Fancy!

I think I would enjoy being a party planner. Except for that whole part about meeting the demands of other people. So I'll just stick with planning my own parties for now.

I went a little crazy preparing for Amelia's 4th birthday. She decided on a Fancy Nancy party quite awhile ago and I immediately started scheming. We settled on a "butterfly garden party" theme, based on the book "Bonjour, Butterfly." Even though we were rained out and my backyard decorations had to be abandoned, the party was a huge success. I had fun planning it with Amelia and all the girls had fun being Fancy.

The Invitation


I found some Fancy Nancy images online and then used Photoshop to manipulate the word Nancy and change it to Amelia so the invitation would resemble the book cover.

The Decorations


This party definitely called for the Martha Stewart pom-poms. Instructions can be found here. These are very easy and cheap to make. It calls for 20x30 tissue paper, which I had a hard time finding. I found some really cute colors and patterns at Target that were pretty close to those dimensions and they worked well. I stacked them 10 thick.


I scored some paper lanterns at the dollar store that happened to be butterfly-themed. We strung those up across the backyard.


We ordered some 3D cardboard butterflies from Oriental Trading and Amelia and I had fun one night decorating them.

The Activities


All the girls decorated butterfly wings to wear. I found some great poster board at Michaels that was purple on one side and blue on the other. I cut out a butterfly shape on each piece and then punched out two holes in the top center and 2 in the bottom center and strung elastic string through them so they could be worn like a backpack.


They also decorated little bags to use for a butterfly hunt and then they each made a wooden butterfly necklace (from a kit found at Michaels).

The Food




PB&J sandwiches and ham & cheese sandwiches and our favorite fancy French lemonade from Trader Joes.


Lemon scones, shaped as butterflies of course.


Fruit kabobs.

The Cake


In addition to cake and cupcakes, I couldn't resist making more cupcake pops.


I "drew" butterfly wings on wax paper using melted chocolate and then after they had hardened, I put them on the cupcakes. And nothing says fancy like paper doilies! Go here for instructions on making the chocolate butterflies. I used candy melts instead of semi-sweet chocolate.


My first attempt at a four-layer cake. I took the easy way out and decorated it with fake flowers and butterflies from Michaels.

The Favors


Each of the girls got to take home a potted flower. I spray painted small terracotta pots with silver glitter paint and then found some butterfly ribbon to put around the top.