I was so happy to find these hats at Dollar Tree.  I went with a wide range of colors since we had boys and girls attending.

For drinks we served chilled root beer and “cactus juice” and used burlap to cover the beverage table. The cactus juice is just apple juice with a little bit of green food coloring. The kids loved it!

When the kids arrived they were encouraged to chose a hat (above) and a horse and bandana. I added velcro to the ends of each banana so the kids could take them on and off easily. The horses were another Dollar Tree find!

Another hit was the horse ride-ons we made from hay bales and my kids’ stick horses. We borrowed some saddles for added authenticity and the kids really seemed to like “riding” the horses. Unfortunately, I forgot to snap these before the party, and this is the only pic I have of the set-up.

I also managed to not get a picture of Charlotte’s cake, but here are her cupcakes:

For reference:

• Cowgirl invite here.
• Western cupcake wrappers here.
• Cowboy hat cupcake toppers purchased from ebay, but can also be found here.

• Starburst candy or similar soft candy (I tried Airheads as well,
  but found better luck with the Starburst)
• Tiny heart-shaped cookie/fondant cupper
• Non-stick rolling pin (found in cake decorating section of stores)
• Smooth, clean countertop or non-stick cutting mats

Roll out candy:

cut out heart:

then another:

pinch ends together:

et, voila! You have a butterfly!

Now go back and make a bunch more.

Store these little fellas in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them so that they’re nice and stiff. If left out, they may soften more and start to droop or become misshapen.

Enjoy!

Well, I couldn’t have cut it any closer with getting all of the party stuff finished. The guests were arriving as I was putting the finishing touches on the cake topper and sewing the elastic on the birthday girl’s princess hat! Thankfully, everyone was very forgiving and even helped out with balloons and getting food set out.

All the kids had a ball playing around with the dress-up clothes and playing in the slip-n-slide, but I think Annabelle had the most fun of all. She loved every single aspect of the party and made sure to wear her superhero costume while blowing out the candles and put on her princess hat to open her gifts (unfortunately, a poor choice of interfacing kept her from wearing the hat as long as she would have liked).

Here are some acknowledgments:

• Clothespin doll cake topper inspired by the beautiful toppers created by Wee Cute Treasures (wish I could have bought one of hers, but I’m happy with how mine turned out)
• Butterfly wings purchased from Etsy shop AttiTUTUde
• Felt for wands, masks, and princess hat purchased from Etsy shop BenzieBazaar
• Cape tutorial from Creative Kismet
• Princess hat tutorial from Skip to My Lou
• Mask templates from Ambrosia Girl
• Hardening buttercream recipe from Cake Central
• Smooth buttercream tutorial from Cake Answers
• Watermelon dish (not pictured, but served at the party) from The Long Thread

Thank you to all of you bloggers and general crafty-types….I couldn’t have done it without you! And, special thanks to my husband for doing a majority of the cleaning and other running around while I got to hang out in my craft room doing fun things. :)

and the butterflies are frolicking while they await their final station atop giant swirls of icing.

Still lots to do. I’ll be back at the end of the weekend with the details on how I made the butterflies!

I’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg with Illustrator, so it’s a pretty simple design, but if it’ll save somebody a little bit of time making up their own, I’ll go ahead and put up a pdf for a printable version in the near future. I’ve got some other things in the works right now that I can’t mention just yet, but I can’t wait to post about them next week…assuming all goes well and I complete them.

See you soon!

Party preparations are moving right along for the fairy/butterfly/princess/king/superhero dress-up party, but I’m at a bit of a roadblock with the invitations. I had hoped to don Annabelle in some of the party elements and snap a picture of her, but things just weren’t coming together as I had imagined and I ended up abandoning the idea all together. What to do, what to do…. still thinking.

FYI: Used a mash-up of tutorials from Juicy Bits and Balancing Everything for the felt crown. I think both called for fusible interfacing, which I omitted because I have a tendency to skip steps whenever I can. I know…bad, bad, bad! Also used templates from Ambrosia Girl for the masks, although Hazelnuts has a spiffy one as well!