Rapunzel Princess Birthday Party

Like many little girls, my daughter loves princesses, and especially Rapunzel as of late.  (I am sure the movie Tangled has nothing to do with it! Wink, wink!)

Over the summer, she went to a couple of birthday parties where a princess came to the party to entertain and sing to the girls.  My daughter absolutely loved it.

So, a couple of months ago when I saw a great deal on PlumDistrict.com for a princess tea party, I immediately gobbled up the deal.  Creative Arts and Parties for Kids is a Los Angeles and Orange County based party company that offers a wide variety of characters to make your party special.  And what I loved about the Plum District deal was that it included a tea party with the princess of your choice.  It really doesn't get cuter than little girls dressed up as princesses sipping tea (a.k.a. lemonade) and eating tea sandwiches - with Rapunzel, no less!

Up until about a week before the party, I figured I wouldn't decorate much for the party because Rapunzel would be bringing the tea set and the girls would just remain captivated to whatever she did.  But then I saw the cutest and relatively easy to re-create ideas on TinyOranges.com for a Rapunzel party.  So I had to attempt it, right? 

With some purple felt and yellow craft paint from Michaels, the kids, grandma and I got to work on creating the kingdom flags from the movie.  This was actually a fun project that the kids helped create.

While creating a golden sun stencil from the movie required a bit of patience, once the stencil was ready, the painting was really fun, especially for the kids.

Then there was the all-important braid of golden hair.

I used yellow yarn that I also found at Michaels and decided I wanted the braid to be long - 14 feet long to be exact.  Grandma helped me out with putting this one together, too.  She and our staircase baluster kept hold of the yarn while I continued to loop "strands" of hair for the braid.

I will warn you, this braid project did take a little over 2 hours for me.  But I do feel like it was well worth it and such a cute detail for the party.  Not to mention, I loved the idea of re-purposing the braid as a hair bow and clip holder as well as a decoration for my daughter's room.

(Oh, and thank goodness Grandma was in town to help with all these little details!)

Of course, there was my favorite part of the party - the treats!

The dessert menu:

• I found darling princess molds to make chocolate covered pretzel sticks. 
• Chocolate dipped Oreos (with purple chocolate!)
• The best frosted sugar cookies (recipe from HWTM.com)
• Pink cupcakes with purple frosting and purple cupcakes with pink frosting (a request from the birthday girl)

I love me some sweets!

As each girl arrived she was given a sparkly tiara to wear (dollar bin from Target) and directed over to the activity table to color her wanted poster of Flynn Rider.

I figured coloring would be a perfect activity as we waited for all the guests and Rapunzel to arrive.

Once Rapunzel did arrive, she sang with the girls, took pictures with them, played games and them gave them etiquette lessons on having a tea party.  (As much lessons as 3-5 year olds can handle!) 

Then it was on to cupcakes and treats, face-painting, and before we knew it, it was time for Rapunzel to head back to her kingdom and Flynn Rider.  Before she left, Rapunzel even had the girls sign a birthday poster with their hand prints, which was yet another activity for the girls to do while others were getting their faces or hands/arms painted. 

Our Rapunzel from Creative Arts and Parties for kids was great.  The girls were captivated by her, and most important to this mom, they listened to her!  Instead of orchestrating everything for the party during the party, I really got to be an observer, which was sooo nice! 

Luckily, I have a few months until I have to start planning my son's birthday party.  Mad scientist, anyone???