Andersen Family Blog: anna's american girl doll party

She did it. She went ahead and turned eight. Annalese is beautiful and now she is the accountable age of eight. ahh.

We had a really fun american girl doll party with all of her friends. So here is a little party before...

I am in love with the tassle garland. {Definetly my favorite party touch}.

This tassle garland was inspired by the lovely confetti system garlands at http://confettisystem.bigcartel.com/product/tassel-garland-brights. They are a whopping $130! Yes. But it is lovely. It could be beautiful anywhere. I wanted it tied to the trees blowing in the breeze. But our weather got iffy with the rain. Wet tissue would really be a mess! I didn't pay for it. I made it.

Annalese and the birthday cake. It wasn't easy. Everyone is so at ease with the fondant.. not me! I go into it with ease and end up with trouble. That grey top almost put me in tears the midnight before her birthday. I'd prepared and colored the fondant days in advance. But when I made the buttercream and went to lay over the fondant it became an absolute mess. I had to pull it all off and just as I was thinking I was going to have to go buy more marshmellows and make more fondant (thats when I wanted to cry because it was already late, then the store and the making again!). I looked at my little scrap pile and thought... "can I make it work?" No, it was nothing but scraps. So I decided on sacrificing some of the white fondant to add to the remaining grey bits and dyed then it some more. Second time was a charm. Once that went on niceley the cake became super fun to make. The white petals on the bottom were kind of in lieu of a little girl about to be baptized. Originally I was going to make a fondant flower for the top (not sure how! Its always an experiment). So when I was at Ben's work earlier in the week I saw these lovely pink flowers outside the office and thought yes! Exactly what I was going for. Then I kiped one for the cake top.

The funnest part about the cake... the inside held a suprise. It was completely made of rice krispies! They loved it! Definetly loved it more than a cupcake.

These little beauties were a party gift. And they were all the more beautiful piled together.

Here were the notebooks before they got their gorgeous on! At back to school time you can pick up the big ones for 20 cents. Anyways there was a great how to at http://www.aestheticnest.com/2011/09/craft-pretty-paper-covered-composition.html. I liked the fabric covered look so I actually bought fabric pieces, photocopied the fabric and then covered with the copied paper. In my list of plans I would love to use the real fabrics to make a quilt for Annalese.

Look at that stack! I had so much fun making these. If I knew what to do with more I would make more. The big notebooks were for the girls and the minis were for their dolls. The AG dolls come with a story so I thought it would be a fun place for them to write their story and their dolls' story.

Inside revealed a different print and place to claim who this book belongs to:

{Of course cursive is so fun right now}.

The invite. I found this image of the doll tea party on etsy. And it just came to me how cute it would be to make the picture look like a poloroid of the event. So I printed it onto photo paper the size of an actual poloroid and cut around with extra white showing so it would look like an original poloroid. Then stuck it on with photo corners, all the info was on the back.

cupcakes

soda

game: know your dollie

This was really fun. Each girl was blindfolded and had to guess her doll by feeling it.

We had a tea party for the dolls with a mini cupcake {craze erasers}.

Each girl introduced her doll at the tea party. This was a blast. I couldn't believe how much everyone had to say about their doll and everyone was so instrested! Especially me! They all had a story to tell.

This is Gracie's doll, she came with crutches because she broke her foot. And there was so much more to her, but I forgot all of it.

Anna and her doll came in matching outfits!

Our favorite guest was this little bunny! It made everyone laugh so hard when we put the party hat on and it got to sit on the table!

This is Emmie's doll, she just got glasses the night before.

They looked so cute sitting there all together. They were having a really good time.

The girls laughed about everything, like when Hayley's doll tipped over her cupcake.

So the girls began their own tea party.

raspberry tarts

The teacups were all from Emmie's bday party 2 weeks earlier. I just gave them a change up with an aqua spray paint and added a little gold edging. I feel like we really got our 50 cents worth!

For a fun craft (my girls love crafting) we made matching headbands for them and their dolls. They got really into this and had fun sewing the felt circles into flowers. You just fold felt circles in half and half again and add a few bunched together. Even the girls who were new at sewing had fun whipping their needles through the pieces. And they all did the making on their own.

This is Ciera and her doll. She was a delight. She LOVED the camera and kept getting in front of it. I would just click down the button like crazy. But those pics were all blurry because she would get so close to the lens!