The Perfectly Simple Menu

Planning the menu can be the most stressful part of the party. You want to serve beautiful, yummy food, but kids can be hesitant to try new things. Here are a few fun ideas that are sure to please.

Jesica Medellin shared a simple, yet deliciously darling idea for food at your next girly party. At their party they used pink and purple bread, (she got hers at Wangsgards), to make peanut butter and jam sandwiches. She then used a flower shape cookie cutter to cut out a flower shaped sandwich. We love it. Cute, simple and tasty!

I've recently discovered that my daughters love eating off skewers, and we couldn't think of a better way to round out your menu than with a fresh fruit skewer. Fill the skewers with fun, colorful fruit like strawberries and grapes, and place them in the fridge before the party. If you have cut fruit that will brown you may want to drizzle the pieces with lemon juice to keep them fresh. Serve with a spoonful of your favorite fruit dip and there won't be any leftovers.

Looking for a cool way to dress up your drink? Ice trays now come shaped like butterflies, flowers and stars, and you can find them online or at your local craft and cooking stores. Mix some pink or red kool-aid and pour it into a shaped ice tray. When you are ready for drinks poor a clear soda or punch into a clear cup and place the ice cubes in right before serving. It will be the talk of the party.

Hair fit for a Princess

After the dress, what makes you feel more like a princess than the right hairdo? This fun party is for the creative girl who loves cute hair.

Activity:
Each of the girls will get to create a collection of hair accessories and get a hair makeover. At a paper covered table set an assortment of silk flowers, plastic gems, beads and buttons. Allow the girls to take apart the flowers. Make sure that they remove the funnel shaped brace on the back of each flower so that they can separate the layers of petals. Now the fun part! Let the girls mix and match various colors and sizes of petals to create their own unique flower. They can then choose a gem, bead or button to fit in the middle of their new flower. When the girls have completed their flowers they can take them to an adult with a hot glue gun to have each of the layers and the center glued together and then attached to a hair clip. A bit of advice... if you have very many girls you may want more than one adult with a glue gun. Once they realize how fun it is they produce clips quickly. Have a paper plate or a card with each girls name written on it for them to place their drying clips on so that they aren't misplaced.
While the girls are making their hair clips you can take one girl at a time to the princess salon chair to have a princess hair makeover. Leave a spot for one of their new clips when it is dry.
Have a gift bag ready for the girls to place their remaining clips in to take home.

Prep:
You will need a variety of silk flowers. Choose flowers like daisies that have soft petals that will flatten out. Choose a variety of colors and sizes for the girls to choose from. The flowers, plastic gems, beads and buttons can often be found at a dollar store. If your local dollar store doesn't have what you need the craft store will, and you will need to go there to find the hair clips. Make sure you have one or more glue guns on hand and extra glue sticks. You may also need bobby pins and small plastic elastics for the hair makeovers.

You'll need extra help for this party, but it will be worth it. Girls of all ages love this activity, and when the guests are gone you may find yourself at the table making flowers too!

Princess Theme Halloween Party

Pumpkins and Princesses have a history. Just think about poor Cinderella who never would have made it to her Happily Ever After without one. So if your princess has an October birthday, here are some ideas for her pumpkin'd out party.

Activities:
Cinderella's Royal Pumpkin Coach - Create 1 large or individual pumpkin coaches for Cinderella to ride in to the palace. If you don't want to use real pumpkins use sugar cookies and frosting instead of pumpkins and other supplies.
Make a Pumpkin Princess - Jack-o-lanterns don't have to be scary. Dress up and turn your pumpkin into a beautiful princess.

Prep:
Cinderella's Royal Pumpkin Coach - For whatever size coach you decide on choose a larger pumpkin for the carriage, and 4 smaller pumpkins for the wheels. Place them on a piece of cardboard for assembly and decoration. You will probably want to use hot glue to attach the wheels if you are using mini pumpkins, but if you want something more authentic get some wooden dowels from a craft or home improvement store. You will want to drill a hole in the large and small pumpkins, insert the dowel and attach. Next you can use ribbons, glitter, sequins, gems or anything else that you can think of to make your coach beautiful.

Princess Pumpkin - You will want a pumpkin per girl, but they can be smallish. Use corn stocks, yarn, or twine for the hair, and include some ribbon for bows. Tiaras would be an extra bonus. If you want to dress them up just pick up some tulle or other princessy material from a fabric store. If you sew you can stitch some elastic to the tulle to make fabric skirts for the pumpkins. If not, get creative with hot glue. You could paint, use colored markers, glitter, or even a touch of makeup for the faces. Stick on earrings could be fun or other jewelry.

Extras:
Be careful with hot glue and kids. They don't always remember that it's hot. Make sure you have paper or cardboard underneath the working area so you don't have a problem cleaning up after.

Tea Party Etiquette

You should have good manners all the time and a tea party is no different. Follow proper etiquette in the Emily Post-school of dining by being a gracious host and a polite guest. For a tea party, you'll need to know how to navigate a table setting, properly interact with other ladies and daintily drink your tea. And always ask the host if she needs any help.

Follow Proper Etiquette Skills

Step 1:
Know how to understand a table setting. The dinner plate is always in the middle, with two forks to the left of it and a knife and two spoons to the right. You work from the outside in for each course.

Step 2:
Place the tea cup to the top right of the plate above the knives and spoons. Other dishes are on the table based on what is being served. In the case of a tea party, the main dish is used for sandwiches and breads and a smaller dish, set to the left, is for desserts.

Step 3:
Make use of your napkin. Proper etiquette is to place it on your lap unfolded before you start eating.

