Beauty and the Beast Birthday Party!

Birthday Parties are my thing! I make no excuses about that 🙂 They just make me so darn happy.

I love everything about them! I love conferring with my kids over Pinterest Idea’s. Choosing a Theme. Deciding on Colors and Decorations. I. Just. Love. It! We all have a few things in our lives where we like to go “all out” and this is one of mine <3 It certainly helps that I have a wedding hall, and a huge prop inventory and a rainbow of linens to choose from!

I have the joy of helping to create beautiful weddings for so many couples each year, it is always such fun to get to plan an event for my own family!

With my youngest daughter Lyra, we usually end up choosing a theme together that represents something that has been special to her that year. So the winter she was in her first (of many!) Nutcracker performances, we did a Nutcracker Ballet themed Party, we’ve done a Puppy Adoption Party (the year we adopted our rescue mutt Grover), and a Frozen party, and an Alice In Wonderland tea party! This year, my little theatre kid will be appearing in a production of Beauty and the Beast at her performing arts school (she’s playing Lumiere!) so we agreed a Beauty and the Beast Party would be perfect! And I already had all the ingredients for a simple rose Centerpiece and so without further ado…Lyra’s 10th Birthday Party <3

You guys, I have to say that I hit the sister jackpot – and have the most ridiculously talented sister – Melinda! She is an amazing cake baker (she used to do it professionally!) and her gift to my girls each year is the most incredible birthday cake. We tell her the theme of the party and sometimes the color scheme – and that’s it…everything else is a surprise and is the thing our whole family probably looks forward to the most on party days!

The birthday girl waiting at the glue gun station!

Our reception hall has two area’s, a larger one and then a smaller space. There are curtains between them that can be closed or they can be opened for one big space. So the dinner party table was hidden behind the curtain during the beginning of the party. One of my favorite memories of this party was of the little gasp of all the girl’s when the curtains were opened and they got a glimpse of the dining room 🙂 For the party table we used lots of Tea Cups in honor of Mrs. Potts and Chip, some flameless candles in honor of Lumiere, and Roses under glass for our centerpieces. A “Magic Mirror” was laid on each plate. (Side note – these magic mirrors are available at the Dollar Tree for, you guessed it, – $1 – the perfect favor for a party like this!) The little signs at the top of each plate say “Be Our Guest” because who doesn’t love a movie quote!

Shout out to Stephen for being captain of the glue gun station!

I joke about it, but I really do like to keep the kids busy with a lot of crafts. Lyra is on a competitive dance team, so between cousins, school friends, theatre friends and her amazing dance teammates, she usually ends up with about 20-25 kids at her party, and that is way too many kids to have running wild!

The first craft we did was making “Tea Cup Gardens”

It was sort of a different take on Fairy Gardens, based around “Chip” the teacup character in the Beauty and The Beast movie. I picked up a bunch of old tea cups and saucers from our local Goodwill (ours sells china for .25 a piece!). And then some fake snow, and rocks and little figurines. The kids had a great time making them…I’m not sure if Stephen had a great time running the Glue Gun station lol 🙂

Another station featured Enchanted Rose Ornaments to make!

This was a craft I found on Pinterest (I’ve linked to my Beauty and the Beast party page on Pinterest below) Lyra’s birthday is a week before Christmas so we often do an ornament craft!

Above on the left: A finished Rose Ornament (Lyra said “mom, take a picture where I look magical!”) and above on the Right: a very creative take on the Tea Cup Garden done by my niece!

The Cake Table! The rose on top of the cake is completely made of sugar – sheesh, my sister is amazing!

Lyra loves to have a candy table at her parties 🙂 We scattered little signs around the party with quotes from the Beauty and the Beast movie. At this party, the kids had to complete each station (Tea Cup Gardens, Enchanted Rose Ornament, and Maurice’s Invention Station) before earning a trip the Candy Buffet! This made sure they didn’t get sugared up and crazy until the end!

We wanted to include “the Grey Stuff” as a treat. I found This Recipe on Pinterest (link is to my Pinterest inspiration board for this party – you’ll see the Grey Stuff pin in there as well as the inspiration links for the crafts we did) and the kids LOVED it. Everyone was asking for more!

The third activity station was Maurice’s Invention station. We used our Magna Tiles and Lego’s, and gave each kid a small bouncy ball, and they had to create an invention to conceal or transport their ball. The kids had a lot of fun with this, and some really got into it and kept building more and more inventions! Lyra usually has a mix of friends – boys and girls at her party – so we try not to make the crafts too girly. The invention station was perfect for everyone!