We had a Nutcracker Ballet birthday party yesterday for my now six-year-old. Since the house was already decorated for Christmas and she loves to dress up, it worked out well. I am seriously making an effort to dial down the stress around here, but as always, I do more than is necessary for parties. I’m starting to think that I enjoy the preparation more than the event itself.
Anyway, I made some chocolate cupcakes with candy cane icing topped with ballerina cupcake toppers from here.
We made tissue paper “snowballs” and hung them over the table with paper doilies and a Clara ornament. Our nutcrackers that we’ve collected over the years lined the mantel, along with the gumdrop trees I made last year. I don’t know which is grosser, the fact that I put the gumdrop trees in the attic and saved them for another year or the fact that the candy looks exactly the same as it did last year. Ick.
The dancing dolls garland is a design that was drawn by my daughter, painted with watercolors here. We also used this image for the invitation and the paper doll party favors. There was a necklace tucked inside the paper doll package, which I’ll be showing you tomorrow in my Make it Monday feature.
I kept the table decorations simple with some styrofoam balls dipped in glitter mixed with some ornaments and bottlebrush trees.
One December birthday down, another to go.
Amazing! Beautiful! What a special party for your daughter. And so timely :). Just perfect.
This is absolutely lovely! I love the dancing dolls! I’ve recently come to the realization that I absolutely love the planning more than the party itself!
I feel your pain, youngest daughter is 4th Dec, oldest is 17th Dec!!!!! I do not recommend it to anyone. This year we got off lightly with youngest as it was her 5th, she has just started school but still establishing friendship groups so the ‘easiest’ thing was to invite 30 kids to an indoor play centre! I still had to make a cake for her which you can see here http://hereswhatididtoday.blogspot.com/2010/12/snakey-cakey.html
It just as well it was straight forward for youngest as eldest is having a Hogwarts Extravaganza here at the house on the weekend. As we speak I’m printing out Chocolate Frog cards and bag toppers for the party bags! There’s robes, wands, a sorting hat, tea leaf reading etc etc etc. I’m going to be exhausted by the weekend! I’m attempting to document it all so I can blog it some time soon of course Xmas will only a few days away so as long as I manage it before her next birthday I’ll be happy!!
you throw such fun parties! will you plan mine, too? 😉
I really love the paper doll. Would you consider sharing the pattern? Love your daughters artwork and I would like to print them for my two year old granddaughter to color!
Thanks!
Those paper dolls are the CUTEST! ~Heidi
What a great idea! I adore those paper dolls!
ohhhhhh!!! This is wonderful! We adore the nutcracker ballet here. What a wonderful idea for a december birthday party or a holiday party!! The cupcakes look delicious!!! We made nutcracker, clara and mouse king iced cookies this year… maybe next year we will try the cupcakes! 🙂
I say any excuse to use those ballet dancers! I love your invitation idea and so would my 4 yr old!
Lovely idea. I like the original twist on just the ballerina theme. Filing it away for the day my little girl makes a ballerina birthday wish. Thanks for sharing.
What a wonderful party! Everything is so lovely. Hmmmm….I’m thinking book #2 could be about party ideas.
Where’s the mouse king hiding!? This party concept is magical, I am considering showing this post to my Nutcracker-obsessed 5 year old – she would then want to change her birthday to December and insist she have an uncle Drosselmeyer to celebrate with her. I love the way you used your daughter’s drawing as a garland.
What a fantastic concept! Did you just scan your daughter’s drawings in and print them? Or did you use a program like illustrator to clean it up a bit? Everything is gorgeous!
Dawn — Yes, I scanned in her illustration and traced it in Illustrator. She also drew a couple of outfits for the doll to wear and I did the same for those.
lovely !