CinderEllie’s Royal Birthday Ball

Now that Ellie can choose, she was able to pick the theme of her third birthday party, and being the over planner that this mama is, we settled on a Cinderella theme about two months in advance. Not going to lie, there was some wavering moments of Mermaid Party in there, but it was mostly Cinderella every time I asked. And Ellie had such an amazing time at her birthday ball this year.

We always have a hard time deciding what to get Ellie for her birthday and about a week before she turned three, Brian came up with the idea that he wanted to put a big sandbox under the deck. So the day of her birthday, we all built her sandbox together, and even though I was partial to it, it has been a huge hit.

Brian wanted it to be big enough to fit a few of her friends. He is such a smart guy!

The Party Details

The invitation to the Royal Birthday Ball honoring CinderEllie. A friend of mine commented that this is what birthday invites look like when you have a mom that is a designer — it’s true.

And now that I sew, and after finding a simple pillow case dress on Pinterest, I had the desire to make her a party dress. Little did I know that organza type of material isn’t heavy enough to drape and the simple pillow case dress looked like a potato sack prior to saving it with an additional bow wrapped around the center. I followed this tutorial for making the dress.

This year we just did cake and ice cream so the center table was all that was decorated. The plates were blue ornate with silver napkins and a light blue plastic table cloth was dressed with a table runner that I made by gluing paper doilies together. The over-sized backdrop you see was courtesy of Auntie Sherri, who gets into the party planning just as much as I do, which is greatly appreciated.

Have a computer and a printer? Add some glue and some glitter and bibbidy bobbidy boo — you have a custom cake topper with a perfect fit to the cup cake stand we have used for every birthday so far.

These are the Cinderella cupcakes which were blue velvet with Kate’s famous frosting and “sparkles” on top — Ellie’s favorite part. We did a trial run when we were snowed in this year because I have never made a cake from scratch, let alone a red velvet cake, and they turned out great. Warning: these Cinderella cupcakes produce Cinderella poops. You can find the recipe for the cake here and you’ll have to bug Kate for her frosting recipe.

My cousin Ann highly recommended the tri-layer cupcakes as they were a huge hit at a recent tea party birthday she had hosted for her youngest daughter. And she was absolutely right! You start with your baking cups, I used the large ones, and fill them only a portion full, bake, cool and then freeze the cakes.  Then you soften your ice cream, pipe it on top of the cakes and then refreeze them. Add your frosting and keep them in the freezer until it is time for cake — and ice cream! With no need for scooping.

I had found these paper crowns, stickers and gems at the craft store for our “Design your own Crown” table. It was the perfect activity for all of the kiddos to do before cake and ice cream.

And since we were blessed with a June birthday, we make sure to utilize the sunshine and warmth and send the kids out to run and splash in the yard. This is three years in a row that we have had the slip-n-slide out. (Small reminder to Brian: you stored them in the cooler.)Again with the design skills, I was able to whip up this bag topper for the thank you bags that contained small crowns for the girls and mustaches for the boys, necklaces, small stamps and stamp pads, a Cinderella tattoo, and of course some kind of sticky, gooey, blue candy.

The Party Pictures

[flagallery gid=72 skin=lightgrey align=center name=’SL=Slide Show’]

It is amazing how fast our baby has turned into a little girl and I had so much fun with her helping me create her own party this year. The entire party was awesome and we would love to thank all that could make it to share it with us as well as all the great gifts Ellie received for her third birthday. We feel extremely blessed.