Gwen's Birthday Party

A couple weeks ago Gwen had a birthday party with all her Primary friends and her cousins. She decided that this year she wanted a Princess and the Frog birthday party, so Rob and I did a lot to prepare for it and make it look special. Unfortunately, I got so caught up in finishing things up that morning that I didn't really take too many pictures of the decorations...you will have to use your imagination when you get down to the pictures of what I used to decorate. I was so busy with the party that I didn't get any pictures of the things we did during the party. So I'll just describe it all.

When the kids first got there I had them all decorate their own aprons, because Tiana likes to cook so I thought aprons and make your own pizzas would be a good idea. Unfortunately, the aprons took so long to dry (the kit came with squeezable, glittery puff paint pens instead of regular paint pens like I thought it would) that we didn't use them when we made the individual pizzas. The kids still had a really fun time making pizzas without the aprons.

After we made the aprons we played games. We played pin the tounge on the frog, musical lily pads, and had a frog shaped pinata. The kids loved the games (every one got a prize, no matter who won), and they loved hitting the pinata. It took Gwen's Papa (my dad) to break open the pinata in the end though.

After the pinata we ate pizza, opened presents, and had cupcakes. Gwen got some really nice presents-a necklace, dora playdough, a my little pony, a make your own jewelry kit, and a decorate your own jewelry box kit. Gwen has loved everything she's gotten!

Gwen opening presents with her friends and cousins surrounding her to see what she got (and playing with the balloons at the same time).




Gwen couldn't wait to open each and every present, so present time went fast. All the kids had fun watching and waiting to see what each present was.

These were the cupcakes. They were supposed to look like frogs with crowns. I got the idea off of Disney's website when I googled for ideas for a Princess and the Frog party. The mouth is a green jelly fruit with white icing for the smile, the eyes are a big green gumdrop cut in half with a chocolate chip stuck through a marshmallow into the gumdrop (and please, if anyone likes jelly fruit gummies or gumdrops, I had to buy a bunch of bags to get enough green ones for the cupcakes...so please come eat them because I think they are gross). The crown is a yellow starburst cut up and stuck on a toothpick. Just used some vanilla frosting and food coloring to make the green frosting to go along with the frog theme.

So there was a method to my madness when it came to the decorations. The entry way was decorated to look like New Orleans in the middle of Mardi Gras (since Mardi Gras happens during the movie) and these are part of the decorations. I hung streamers that were black, purple and green from the entry ways into my parents dining room and living room, pretending that they were the entrances to the Shadow Man's voodoo shops.

I made the lanterns from black poster board and yellow tissue paper, to make street lamps. I finally broke out the cricut I got for Christmas and used it to make letters for the street signs (Orleans, St. Charles, Canal, etc.). I had planned on putting a smaller part of the sign (like they have in the movie, and even some pictures online had them) on top of this street sign that said Rue Orleans, or Rue Canal, etc.) but I couldn't get it to work, so I left those out.

This is one of the signs I made and set outside the entrances to the dining room and the living room for the shadow man's voodoo shop.

This is the other sign I made. I based them off of the sign that you see at the beginning of the Princess and the Frog movie.

I decorated the front entry with Mardi Gras masks-stuck some on the stair banister, on the street signs of the lamp posts, and just on the wall.

I put Mardi Gras beads all over the place-some on the floor by the voodoo signs, some on the table, and just where ever I thought it looked good.

So these are all the decorations that I used to decorate the family room to look like the bayou. I wish I had taken a picture, cause it would've been so much easier to show/explain it-oh well.

Robbie helped me make these tissue paper flowers to look like lily pad flowers that we put in different places all over the room-on drawer handles for couch side tables, on handles for the big cabinet they have in that room with all their geneology stuff in it, above the fireplace-anywhere that I could wrap the pipecleaner around-even on the arm of the rocking chair.

I spent a long time on these. They are supposed to be fireflys, and they were supposed to hang from the end of the balloons, like they were flying all over the bayou, but they were too heavy (even as just a plain styrofoam ball they were too heavy). I painted small styrofoam balls, then used some craft brads as the faces and super glued the google eyes on. I sprinkled glitter on the styrofoam balls while they were still wet with paint, and I cut the pipe cleaners into small sizes for the long legs they have in the movie. I also used my cricut to cut out heart shapes to make the wings, which we super glued on. Then we just placed the fireflys all around the room-on the tables, on the windowsills, and on the fireplace mantel. Gwen wanted so badly to have fireflies there that this was a priority.

These stars we hung up side by side on the middle window in the family room (there's three windows in there, all right next to each other). They were there to represent Evangeline the star that Ray is in love with during the whole movie, and the smaller one represented Ray the Firefly after he had died and joined Evangeline as a star in the sky.

I hung this fishing net between the big geneology cabinet in the corner of the room and the edge of the couch, making it stretch out to reach the coffee table that I had moved back into that corner so the kids wouldn't hurt themselves on it while running around and playing games.

I made the water out of blue poster board, and just taped it up around the base of the walls and sometimes the base of the couch, table, chair, etc., to make it look like we were in water in the bayou.

I put the crocodile in front of the rocking chair in the room (in between strips of posterboard water). There are crocodiles in the movie that try to eat Tiana and Naveen right after they become frogs, but there's also a crocodile in the movie that they become friends with named Louis and Gwen made sure to tell me that this crocodile had to be Louis.

These are the lily pads that I made with green poster board for the musical lily pad game. Robbie and I both think though that they look more like green pac mans. Oh well...I tried.

I found this at a party supply store. It was with all the Princess party stuff. It's actually supposed to be a pin the kiss on the frog game, but seeing as we had two boys at the party, I had to do something different. So I made a bunch of tounges out of pink construction paper, and me and my sister curled them around pencils to make them look like frog tounges.

I didn't get a picture of the pinata, but we bought two of these balloons and had them tied up in different corners of the room.

We actually bought one of those fill them yourself helium kits at Walmart because my plan (mwah ha ha ha ha) included filling as many green balloons as I could and have them floating on the ceiling so that it would look like we were under a canopy of green leaves in the bayou. We definately didn't have enough helium to fill all the balloons, or to cover the entire ceiling, but we had enough to make it look like we were under a bunch of trees in the bayou.

These are the girls aprons that they made at the party. I was not only disappointed with the pens that came with this kit, because it was really hard for the kids to squeeze the tubes and decorate at the same time, but there were only three colors in the kit-red, yellow, and light blue. And...there were only two or three blue aprons, making the rest of them yellow or blue. I had thought that they were advertised as having purple and dark blue as well, but maybe not. Anyways, it was a bit disappointing. I saved all the decorations though (minus the used balloons) so that if any of the girls ever decide to have a Princess and the Frog party again, I can use the same decorations and I know better when it comes to the aprons.

All in all though, the party went fantastically, the kids all had so much fun, and most importantly Gwen was so happy to spend a day with her friends and cousins, having fun and celebrating her birthday.