Butterfly 8th Birthday Party

This year I got very creative and frugal by making my youngest daughter's birthday party invitations, Happy Birthday banner, decorations, games, crafts, cupcakes, cake, etc.  The birthday party was big sister's words "epic"! 

 

The Birthday Invitation
Credits: An Affair to Remember and the Blossom collection (butterfly) by Shabby Princess and love you like a sister font.

The Beautiful Birthday Girl

She is wearing a darling butterfly and flower dress with white leggings!

Thank you, Mindi for the pink birthday Barbie!

The Party Guests!

You gotta have a silly picture too!

The Decorations:
Butterfly and Flower Happy Birthday Banner 


Garland Strands
They were hung below cupboards and over the windows in the living room.

Supplies:

Card-stock, scrapbook supplies (I used the Blossom collection by Shabby Princess), brown twine, embellishments from scrapbook kit, acrylic gems, stencil lettering, ribbons, glue gun, glue sticks, scissors, modge podge and a paint brush.

Instructions:  Measure out 4" X 4" block squares on your patterned paper.  Use a stencil to trace the letters and cut them out. Paste the letters on a small block piece with a glue stick and then paste it on the large square.  I glued on some acrylic gems on some of the flowers and butterflies. Then, I applied modge podge on the letters, blocks, rainbows, butterflies, and flowers.  Allow them to dry.  Next, punch out two holes on each side of the paper things using the hole punch.  Push the twine through the paper pieces and tie each end making a small loop. Tie pretty ribbon between the paper!

Paper Flower Sticks

I was inspired by Kylie who posted a hybrid paper craft at Shabby Princess' Blog to make these gorgeous paper flower decorations. 

Supplies:

Card stock paper, digital scrapbook supplies, acrylic gems, green craft popsicle sticks, bamboo sticks

Instructions:

Measure four pieces of paper to size of 4"X4". For the paper flowers, fold the 4"X4" paper like you are making a paper fan.  Then fold it in half.  For the flower you need four pieces of paper you can do the same color or mix it up with other designed paper.  Use the glue gun to glue the pieces together.  Glue the acrylic gem in the middle and glue the bamboo stick to the flower.

The Party Games

We played the following games: musical chairs, cocoon toilet paper wrap,

 stick the dot on the butterfly, bug bingo, and a balloon game.

Musical Chairs

Cocoon Toilet Paper Wrap

Divide the kids into two teams.  The quickest team to unroll the toilet paper wins!
Stick the dot on the butterfly!

As you can see, it was hand drawn and colored with markers.  I traced some circles from a template for the dots!

Bug Bingo

I printed out the bug bingo game templates from Family Crafts  and hand wrote several different bugs such as the following: ant, bee,beetle, butterfly, caterpillar, centipede, cicada, cockroach, cricket, dragonfly, firefly, flea, fly, grasshopper, horsefly, ladybug, mosquito, moth, praying mantis, spider, stick bug, stink bug, termite, wasp, and worm. For the markers, we used colored torn paper. We played two rounds!
Balloon Game

Divide the kids into two teams. The kids had to pop the balloons to find letters contained inside.  The first team that successfully spelled the birthday girl's name won!
The Recycled Party Crafts


Toilet Roll Butterfly

Supplies 
Empty toilet rolls, googly eyes, card-stock paper, butterfly template, scotch tape, pipe cleaners, scissors, hot glue gun, craft glue or glue stick, hole punch, and markers.
Instructions: Wrap some card-stock paper around the toilet roll and tape the end. Cut out butterfly template.  Hot glue the butterfly wings to the toilet roll.  Rip up scrap pieces of paper and glue them on with craft glue or glue stick. Punch a hole on the top of the toilet roll and push a pipe cleaner through.  Twist the pipe cleaner and bend the antenna to your desired look. Glue googly eyes and draw a mouth with a marker.
Egg Carton Caterpillar

Supplies:

Egg carton, googly eyes, rainbow pom poms, green paint, paint brush, pipe cleaners, scissors, craft glue, hot glue gun, markers, and hole punch.

Instructions: Cut the egg carton in half using a knife or scissors.  Make sure the carton is flat and you may need to cut it down.  Paint the egg carton ( I used some metallic green to achieve the silky green look).  Use a hole punch on the sides of the four middle cartons.  Make sure you punch both sides and push through pipe cleaners for the caterpillar legs.  Glue on antenna, colored pom poms, eyes, nose and draw a mouth with a marker.
The Party Food
We served pizza, pretzels, pastel M&M's, celery, carrots, ranch dip, white cranberry peach with seven up, home made from scratch chocolate butterfly cupcakes, and a butterfly cake (no cake mix)!

Butterfly Cupcake idea was inspired by Martha Stewart.  

Mine didn't turn out as cute as hers but you can see that they do appear to be like butterflies!  I used pastel M&M's and pretzels for the butterfly.

The butterfly Cake

Chocolate Devil's Food Cake

1/2 c hot water

1- 1/2 tsp. soda

1/2 c. cocoa

2/3 c. butter

1 -3/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 c. milk with small amount of vinegar

2-1/2 c. flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix hot water, soda, and cocoa and set aside.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with electric hand mixer then add eggs.  Next add vanilla and salt. Mix the chocolate mixture in with the rest of the ingredients.  Add milk and flour alternately a little at a time mixing well.  Bake for 30 minutes or until tooth pick is clean.

Make a Wish, Sweet Girl!

The Party Bag

I used some leftover birthday balloon bags from my oldest daughter's birthday party a couple years ago.  We ordered a couple things from the Oriental Trading a while ago before I decided to do a butterfly theme (air planes, balls, and a package of random toys) and picked up some candy from the dollar store.  My mother in-law gave me some beautiful butterfly hair clips to give to the girls, which she got from Japan while serving a mission there.  The girls absolutely loved them!

Little sister was spoiled today with a loot of fun presents from her friends!  We got her Tangled, which she watched right after the last party guest left our house!   Last weekend she got an early birthday present from my mom and Uncle Nate.  They gave me money to get her ears pierced!  She was so excited to show everyone her sparkly ears!   As for her lovely butterfly party, Little Sissy said, "This was the best birthday ever!"  Yay! I am so happy it was a successful 8th birthday party!  We are looking forward to her baptism day in a couple weeks!