The planning for this party started some time last March, believe it or not! After the success of Mimi's Rainbow Magic fairies party, Mimi and I discussed what would be a good theme for the next party. Her interests these days are so limited. If it's not fairies, it's Pokemon and American Girl. She liked the idea of having an American Girl party. We considered having the party at the store.
Here's what you get at the store:
- Private space to celebrate
- A delicious meal with signature pink-and-white cake and ice cream
- Special goody bags and doll tiaras for each girl
- A commemorative keepsake for the birthday girl
- A fun table activity and a craft
- A set of invitations with matching thank-you notes
Plus, special add-ons are available to customize your party experience for additional fees, including:
- Doll Hair Salon services (available with a minimum of four dolls with at least three weeks notice)
- A party photo
For a party of 10 girls and myself, plus tax and gratuity and no add ons comes to about $630. Granted the food at the Bistro is pretty good, presentation is very nice, and service is always so friendly and attentive, not to mention, a two level store full of dolls and everything to go with them!
So while I would love to do the party there and have everything already done for us, the price was more than I was looking to spend and Mimi really wanted to have the party at our house anyway, not at the store (she loves having them here). (And even if we did the party there, I'd still make the cake! :)
In the end, I think our party turned out pretty nice, and half the cost. The girls all had a great time and Mimi didnt want it to end!
Since deciding to have the party at our house, I started brainstorming activity ideas with Mimi. There's lots of AG or doll related activities you could do at an AG party. Off the top of my head, some ideas we considered (there were so much more, but i cant remember them all right now):
-make matching tshirts (buy white doll size tshirts and kid sized tshirts, have the girls draw/color/embellish with stickers/cut outs/phrases, etc on a sheet of paper, photo copy the images to iron on sheets, one full sized and one in miniature and iron on the t-shirts.
-having a doll/girl hair salon time with pretty bows/barrettes, etc
-AG crafts (cootie catchers, sewing, pillows, frames, friendship bracelets, etc)
We decided to go with a Mystery Party. There's 3 AG Mystery Party kits that I found online (AG has discontinued these kits so you can only get them used or new from other vendors. the new ones are ridiculously priced around $60 and the opened/used ones go for about $30. I bought an opened one that was pristine, but I never used any of the pieces, so they are all in new condition still. If anyone wants to buy this from me, lmk!)
I bought the Samantha Mystery Party kit.
Samantha lived at the turn of the 20th century. So it seemed a lovely segue into an Edwardian tea party. I dont know how authentically Edwardian our tea party turned out, but let's just say it was inspired by it. :) The reviews said the mystery script read through in about 45 minutes (I think one reviewer said 30???). So I planned in a cupcake decorating session at the start of the party, which was nice because it kept the girls occupied as the guests trickled in. Then we set the cupcakes out on the buffet for our tea party later (hows that for adding in some child labor from the early 1900s! ;) just keepin' with the theme! lol.)
Here are the handmade invitations I made with some scrapbook paper, doilies, ribbons, and some stickers (found beautiful victorian-esque dimensional butterfly/bird/flower sticker sheets at the Dollar Tree...totally a lucky find!!!)
inside the card: party details and details about the character each guest would play. The original cards from the kit also describes the kind of shoes the character would have worn in the early 1900's. Since we are a shoes off house, I omitted that detail.
I also included a little card with the party schedule on it. And Mimi lined all the envelopes with pretty paper. Most of these we were able to hand deliver since many guests lived close by, but for the ones far enough to mail, I took them to the PO and had them hand cancel each one and begged them not to machine them. I think they all made it in one piece!
As the girls arrived, they washed their hands and joined us at the kitchen table where I had the cupcakes and decorating tools. The dolls were set on the 'drawing room' couch while they worked in the kitchen so the dolls didnt get icing all over them!
(I had considered making each girl a victorian inspired apron to wear but didnt have enough time to do it. But how sweet would they have looked?! In any case, they were all very neat workers!). I had some girls frost the cupcakes, some girls colored the fondant, some girls rolled out and cut the fondant flowers, and some girls piped decorations on them. When they got tired of doing one job or finished quickly, they moved onto a different job. They were all such good workers! We did end up going a little longer than anticipated for this (until 3:15), but it was fine because the play didnt take very long anyway.
For the icing pipers, I enlarged and printed out some images of cupcake tops that i found online so that they were actual size of cupcake tops, and i put these images inside a clear plastic scrapbook page protector so the girls could practice icing techniques on it before trying it on the real cupcakes. The images also served as the inspiration for the design we were creating.
I also had some Meri Meri flower cupcake picks that the girls decided to add to the cupcakes. They turned out quite lovely! I didnt remember to take a picture of the finished cupcakes though. :( i know, i suck.
I also bought some AG cootie catchers/fortune tellers for the girls to make and play with if the activities planned werent enough to fill the time. We ended up not having time for these, which is a shame...they are cute and I love the girl power messages. I wrote up some for Mimi about positive girl qualities that I got off of some AG stickers elsewhere. Mimi can do this with friends on playdates since we didnt end up using them.
After
decorating the cupcakes, I gave the girls little name tags that I made
up (sorry, forgot to take a pic). I ruffled pink tissue paper to look
like paper flowers and put their character name on them (corsage like),
so they knew who was whom, and just stuck them on each girl's dress with
tape. Mimi handed out the scripts (it was the first time she saw them
as I kept them hidden from her). The night before I'd also hidden all
the clues so she didnt know what they were or where they were hidden.
