Julia's Frozen Party

My daughter Julia turned 5 this month and chose to have a Frozen party. We kept the party on the simple side this year. We hosted it at a local park from 2-4 pm and just served snacks, sweet treats and cake. It ended up raining (which it never does in Southern California!!) but it felt almost fitting for a Frozen party. That is, after all, Southern California's closest thing to snow ... I mean seriously, have you ever been here when it rains? It is as if you just got 10 feet of snow in Chicago. We freak! :)

I had fun making a birthday sign on our chalkboard with chalk.

Favors:

For one of the favors I actually got crafty! If you know me I love decorating but I am not very crafty! However, I saw this idea online and it seemed simple enough. These are no sew scarves. To make them, I bought a large amount of fleece fabric, cut it into large strips, and then cut both ends of each strip into tassels. Since I didn't have the right tools at home (a T-Square and a good scissors) it took me longer than I expected but I persevered! I used these directions (Link) and found the fleece at Joann's. The final cost was only .60 cents a scarf!

The other part of the favor was a large wand (bought on Amazon.com) attached to a bag filled with Hershey's kisses, a Frozen themed heart with candy inside and some Frozen themed tattoos. 

Food:

For the food we served: Snow flurries (normal and caramel popcorn), snowballs (oranges), Olaf's noses (carrots in ranch dressing), icicles (string cheese), cake, fruit with snow flurry dip (cream cheese fruit dip), ice blocks (rice krispies treats), and a kiss to melt a frozen heart (Hershey's kisses). 

I was fortunate to find Frozen themed napkins, cups and straws at the Dollar Store and then just bought plain blue plates. I displayed everything in a tin I had bought after Christmas on clearance. 

Olaf's Noses and Orange Snowballs!

This was taken right after Julia arrived at the park. She was beaming!

Crafts/Games:

The main "thing to do" was suppose to be the playground but since it ended up raining I had to great creative at the last minute. I found Frozen stickers in the Target $1 bins, bought a make your own Valentine kit and printed out a bunch of Frozen coloring sheets. We also brought board games and some puzzles and it ended up working out great!

The first game we played was pin the nose on Olaf. I drew Olaf on white paper and then cut out a bunch of construction paper noses for the kids to stick on. The scarves made great blindfolds and the kids had a blast.

The second game and biggest hit of the party was the snowball fight! Now, as I have mentioned before, in Southern California we obviously don't get snow and so I had to come up with the next best thing. These are soft snowballs that are super simple to make, can be thrown without injury to the person getting hit, and are even washable and reusable! 

To make them simply visit your local Walmart and in the girls section buy the largest size (I believe it was 10/12) of white (non sheer) tights. They should be $2 each. I made 60 snowballs and I bought 5 sets of tights (made 12 snowballs out of each pair). Next buy pillow stuffing at a local craft store (Michael's or Joann's) with your 50/40% off coupon. Then open up the tights and stuff about a handful of the stuffing into one leg. If it seems like too little stuffing to form a snowball add some more. Next, tie a knot in that same leg just above the stuffing and pull nice and tight. Now tie a second knot directly above the first and pull tight again. Cut in between the two knots and you will have your first snowball. Continue stuffing, tying two knots and cutting and you should be able to make about 6 regular sized snowballs out of each leg. The top part of the tights I just discarded. After our party the snowballs were super dirty. I dumped them in my front loader, washed them on the delicate cycle and then air dried them. They washed up perfectly! 

Snowball Fight!!!!!

Cake:

For the cake I went super simple this year and just ordered a Costco sheet cake which I decorated myself. Costco doesn't do themed cakes so I ordered a white sheet cake with a purple boarder and "Happy Birthday Julia". I then placed Julia's mini Frozen figurines from the Disney Store around the cake along with a 5 candle I found at Walmart. After Christmas I had found decorative, sugar snowflakes on clearance and used those around the edge of the cake and on the top. To add a little more color I purchased Wilson's blue sparkle gel and drew snow flurries around the Frozen characters. It was super simple to do and much cheaper than ordering it from a local bakery! 

Happy 5th Birthday Julia! We Love You!