Budget frozen princess party decor

I'm back as promised from a few days ago to update on Emily's last minute party planning/decor. As mentioned a few days ago this whole table setting cost about $30 excluding the actual cake.

Birthday banner was made using Dollartree construction paper. I did have to buy two more packs of paper because I ran out of blue. 

Oh.. the story of the cake. Its always the item I dread the most because .. pretty cakes are so darn expensive. I baked the cupcakes myself and ordered a 6 inch cake from Dolce. When I came to ask how much it would cost to make the Frozen cake with the characters, I was quoted $15+ for a fondant crown or characters…. not including the cake itself…Ugh.. I thought about it and said.. give me a basic cake and I'll put my own topping on it. $30 later and $1 crown I got this cake. 

I made the tutu myself with sparkly fabric from Micheals. I stitched it onto card stock and spray glued it onto the base of the cake. The cake stand was just made from Dollartree foam board cut into circles held up by clear cups. 

I bought a regular cake from costco for under $20 to serve everyone. So all together I really spent about $100 for all the decor and cakes. 

Our upcoming princess party…

Last weekend Emily got introduced to Frozen the movie and she now thinks she's queen Elsa or Princess Ana. She watches "Let it go" about 10x a day. So per Emily's request she wants a Frozen princess birthday party. Our little princess just has so many demands for being only three. As I scramble online to look for Frozen decorations I quickly came to realize that Frozen anything equals $$$$. Ugh… I was pretty sad. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money on decorations. I'm budget Kimba remember… So I thought long and hard and made my own decorations with what I have at home.

So … for $0 I made this:

Lucky us, I have a lot of Christmas decorations. I took out our two white christmas trees and started decorating. The rest of the decorations are just paper. I bought some Dollartree construction paper for Emily's birthday before so I simply just used whatever that was left.  I made the banner out of construction paper. The paper quality isn't the best but its just a banner. I don't think anyone would really notice. I usually like my banners to be simple because I don't have a fancy circuit.  I just cut blue construction paper into my desired shape, pink paper into a circle, and print out a simple dark blue letter on white paper and taped them all together. Snow flakes were made out of regular white paper. Taped everything up and called it a day. The characters were made out of simple cardboard paper held up by a half empty water bottle. The real dolls/figurines were too expensive for me to buy so I made them out of cardstock paper.

I still have the main table to decorate. Here's a simple in progress display of what I have so far:

 

I'm still missing a lot of details on this table (i.e birthday banner, cake, etc) but its a good start. I made all the water bottle labels out of regular cardstock. After I designed and printed out my water bottle labels, I started cutting them into strips. 

As I was working on the design, I put our little  princess Emily to work also. She volunteered to pull off all the labels. She was so proud to help out with her party. Every time grandparents came over she would run to get her water bottle to show off to them that she helped make them.

 

Here's a bottle up close. 

 

Here's all of them completed. 

Coordinating party favors were made using white target paper lunch bags, dollartree party favors, and a label I made and printed from home. Cost for this whole table display so far is under $30 including water bottles, favor bags, and wannabe cake stand.  Hopefully I'll be back soon to blog about her final table display once its finished. Most likely it won't be done until the day of her party. I'm a procrastinator like that.

I wanted to really blog about event planning because I wanted everyone to know that party decorations don't have to cost a lot. There are many simple ways to have a themed party on a budget. Look around your house for items that can be used and always save left over party supplies for future parties. For each party that I've hosted, I've made one or two big purchases so I can save for future parties. For example, I purchased a waterslide for the kids because I knew renting a jumper/waterslide overtime would cost us more. So far the slide has been a big hit for every party. I've also bought chairs for $1 each on craigslist so I don't even have to rent chairs anymore. This party I didn't really have to buy anything big. Decorations hardly cost me anything so now I only have to worry about ordering food. 

Next post will be about expensive cakes and how to save money on them. I'm still in the trial and error stages of trying different techniques so I'll be back with more details soon. As for now, happy planning everyone. 

** As for anyone who needs help or wants to use any of my templates please PM me. I'm happy to share free templates.

Simple DIY princess invitation

Today I'm back from a long hiatus. Lately I've done a few small projects around the house but haven't had time to post them. I've repainted a linen closet and hung up some more curtains in our playroom and master bedroom. If I have time I'll do a post about them in the future. Emily's third birthday is coming up and I wanted to share how I made simple invitations for her. I usually don't make invitations but I came across some really cute glittery paper so I just couldn't resist.

I always use google slides to design my templates. I love google slides because it is all online and seems to be pretty universal among macs and pcs. If you don't have a gmail account, you can just simply type google slides on your google search box and it should come up as the first one. I didn't have to download anything and it was completely free. I just play around with the editing and wording. The pink crown can be found on google images and added via image art. Personal information has been edited for privacy.

Supplies that I used include Elmers spray glue, pink princess glitter card stock paper, and social envelopes. I went to Michaels to pick up all the supplies. I used a 40% off coupon and made my husband get in line for every item since I was shopping and taking my sweet time. Pink glitter card stock is 12x12 and sold for $1.99 each but I was able to get them for $1.20 each. Each 12x12 card stock can produce six invitations. 

After designing my basic template on google slides I made a template for the shape of the invitation. I knew from the beginning that I only wanted something simple and easy to make for her invitations. I picked a fancy template so it could stand out. To get the fancy template I just searched invitations with that deign and printed it out. I printed the invitations on regular white card stock I have laying around. I just trace the template and cut them with regular scissors. 

Here it is not yet glued together. 

Here's the finished product in English. I made some in Vietnamese to give to the older people but my mom took them all.

I fell in love with the pink glitter paper so I had to make invitations. I'll be passing them out like candy this weekend. I made 24 invitations for under $10 with lots of left over supplies. At roughly $0.40c per an invitation, I think its pretty cheap and easy to make. If I need more the cost per an invite will drop. Each new invitation would cost me $0.20c if I decide to make more. (Given that I still have envelopes and glue left over). Initially I was going to just order from Shutterfly or Zazzle but couldn't find anything I liked at my price range. General cost would have been about $1 per an invite including shipping unless I ordered a lot. In the end, I decided to make my own.

Cost for supplies: 

Pink card stock $1.20 x4= $4.80

glue ~$2.50 using 40% off coupon at Michaels

50 4x6 social envelopes ~2.50 using 40% off coupon at Michaels

white card stock already had in stock at home. You can use regular white paper.

I did this project just because I felt it was fun and Emily really liked the pink glitter paper. She would ask me every time she saw the paper what it was for. I would respond that its for her princess birthday party and she would get super excited. Her sweet response is really priceless to me. :) 

Hopefully if I don't procrastinate too much I will be able to blog about some of her other simple DIY party decor. Thats it for today's post. Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend.