A fancy 5th birthday party

This was the inspiration for Isabel's 5th birthday party (held yesterday):

It's a fabulous theme. Because, really, you can make anything fancy. And what girl doesn't like to be fancy now and then? It was loads of fun. Some of the recipes and games came from the book. It was the perfect guide.

I made Isabel a burned-edge fabric flower for the big day. These are my favorite; they are incredibly fun to make. You literally burn the edges of synthetic fabric with a candle or lighter, and it curls up.

We created a little photo spot via some pink leopard-print wrapping paper. And voila! The birthday girl in all her fancy pink glory-

I cut flower-shaped foam placemats for the girls to decorate with jewels and glitter glue (my dear friend Paula served as my trusty party hosting sidekick - thanks so much for the help!)

We used a pretty, sparkly butterfly wand as the magic wand in a game of fancy freeze tag, wherein the girls could freeze and unfreeze each other with a (gentle) touch of the magic wand. Much giggling ensued.

The fancy group taking a breather-
We played follow the hostess (basically do as I'm doing). Again, more giggling. It was tough to get some non-blurry pics, they were doing such fancy actions!

I made paper medallions (these are FUN!) and put some fancy French words on the wall. We had French class and learned to say some French words, in a Fancy fashion of course.

For lunch, we served crepes with Nutella, fruit kebobs with Mademoiselle Howell's Fancy Honey Dip, flower-shaped jelly and PB&J sandwiches, and orange fizaroo drinks (OJ, sparkling water and orange sherbet)-

After lunch we read Fancy Nancy Tea Parties, and then opened presents. What a haul! The gift theme definitely ran along the pink and art supply lines (notebooks, markers, colored pencils, stencils, stickers, easel, chalkboard), sprinkled with makeup, jewelry, a tea set, Cinderella play set, Barbie and Strawberry shortcake DVDs, Puppy in my Pocket set, purple pony, puzzles, cute bags, a super cute Halloween shirt and spiderweb hairbow, and books. Each gift has been well loved!

The cake was the one debacle of the day. As I inverted it, half of the cake stuck to the pan badly and basically was obliterated. It broke into about a million pieces. And so, subsequently, did I. I had a near meltdown, then recovered and sent Brian to the store in search of a fancy cake. He came home with a blue cake with balloons on it...(?). First time I've ever done a store-bought cake. I was disappointed, I had plans for a fun cake, but it turned out fine. :)

For goody bags for all the fancy party attendees, I gave them pink sparkly glitter pencils and princess Silly Bandz-












and a cupcake necklace; I made these cupcake charms (idea from my friend Monique), and made them into necklaces. Super fun!

And they each got to pick a lollipop and scoop of gumballs from the lollipop bouquet-

I took a picture of Isabel with each of her friends in our fancy photo spot. I am going to print each picture to send to each girl with their thank you. In the invitation, I had asked each girl to come dressed fancy; it was so much fun to see the different ways the girls chose to be fancy. They are all so cute I had to post them all. Seeing her next to all her friends is a blatant reminder of how stinkin' small she is. What do you do?

Ooh-la-la! What a soiree!