Step 4:
Dispose of tea bags properly. If the tea is not already brewed in a pot and you are using a tea bag, never discard it on the table. A good hostess will provide you with a little dish.

Step 5:
Be considerate if the tea party has a serving table set up. It is customary to wait your turn and not reach in front of or over other guests. If something needs replenishing, discretely inform the hostess or server.

Step 6:
Refer to the text "Emily Post's Entertaining" by Peggy Post for guidance in hosting a tea party or attending one (see Resources below). Post offers advice for properly introducing someone whose name you can't remember and how to serve tea correctly.

Step 7:
Follow correct etiquette while mingling. Make good eye contact and listen to others when they speak to you. Never interrupt a person in mid-sentence. Be a good conversationalist and not too quiet. If a lull in the conversation arises, bring up a subject or compliment what someone is wearing.

The Princess Adventure Relay Race

Activity:
Place pink and purple ribbons on a table for the girls to choose from as they come in. You will need the exact number of ribbons as girls and evenly divided pink and purple. When the girls arrive tie their chosen ribbon around their wrist like a bracelet, and the color they chose determines their team.
The girls will line up in their teams behind a starting line, and you will place their dress ups on a chair some distance away. When you say, “Start,” the first girl in each team races to their dress ups and puts them on over her clothes as quickly as possible. Then they have to complete a quest (take an item from the dress up table to another place) before they can take the dress off and return to let the next princess go. The first team to have all of the girls finish or, if you have uneven numbers, to finish an equal number of quest items wins.

Quest ideas:
Snow White: Fill a basket with apples for Snow White's pie.
Cinderella: Help Cinderella put away her cleaning supplies so she will be ready to go to the ball.
Belle: Help Belle put her books back in the library.
Sleeping Beauty: Rescue forest (toy) animals by taking them somewhere safe.

Prep:
You will need a princess dress and a collection of other dress up items, such as tiaras, jewelry, heels, purses, boas, ect., for each team. You can use items you already have, or we recommend our wrap dresses for this activity. These dresses come in pink, purple and blue, and you will love them because they are easy to put on, they fit on top of your regular clothes and they are only $7.99. You will also need items for the quest. You will want an item for each girl, or if you have an odd number of attendees an even number for each team.

The Princess Treasure Hunt

Have you played the game, Pretty Pretty Princess, by Hasbro? It's a cute game and it gave us an idea.

The story: A thief has come to all of the Castles in the Kingdom and stolen all of the princesses jewels. They have nothing to wear to the royal banquet this evening, but there are clues left behind. The princesses must all work together if they want to find their missing jewelry.

Activity: There are bracelets, rings, necklaces, tiaras, gloves, slippers, dresses ect., hidden in secret locations. At each spot is a piece of jewelry for each princess and a clue to the next location. They go from location to location collecting pieces of jewelry. At the end they are ready to attend the banquet of Birthday Cake or whatever the refreshment of choice is.

Prep: You will need guests to RSVP so you know how many pieces of jewelry you'll need. Find an assortment of princess accessories and jewels and place them in secret locations, difficulty dependent on age. From there it's a standard treasure hunt. Make clues and hide the clue for the next location with each jewel stash. Keep the fist clue to start the hunt.

Extras: You can have extra special jewels for the birthday girl.
Everything in one color can be boring, but keep in mind that some colors may not be as popular. If you are going to have different colors have them pre-assigned so there isn't a debate at every stash.

The Fairy Party

Does your daughter believe in fairies? Make sure you bring her wings to this party!

Invitations:
Create your own invitation with glitter or flowers. Buy the colored glitter in tubs from your local craft store and design delicate flower and wing patterns on the front of your card.
Find small flowers at a craft store and remove them from the stem. Glue the Flower onto the front of your invite. You could also accessorize with ribbon.

Activities:
Face painting with soft, glittery colors and delicate patterns can be perfectly pixie-like.
A little fairy would love a hair makeover with ribbons and flowers included.
Flower tiaras are an essential fairy accessory and can double as a party favor. Make the tiaras with silk or real flowers for your activity and let each fairy take hers home.
Everyone knows fairies love flowers so let her paint or decorate a little pot and plant a flower seed or bulb to take home.

Prep:
The face painting activity will require paints, brushes and glitter. You will want to make sure that you have enough people to help so that someone is taking care of the girls that are not having their faces done. For some instruction on face painting and ideas on designs click this link http://www.ehow.com/how_2192538_paint-fairy-princess-face.html.
Hair makeovers will require bejeweled or flowered hair pieces. Real flowers can even be twisted and placed in hair.
Flower tiaras are ageless and girlish. For an easy level craft use pipe cleaners for the base and to twist the silk flower stems into the circle. If that will be to complicated for your age group use hot glue. Ribbon is a great accent. For a more difficult project or real flowers you will want florist wire and tape. Here is a link to some instructions for the more complicated project. http://www.ehow.com/how_6217302_make-flower-tiaras.html
Look for plain 2-4" flower pots for less than $1 at your local home improvement or craft store. For something more unique search local thrift or garden stores. You will also need a supply of paints, brushes, stencils, glitter, stickers, jewels and glue. Have the dirt to fill the pot pre-measured in little bags or cups to prevent mess and choose flower seeds or bulbs that are hardy and will bloom indoors. Include a little instruction card so the parents will know how to take care of the flower.

Extras:
Don't forget to mention in your invite if the guests should dress up. Make sure you have something to protect the working surface and the guests clothing, and remember that they will have the most fun doing it themselves even if the end result isn't perfect. Try out some of the more difficult projects in advance to make sure you know how to do it before the big moment. For dessert keep it light with fruits and sorbet.