The Pinterest Diaries: Princess Party!

Yesterday was my daughter Zibby's 2nd birthday, and we celebrated this past weekend with a Disney Princess Party.  I researched and researched for ideas and, of course, looked on Pinterest for ideas.  But I couldn't find much that I liked.  So I had to figure it out on my own (except for one thing, which will be pointed out below). 

Also, my mom was in California, so I REALLY had to figure it out on my own.  She is super creative and always helps my sister and I out with things like this.  This is the first party/event that I did all by myself.  I'm pretty proud.

Zibby is OBSESSED with everything Disney and everything princess, so it seemed fitting to do a Disney Princess themed party.  She has a Snow White dress that I bought her around Halloween, so naturally, she was Snow White for the party.

 

 

I dressed up as Belle (well, a makeshift Belle:  long white sleeved shirt, blue dress, ponytail, blue ribbon...with how much money we spent on food, I had to wing it with stuff I had for the costume)

 

 

For food, I thought it would be cool to pull something from the princess movies.  All the dishes were really easy to do.

 

I made caramel "poisonous apples" for Snow White

 

 

 

For these, I sliced up apples and melted some caramel dip.  I then dipped the apples in the dip, and put them onto wax paper to dry.  Before they set, I sprinkled some red crystal sprinkles onto them.

"Frying pan" spinach artichoke dip for Rapunzel

This was pretty simple.  I bought the Costco spinach artichoke dip, and just baked it in a cast iron skillet at 350 degrees until it was hot in the middle.  It will start to brown on top, but let it cook all the way through, or the outside will be heavenly and creamy, while the middle will be a cold, chunky mess.

 

"Gus Gus' cheese platter" for Cinderella

 

 

 

I just bought a couple packages of cheese at Winco and arranged them on a plate.

 

"Pumpkin Cupcakes" for Cinderella

 

I made these with Betty Crocker spice cake mixes and cream cheese frosting.  I piped the frosting on with a #12 tip and then sprinkled on blue crystal sprinkles.  I also found Disney Princess cupcake holders at Walmart, which went with the party perfectly.

**ADVICE:  I know this sounds obvious, but put the sprinkles on RIGHT after you pipe the frosting onto each cupcake so they stick.  I thought that I had time to pipe all the cupcakes and then sprinkle, but the first have hardened enough to where the sprinkles slid off the cupcakes.**

"Sand dollars" for The Little Mermaid

This was the only thing that I pulled from Pinterest.  And I was in such a hurry to get stuff done (I do things best under pressure) that I didn't even pin it, and now I can't find the original pin.

For this, I got the platter at the Dollar Store, then sprinkled brown sugar on it to look like sand.  I got Double Stuffed Vanilla Oreos and took the tops off (not as easy as it sounds.  We ate some of the Oreos before I made these, thinking that we'd have more than enough, but some of them broke, so we had a lot less then what I originally wanted to serve.)  The pin said to get a starfish stamp, but since this party was on a budget, I figured I could just use a fork to draw the sand dollar into the cream.  This did not work so well.  The creme bunched up, and I had to scrape it off (wasting valuable, delicious creme).  I tried to push the fork into the cream to make the shape, but then the Oreo broke.  If you are going to try this, for the sake of the Oreos, just go buy the stamp.  Losing all those Oreos is worth the $3.99 for a starfish stamp.

For the signs, I just made them out of construction paper.  I looked up the Disney font online and just hand-drew what I wanted with a pencil, then traced over it with a sharpie.

To hold up the signs, I also used construction paper and then taped them onto the signs.  I cut a strip of paper the width of the sign, the folded it up to make sort of a rounded...holder upper thingy...for lack of a better word.

 
For Zibby's cake, I made a Betty Crocker triple chocolate cake mix, then used a bowl to mark out the two layers for her cake.  I bought 3 pounds of buttercream frosting from my local grocery store's bakery.  A lot of stores will do this for you.  They'll even color it to the colors you need, as the store did for me here.  I wanted to do an ombre look for Zib's cake, so I got a pound of hot pink, regular pink, and super light pink.

**ADVICE:  3 pounds of frosting was WAY too much frosting for a small cake like this.  BUT the good news is that since it's pink, I'm just going to use it for cookies for Valentine's Day.**

I used the #12 piping tip again and just "ruffled" the frosting on.  I found the "2" and the star candles at Walmart, and then used the crown from Zib's Snow White baby doll.  (Don't worry...I washed it.)

To add a personal touch to the party, I went through pictures of Zib over the past year, and my friend Darcy was nice enough to print them out for me.  I then taped them onto construction paper and made little "frames".  I didn't have time to make the holder-upper-thingys for each picture, so I just laid them out on a counter.

 





Being obsessed with Disney myself, this party was really fun to put together, but it was even better to see the reaction from Zibby and all the fun she had :)