Getting it Together: Barbie Birthday Bash

For her 6th birthday, my daughter asked for a Barbie party. At first, I was overwhelmed with how much you can do with this 52 year old, American icon as a theme, so I decided to start where I typically do: with the invitation. I really liked the, "Barbie All Doll'd Up" custom invitation I saw on a party store's website as well as the coordinating Party Supplies, so I used most of it with the exception of the table cloth and I used different necklaces and balloons.

Invitation: My daughter wanted her friends to bring one of their Barbie's to the party and we could take photos of each guest with her doll and perhaps put one a photo of the guest in one heart of the picture frame and a photo of her Barbie in the other (see Party Activities) or simply for some unstructured Barbie play. Not wanting to assume that all of the guests had a Barbie doll, I contacted all the girls' mothers to ask if each girl had a Barbie to bring and mentioned that if they did not, we would provide one for them to use. When I found out that each girl did, in fact, have a Barbie, I included a printed strip of paper on hot pink scrapbook card stock reading:

Please bring your favorite Barbie,

to Ella's 6th Birthday party!

The Cake: I looked up how to make a Barbie cake on the Internet but that task seemed too daunting for a novice baker like me, so I asked my friend who recently started a baking business, if she'd be up for the task and lucky for me, she was! I bought a Barbie doll that at I thought most resembled the invitation to give to my friend for the cake and we decided on the colors based on theme, figuring turquoise would pop against all the pink decor. Then my friend suggested some cake pops as an additional treat. The cake was strawberry with blue frosting layers and the cake pops were chocolate because every party needs a little chocolate : )

Note: When my daughter realized that she could keep the Barbie that was in the cake she squealed with delight. Bonus!

Party Activities:

Stick the sunglasses on the Barbie from the party store. The winner got a hot pink boa!
Decorate your own picture frame (wooden hearts that I thought looked like sunglasses to fit the theme) with a variety of paints, glitter glues and glitter-foam stickers that fit the color scheme and theme.
Color pages from Barbie fashion coloring book with markers. (My daughter decided she wanted everyone to be able to cut out the pictures and glue them onto decorative felt, so we added that option to the project and the kids LOVED it.)
Open Barbie play
Dancing to a mix of the girls' favorite songs, OF COURSE!

Keepsake: Taking photos of the girls and their Barbies to fit the picture frames wasn't logistically possible, so instead, I took a group photo of the girls to send along with their thank you notes.

Customized invitation (you can even choose your own font & colors)

A tiara, necklace and sunglasses for each place setting so the girls could glam-up.
Fresh cut flowers set the tone for a sophisticated luncheon and roses smell divine.
(Light pink roses for the dining table and hot pink for the buffet table)