For my daughter's 4th birthday, we really wanted to make the day 'berry' special by doing a Strawberry Shortcake theme. We had red, pink & white balloons on the mailbox, along with a
posterboard strawberry we'd made. On the strawberry, we printed 'Today is Meredith's 4th Birthday!' AFter we got it all set up, we had Meredith come to the party with my parents, so the
decorations would be a surprise to her. She was dressed like Strawberry Shortcake in a striped shirt, jeans, brown shoes, red shirt tied at the waist, and the ssc hat. As guests entered, they
were welcomed by the smell of strawberry shortcake scented candles burning throughout the house, all the balloons a little girl could want, and a strawberry shaped cake, strawberry flavored
of course! This was an early party, 11:30am-1pm, so we also served hot dogs for lunch. For drinks, we had strawberry Kool-Aid, to reinforce our theme. AS guests waited for the others to
arrive, they were given a page from a SSC coloring book. We had set up a coloring table for the kids to each color a picture for the birthday girl, to put into a scrapbook we were compiling
of this special day. We had a friend with a nack for taking great pictures and asked him to take pics of all the festivities for the book as well. Once the party started, we moved the
activities outside. We had facial paint markers which a local artist used to paint each kids face with their choice of images. We have a trampoline with a safety net around it. This was
our 'strawberry patch'. We put a few pink & red balloons to bounce around with the kids as they jumped. For a party favor to the girls, we took little square baskets which resembled
those that strawberries are packaged in for supermarkets. They were 4 for $1 at a local dollar store. We took red rafia paper and put in the bottom. Then filled it with strawberry scented
Strawberry Shortcake stickers, SS shampoo, SS bracelet, and SS lip gloss necklace. Covered these with cellophane over the top to resemble the supermarket packaging, then rubber banded around
the outside. We then took red gingham ribbon, wrapped around the baskets to hide the rubber bands,
and tied simple bows. Next we took cardstock and made little strawberry shaped cards that read, 'Handpicked just for you... Love, Meredith'We secured this to the knot in the bow with a green wire tie. We continued the basket of strawberries theme on the inside dining table by filling one with weighted balloons and red raffia. There were 3 more outside on picnic tables. For the boys' party favors, we took simple brown paper sacks, filled with boy stuff, and punched holes in the folded sack, through which we strung the gingham ribbon and tied simple bows, as well. We had a strawberry shortcake movie playing for guests as they were waiting to be picked up. It was as exciting to me to plan this party as it was for the kids to be there... and best of all the birthday girl LOVED it!
