Think Pink

As I mentioned in my last post, I was given the chance to plan a friend's daughter's 8th bday party. I had less than 2 weeks to come up w/ an idea for the shindig.  My original thought was a Monster High theme b/c I knew the bday girl is a fan and I had also seen Monster High party supplies for sale at Walmart just a couple months earlier.  However, one week or so before the party I was in Walmart & noticed that they no longer carried Monster High supplies.  So the theme changed to Hello Kitty, another of the bday girl's favorite characters.

While planning the Monster High party, I decided to center it around mini-makeovers, complete w/ hair, nails, makeup, and pictures.  It wasn't difficult to apply those same ideas to the Hello Kitty theme.  It just took a little creativity.

Now, before I go about revealing the little nuances of this party, I just want to point out that I was given $30 on Thursday evening for the party that was being thrown on Saturday at 2pm. I had no time to shop on Thursday, so I did all the shopping & preparation from Friday evening around 5pm until right before party time on Saturday.  That is less than 24 hours of actual prep time!!!

My typical M.O. when it comes to party planning is to pick the theme, make as many of the little extras as possible myself, buy just a few key themed items & then buy the rest of the supplies in colors that coordinate w/ the theme.  In this case, I wanted to make headbands w/ kitty ears & goody bags w/ Hello Kitty's face made out of construction paper.  (Both ideas I found on Pinterest, of course.)  Due to time & budget constraints, I skipped the handmade goody bag idea & just bought the ones they sold at the store.  I bought a banner & a table cloth w/ Hello Kitty on them, but that was all the specialty stuff I purchased.  Everything else was plain-jane generic.  I ended up using my own money to buy the goody bag fillers b/c $30 just doesn't stretch very damn far.  Luckily it was a small party, so I only needed enough filler for 8 bags & it just so happened Walmart had a kit that contained 8 rings, necklaces, hair clips, bracelets, and nail stickers.  It couldn't have been more perfectly suited w/ the girly-ness of the party.

I was up until nearly 1am hot gluing felt ears & bows on 8 headbands, as well as designing & printing signs for each of the little beauty stations.  The next morning I set it all up & was ready for the party an hour before it started.

I was happy w/ how it all turned out & even happier that the girls all had a blast.  The only bummer was not having enough money to put a couple finishing touches on things. For example, the beauty station was just our plastic patio table & chairs.  If I had access to a little more cash, I could have "fancied" up the chairs & table w/ an extra table cloth & some ribbon or something.  Other than that, though, I think it turned out well.  I am working on doctoring the pics of the girls in the photo area so that they look more professional-ish. (Yes, I made that a new word. Deal with it!)  

Without any further ado, here are some pictures. :)

The table set-up. Simple, but cute.

Meow Makeovers (This is where we did hair, nails, and makeup.)

Fancy Fur & Paw Painting

He headbands I made. I bought cheap plastic headbands, then hot-glued felt ears & a bow.

"Purrfect Pictures". This is the ghetto-fied photo backdrop.
I just used my daughter's curtains from her closet & an old curtain
on the ground to cover the concrete floor of the garage.

The girls after their "makeovers"