My daughter has a January birthday which is smack dab in the middle of our harsh Manitoba winter. So, when we decided to do a “spring theme” for her 6th birthday party, it was much more about creating optimism in the middle of a cold winter than actually about celebrating the onset of spring. Having said that, it was a really fun party to plan and pull together.

Invitations:

I made this invitation long before I was into card making, so it was done on the computer using a really cute “spring/flower” font and some free clip art. I tried to find the one I used, but can’t find it. If you go to dafont or font space you will be able to find something adorable to work with the theme. I actually tried to make the invitation Rebus style by embedding both a butterfly and a bee into the text. (I had a total mind cramp trying to remember the word Rebus for this post and it almost drove me mad!) The photos below are taken of the extra invitation I printed for Eden’s scrapbook. Sometimes when I did this, I would shrink the original so that I could fit it into my layout. These aren’t the best pictures, but it gives you an idea. I made the invitation post card style, so the two photos represent each side of it.

Decorations:

I can’t say that the decorations for this party were anything too fabulous. I painted our “picture window” in our dining room with a spring theme and had made some grass/flowers along the half walls between the living room and the dining room. I also painted black stripes on yellow balloons and then attached antennae and yellow cellophane wings. I also hung up several hand painted butterflies that I had kept from Eden’s second birthday party. To add to the theme, the birthday girl was also dressed up like a butterfly!

Decorated half walls. You can actually see the loot baskets with handmade flower cookies peeking out above the grass.

Painted window

Activities and Games:

It is funny how each party has its highlight. Sometimes it is the decorations, other times it’s the cake, but for this party I thought the activities were the big hit. I can’t take credit for most of these ideas as I know I would have relied on party planning sites to get me started. Here are some of the fun things we did:

Butterfly Bowling ~ I filled 6 empty water bottles with tap water and food colouring to make them nice and bright. I then secured tissue paper “wings to them” and they became the bowling pins.
Pin the Spot on the Lady Bug ~ I made a large poster board sized lady bug on red tag board. The kids were blind folded and given an open Oreo half (with the icing). Their job was to lick the icing and attempt to “stick the spot” on the lady bug while blind folded. They got to eat the other half.
Fly Swatter Relay ~ This was so fun and hilarious to watch. The kids were divided into teams and given a fly swatter with plastic flies on it. They had to walk across the room balancing the flies and then turn around and come back without spilling the flies! When the reached the starting line, they had to carefully pass the fly swatter full of flies on to the next person in line, so the relay could continue until everyone had a turn.
The kids used homemade whoopie pie cookies, licorice and icing to make their own insect cookies by adding legs and spots. Of course, they got to eat these.
The girls also had their faces painted with insects and/or flowers when they arrived.
I pre-printed on foam door hangers before the party. They could choose “Buzz off” or “Don’t BUG me!” and then proceed to decorate their hanger.
Pass the Present ~ I got this idea from my friend Michelle. Basically, you wrap a little gift/surprise item in a box. You then proceed to add layers of wrapping paper on the outside equal to the number of kids, so that each child will get a turn to unwrap the present. You pass the present around the circle to music and when the music stops, the person holding the present gets to unwrap a layer. The person to unwrap the final layer gets to keep the prize inside. The kids love this! I can’t remember what the present was, but I am sure it was probably theme related.

Here are the girls making their door hangers.

Pin the Spot on the Lady Bug

Here is Shay getting ready to put his Oreo on the lady bug.

Here are the pins for butterfly bowling.

Here is Eden having her turn in the fly swatter relay.

Food/Snacks:

I always plan my parties for no more than 2 hours and keep a pretty tight schedule. It is because of this that food is not ever a huge part of the party. For this party, I put out a store bought “spring” table-cloth, plates and napkins. I also used my butterfly serving tray for snacks. For the most part the food was not theme related, but I did make small “caterpillar” fruit skewers using purple grapes and those fancy puffy toothpicks for the head. I added florist wire to the puffy head for antennae.

Here is Shay at the snack table. If you look closely you can see the caterpillar grape skewers.

Cupcakes and Ice Cream:

For this party, I decide to create a flower pot of cupcakes as well as an extra plate of cupcakes with a variety of embellishments on them. I loved the little birds ~ an idea from Martha Stewart.

I used fondant for the flowers and added chocolate cookie crumbs for the soil.

The butterflies were made with chocolate covered pretzels.

I don’t seem to have a photo of this, but for the ice cream, I bought a carton of vanilla ice cream and made slices that were about 3/4″ thick. I used a butterfly cookie cutter to pre-cut butterfly ice cream shapes. I then sprinkled them with coloured sugar crystals and re-froze them on a cookie sheet lined with plastic wrap, so that they were ready to serve.

Loot Bags:

This party was 6 years ago and I actually am a little miffed that I can’t find a picture of the loot baskets or an outline of my party plans. I am basically piecing this post together from memory and photos. The loot baskets were small “purse” like bags with two handles and some flowers stitched on the side. They were lined with hot pink fabric and very cute. I don’t remember exactly what I put in the bags, but I do remember that I made each of the girls a bug jar with a screen inserted in the top and a handle added. I made these for each of the girls, but don’t seem to have a picture of the jars either. I also made them each a large homemade sugar cookie on a stick. All that I can remember is the basket, a bug jar, a large cookie and a door hanger, but I really don’t remember what else was in them.