We’re only a little over a month away from Sophie’s birthday and it’s time to start thinking about party planning! Last year, her party was pretty involved. And as fun as it was, I’m looking forward to something a little simpler this year. She started taking tap and ballet at Ella’s studio in August and it is her new favorite thing. Since she is so into dance this year, it just seemed natural to throw her a ballet inspired fete. This will be our first official “friends only” party, so we’ll be having our family over for cupcakes on her actual birthday. This party will be for a few of her best girl friends and on a much smaller scale than in previous years.
Let’s start with inspiration… I bought these cupcake liners on a whim. OVER A YEAR AGO. I had seen these exact kits at a local bakery for more than $20 each and loved them. Every single kit by Meri Go Round is adorable. When I found these on clearance at Homegoods for $7.99, I couldn’t resist. I grabbed two of them and put them in our party drawer for another day. Once Sophie fell in love with dance and I remembered that you could rent the studio and a ballerina for parties, I was sold. And thankfully, so was Taz. I’m thinking we’ll make white cupcakes with white icing and pretty sparkly sprinkles. We can use the green tiered cupcake stands from last year to serve them up. How cute, right?
Next up were the invitations. Of course, that’s always my favorite part! I bought this ballerina clip art set from PrettyGrafik Designs on etsy. They are my favorite go-to for designs that I can use in Illustrator and Photoshop and since they are vector files, I can tweak and modify them as I need to. Most of the time I illustrate everything myself, but when I can grab something for a couple of dollars that would take me a couple of hours to create, it makes it so much quicker to pull everything together! This illustration doubled as our Valentine’s treats, too, and I’m planning to use them for party favors and maybe for end-of-the-year treats for our dance friends. Three cheers for multi-tasking artwork!
Since this is going to be a small party, I can be a little more generous with our party favors. I generally try to spend only a few dollars per child and we do some sort of snack or inexpensive activity. Since many of the girls we’re inviting don’t take dance, we want to make sure everyone has a pretty tutu to wear! Halo Heaven has a great assortment of ballet skirts for a few dollars apiece. They ship for free on orders over $30 and there is almost always a coupon code to help your bottom line. We’ll add a sweet treat and call it a day.
I’ve been dying to make these ballet shoe cookies from store-bought Nutter Butter cookies since I saw them on a blog years ago. How cute are they?!
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And I love everything about this simple, but beautiful, party set up. I love the pink lemonade and assortment of cookies and flowers. Since the party will be at the studio, there won’t be much to decorate. I’m thinking one pretty table full of sweet treats and skirted with pink tulle will be just perfect!
HOW is my baby girl almost four already? She’s been talking about this party for months and I’m just trying to put the brakes on her growing up. Any inspiring parties you’ve seen on the web lately? What about ideas for this one? I’m planning to start a Pinterest board this weekend and start loading up on cute ideas!
