Dress-up and Pretend Party: Part One

I started planning Molly's birthday party this summer. There's just so much going on around her birthday - being that it's Christmas Eve - that I find that if I don't work on it little by little, I will be terribly overwhelmed when it actually arrives. [Or at least that was the case last year, which is the only experience I have had until now.] I knew that we would have her party substantially early - it ended up being three weeks early - so that fewer people would be gone due to traveling. But aside from that, I had a few goals for the party:

1) Have it at our house. (Just because we can.)
2) Find a a way to ensure that the kids (and parents) wouldn't be too cramped in our house.
3) Make the party developmentally and age-appropriate.
4) Make it fun.
5) Avoid spending too much money and try to make a lot of things myself.

With those goals in mind, I decided to throw a Dress-up and Pretend Party. The basis of the idea was that David and I would get Molly a dress-up trunk and a few items for it for her birthday. The original plan was to then ask guests to bring an item to contribute to her dress-up collection. Though I ended up scrapping that idea (I didn't like the idea of telling people what to buy, or to buy anything at all), but I stuck with the dress-up theme.

When the only invitations I could find were more about tea parties than imagination, my (new!) brother-in-law was kind enough to whip  up some adorable invites, with very little input from me other than that I didn't want them to be too "girly."

With the invitations in hand, it was time to work on the rest of the party. For three or four months before the party, I was always on the look out for inexpensive items to add to Molly's dress-up trunk. I added items from the dollar bin at Target, a local consignment sale, and Halloween costumes that were deeply discounted on November 1. I also used the superhero cape Molly wore for Halloween. Then I found an adorable and cheap trunk on Craigslist, which I'm just realizing I don't have a picture of. Luckily, I still plan to paint it, so I'll show it to you when I get around to that.

With the dress-up trunk firmly in hand, I went to work on the treat bags. I didn't want to spend a lot, but I wanted to stick to the dress-up/pretend theme. That's when I went back to the superhero costume idea. I didn't have the time (or money) to make one like Molly's for everybody (we invited 16 kids - luckily only 8 came; it was a perfect number), but I remembered an easier cape I saw on Pinterest.

The Southern Institute made this easy and cute cape out of used t-shirts:

Then Naturally Chic Mama used the same kind of cape (though, actually, she was much more precise with hers) and added Superman letters to it:

I was very imprecise with these. I didn't worry about the sides being even or the bottom being straight. I knew the two-year-old recipients wouldn't notice, so I tried not to, too. I combined the cape with a few other things I picked up at the dollar bins of Party City and Michael's, to make a Dress-up Kit:

The treat bags are just simple craft bags from Michael's with a Post-It label I made adhered to it. The label also allowed me to leave a note to the parents, letting them know that they can/should trim the capes so that they're not too long for their kiddo. I didn't know how long each cape should be, so I just left them long, knowing the parents could trim them.

Oh, and boys got dinosaur finger puppets while girls got woven farm animal puppets, mostly because the dinosaurs were cheaper. Both were cute, though.

I also took this party as an opportunity to start traditions for Molly's future parties. One way I did that was by making a birthday wreath, seen here on Pinterest.

There's a good chance that, before next year, I will redo this in order to wrap the wreath with some simple white ribbon before pinning the balloons to it. Though it looks great from the front, you can see the back of the straw wreath through the other side of the door's window. It's not a big deal, but I'm a bit anal, so it'll probably get fixed.

I love this balloon wreath because, in the coming years, Molly will come to anticipate its arrival, knowing it means her birthday (or party, as the case may be). I paired it with a hastily-scrawled welcome note on a $2 chalkboard sign I got at Michael's.

Last but not least I made two flag banners. Because Molly's party was more about the theme than any specific colors, I used a general rainbow theme, with red as the focus. Basically, if it was striped with red in it, it was good to go.

Like the capes, I was willing to be sloppy with these. I got a yard of the fabric for $2 at Jo-Ann's and had more than enough. Basically, I just cut out a bunch of triangles, eyeballing the first one and then using it as a template for the rest. I then sewed two triangles together, right-sides facing, leaving the top open. I trimmed the edges, turned them right-side out, and ironed them flat. I then used red bias tape (hem tape would work even better, but I couldn't find it in this color), ironed flat and then ironed again, this time doubling it over. I basically just inserted the triangle "into" the bias tape, pinned it down, and then sewed a straight line down the bias tape. Super simple.

Like the wreath, I have plans to use these again and again. I love that they are measured to fit specific places in our house. It's thing like this that make me appreciate even more that this is our house.

I feel like this is already overly-wordy and I have a lot more to say, so I'm going to wrap up for now. Tomorrow I'll show you what everything looked like and how the party "worked." Spoiler alert: I was overwhelmingly pleased with it.