. We had the girls play "Pin the Kiss on the Frog" – my mom drew a frog prince on posterboard, the girls had a pair of craft foam lips (bought around Valentine's Day at Hobby Lobby) – the rest of the game is pretty standard. The winner won a gift bag of a Play-Doh container with Cinderella on the top, and the consolation prizes for the rest of the girls were the small play-dohs that come in a party pack that we fixed up with tulle circles (bought 20 in a pack at the dollar store) and silver curly ribbon. At the same time the girls were playing their game, the boys got to play a jousting game. We took stick horses and pool noodles and had two boys at a time run at each other trying to knock each other off their horses and then running past the finish line. The winner won a knights Imaginext (sp?) set and the consolation prizes were the same small play-dohs as the girls. Both games were quite a hit – some of the boys went back for more after the game. We also played "Slay the Dragon" (translation: piñata) which was Penelope from Barbie Rapunzel. We took the piñata stick and tore all the paper off of it and spray painted it silver to look like a sword. After the games, we did cake and presents. FOOD: We had crackers with ham and turkey with cheese, mini pigs in a blanket, veggies with dip, goldfish for the kids, and cinnamon graham sticks with a dip. We served pink lemonade in clear plastic champagne glasses for the kids (this was a big hit), and we had drinks in plastic tubs for the adults. We served everything on clear plates with pink and purple napkins. CAKE: We basically did a wedding type cake for each girl, with a silver tiara at the top with pink and purple silk flowers. We made the cakes four layers each since we had so many kids at the party (somewhere around 25). Each of my girls got the top layer of their cake to dig into by themselves. While the guests were eating cake, the girls opened their gifts. PARTY FAVORS: For the girls, I made teddy bear septors. I bought the 77 cents bears at Hobby Lobby, and made little pink or purple skirts for them out of felt (just cut circles with another circle in the middle for the body). We took silver pipe cleaners and made little tiaras for them. I spray painted dowels silver and hot glued the bears onto the dowels, and then made them pretty with silver curly ribbon. The girls seemed to like them. They also received dress-up earrings I bought at the dollar store, a few gold plastic coins, a princess sticker, a paper crown and "pixie dust" (pixie sticks) candy. We also made pink, purple and white necklaces with their names on them we made from pony beads I bought on sale at Hobby Lobby. We put all these things in a silver bag and made them pretty with pink, purple and silver curly ribbon. The boys' bags were beige and blue, and they received knights stickers, the pixie sticks, the coins, the paper crowns and glow in the dark yo-yos. They also got plastic swords we bought at the dollar store (made for bubble play) and spray painted silver to look more regal. GENERAL COMMENTS: Yes, most definitely I went overboard this year, but it was fun. I had the help of my mom for the last few weeks before the party, and I had been planning these ideas for some time. A lot of work went into the crafts, but most of the spray painting was easy because I just put a tarp on my deck and would spray paint a lot of things in about 5-10 minutes and leave it out there and come back to it later. I did spend some money on this party too, (don't ask me how much … I don't want to know), but I was able to find mostly everything at the dollar store or on sale somewhere. ANOTHER HELPFUL HINT: Enlist some help for picture taking and cake serving. This was a huge help because I had one friend cover certain things for pictures (i.e. family, neighborhood friends, one of the games) and another friend cover other types of pictures (the other game, friends from preschool and our MOMS Club). I didn't have to worry about it and the pictures came out great. It was also great to have help serving the cake because I had to help my girls with their gifts at that time, so two of my girlfriends pitched in. All in all, it was a great party. Now for my son's 2 year birthday party in December …