The
story took place in the dining room at Samantha's house (Mimi played
Samantha) so we went in our dining room to start. In the story, the
girls decide to help an orphan girl who may be sent to a factory to
work. Another part takes place in the 'drawing room' (our family room)
so they moved back and forth a bit. When they got to the part with the
code to crack, Mimi led them into her work room, handed out paper and
pencils and they worked together on the code (again a TOTALLY cute
moment that I wish I had thought to catch a picture of!) Even though
three of the characters were not in on the code breaking, I had them all
in there together to work on it if they wanted.
Then
another clue led them into the drawing room to find a newspaper
clipping. And the final clue, where they hunt for a portrait of the man
they believe is the father of the orphan girl they are trying to save
from the work house, I sent them upstairs to search all the bedrooms.
It was fun watching Mimi split everyone up and direct them to various
rooms (instead of going en masse to each room). Then the girls running
off in every direction to search. Then the triumphant "I FOUND IT!!!"
and squeals and yells as everyone went running to see the final clue.
And at the end when the orphan finds her mom, it ends with a big HURRAY
from all the girls. We had some wonderfully expressive/dramatic girls
who played their roles so perfectly! The girls werent shy about it and
even though some played orphans, adults, maids...no one complained about
their role...they all just had a good time with it! Though there were
lots of lines to read, the girls did great, helping each other out if
one stalled on a word (there werent many hard words, anyway). One of
the clues was written in an old fashioned script, so I did have to help
and read that to the girls because they struggled with reading it, even
though most had learned to read and write cursive...the writing was just
a tad hard to read.
After
the play ended (it took exactly 40 minutes), it was already 4:00...tea
time! I had to rush to get the ham&swiss party rolls in the oven
(cuz I forgot to do it at 3:45 when i planned), so they werent ready
when the girls went into the dining room to eat. :(
BUT
they were happy to fill up on the varieties of confections on the
buffet! ;) (this picture was taken before the girls made the cupcakes,
so there's no cupcakes and ham&swiss party rolls on the stand!)
We
had drinks: lemonade or orange tea (tea service was on the table with
lemon or orange slices, sugar cubes--none of the girls had ever seen
real sugar cubes before so that was really exciting for them! and
whipped cream for the baked goods (i almost bought some lemon curd, but
didnt think it would appeal to anyone so skipped that), and on the
buffet, in addition to the ham&swiss rolls and cupcakes the girls
decorated, we had blueberry muffins, chocolate dipped strawberries,
grapes, madeleines, cream puffs, strawberry cake pops, petit
fours...there was also lollipops, candy eggs, and cotton candy on the
buffet that I added to their goody bags later. For the party favor, we
gave each girl an AG Doll Jewelry making book/supplies. I found these
on sale at the AG store over a year ago and snapped them up!
Additionally,
Mimi made a bottle cap bracelet for each friend. We wrapped them up
with tissue paper and set them on the table at each girls seat.
For
the table, I found some pretty paper plates online, add some demitasse
cups and some plastic doll tea cups for the dolls, and some tiny spoons
(plastic but looks like silver, appetizer spoons by Mosaik). Mimi made
the place cards using the AG place card kit.
I
also found some cute party crackers that added some more fun to the
party. I would have loved to have made my own but ran out of time to
order the cracker snaps that give the crackers that bit of exciting
pyrotechnics with a satisfyingly loud CRACK! sound. (not available on
amazon prime. boo! there's only one english supply store that seems to
sell them online...who know how long the shipping would take. i should
remember to buy some to have on hand for future parties though. the
crackers were a hit!)
For the decor, i made garlands with patterned cupcake liners and the M was made
with tissue paper pompoms glued to an M that I cut out of an old
cardboard box). Folded paper and ribbons to make a swag for the chair backs. This year I had two little helpers for the party prepping so that was nice! Mimi was a big help with many of these tasks and even Ozzy pitched in by helping to melt the chocolate, dry the strawberries, and dip them. 'Course he probably ate as many as he dipped!
For gifts, I talked to Mimi about whether she wanted to have gifts this year or have donations made to a charity. She gave it a quick thought and said she had so many things and didnt really need or want anything more and she felt like there were kids out there who werent as lucky as her so she wholeheartedly agreed to skip presents for herself and accept donations for a charity. I searched around for some local choices and let her pick the charity. Since it was a Samantha story where there were homeless kids, Mimi chose to support a group that helps homeless women and children here (more than half of those helped last year were children). Some of her friends not only donated but also brought her a gift as well. (such sweet families). Thru the donations of friends, we had just over $100 (and a HUGE pack of paper towels to donate). Mimi decided to add to the total and donated some money from her own savings to the cause.
We have an appointment with a donation coordinator this Thursday for Mimi to give in person, which I think makes it more meaningful for her than me getting online and making the donation with a click of the mouse. She already feels pretty freakin' good about giving the money to the charity than having so many plastic toys that will sit around the house forgotten. I think she'll feel even happier when she donates in person!
*Thanks to all the girls for coming to the party and for the donations! You really helped to make Mimi's 8th birthday one to remember!
janice, isabella, betty, teah, mimi, ally, aya, darlene
march 2012
you. are. insane.
ReplyDeletebut totally amazing! your kids are so lucky to have you as their mom!!