Fancy Nancy Party!

Bonjour! Welcome to our Fancy Nancy Party!

I had this program on a Saturday, advertised as a family program. I had about 40 girls, one boy, and their adults attend.

We started with snacks:

I found some plastic champagne flutes at the party store and filled them with apple juice. They looked awesome and added an extra special fanciness to the proceedings.

While the girls (and one boy!) were snacking, I read Fancy Nancy to them. We practiced saying "bonjour" and "merci" and "de rien". "S'il vous plait" was a little harder, but we all tried together and everyone made a good effort.

We then moved on to stations (with the option to get more snacks if you wanted).

Stations: 

1 - Elegant Tiaras 

I got the base and the strings for the tiaras from Michaels and then cut out a bunch of shapes from sticky-backed glittery foam. 

2 - Photobooth

This was my second attempt at a photobooth (I also did one for my Frozen sing-a-long) and it didn't work as well as I hoped. I see so many lovely posts about photo booths and yet for some reason my families just don't respond to it. I'm pretty proud of my swirled ribbon background, though. 

3 - Embellished Confections (that's fancy for decorated cookies!)

Plain sugar cookies, pink frosting, and sprinkles. Yum!

4 - Beautiful Bangles (that's fancy for bracelets!)

Lots of beads, lots of colored cord... this one never gets old. I've had people make entire sets of necklaces and bracelets. This is one of my favorite types of activities, especially when other projects are more complicated and take more time. This one is self-explanatory, self-directed, and requires focus and concentration which keeps kids from running amok. 

And it turns out a lovely product that depends very little on skills.

5 - Butterfly Wings

Nancy wears butterfly wings in the book, so we made our own, too.

 I had 12x12 pieces of cardstock onto which they traced the template for the wings. Some sparkly sequins and embellishments added glamour. Then we punched four holes in the wings, threaded the yarn through, and put the wings on. They were lovely.

 6 - Pom Pom Boas

I'm of two minds with this one. On the one hand, it was a LOT of work. I actually involved the circ staff in making the pompoms with me. Then I went home and made a million more myself. And I gave my assistant a whole bunch of yarn to make some as well. So it took four people a significant amount of time to create enough pom poms. But, on the other hand, holy cow, was this one popular. And they came out AWESOME.

What I'd change: I would start the pom poms earlier and get ready whip and not cool whip for the parfaits. Because: sadness (or at the very least total lack of cuteness): 

And I had such cute bowls and spoons, too!

Even though the photo booth wasn't anyone's favorite thing, it did add a nice decorative element. Maybe I'll do it again, but without the labor intensive background.

Why I'd do this again: I liked that the program worked for the princess crowd, but also for the slightly older girls. The average age at the Princess Party was about four and the average age here was about six. Also, the girls (and one boy!) had a blast and learned some French. Tres bien! A la prochaine!