simple, sweet butterfly birthday with awesome ME boxes

Our Cora had a Butterfly Birthday Bash Playdate, which was fun and simple and beautiful and full of butterflies and perfect for ringing in numero seis.

Our tiniest turned 6.  Six!

And all she wanted was rollerskates and butterflies and cupcakes. And a butterfly pinata.

So because she has an aunt who is having a baby any day now, we kept things simple for Cora’s butterfly birthday bash, in the event that I had to drop everything and run to the hospital to hang out with my youngest sister and squeeze and kiss and love on my newest nephew.

A four-gal birthday playdate is a big change from Cora’s party last year, but it was just as fun.

The girls kept busy with a simple, sweet craft–Awesome ME boxes–for each girl, that began as Butterfly Chests from Melissa & Doug but turned into so much more with a little love hidden inside.

And we enjoyed seriously beautiful butterfly cupcakes, pink lemonade, and a butterfly birthday pinata.

Here’s the skinny . . .

• Simple, Sweet Butterfly Birthday with Awesome ME Boxes:  Three buddies from school with Maddy and Owen helping out, and it was great.

As the girls arrived, they decorated their goodie bags, which I always think is a great first activity because it gives kids something to do right away–especially if they’re younger and are hesitant in new places.

Before the girls arrived, we set up their painting stations.

 That way, they were ready to roll right away–great for a short playdate birthday party!

Then they wanted to start painting.

I told them, These Butterfly Boxes are much more than just regular boxes. After you paint them and decorate them, they’ll become Awesome ME Boxes.  Anyone know what an Awesome ME Box is?

No one did. And no one wanted to even take a guess.

So I told them: Awesome ME Boxes are boxes made especially for awesome YOU. When you are finished, we’ll put teeny, tiny, special notes inside, just for you. And every morning when you wake up, you can open your box and read a message. And each message will remind you of how awesome and incredible and special you are.

They loved the idea.

awesome ME notes

The Awesome ME Notes are here to download if you’d like. 

We have one set for bigger girls: awesome ME notes

And another set for younger girls: awesome ME notes- little girls

If you decide to share the notes, great! Just please, please link to this post instead of note page. Thank you!

Cora’s really loving hers, and so is Maddy.

And I love that the girls start the day with a little reminder of how awesome they are.

 

Cora works on painting her Awesome ME Butterfly Box. . .

. . . and they all keep at it. . .

until they finish!

They painted the inside —

— and outside. The Awesome ME Butterfly Boxes were BEAUTIFUL!

After boxes were painted, we sang Happy Birthday and ate sweets.

Sweets? Really simple and so sweet— of course they were Butterfly Cupcakes!

My amazing and talented friend MaryLea gave me the idea for these cupcakes, which are simply regular cupcakes, iced with pink lemonade and white vanilla frosting (those were Cora’s color choices!), and a butterfly on top!

Cora chose the fancy paper at the craft store.

And then she helped me cut the wings. Can you see the cardboard wing on the bottom of the photo?

We used it to cut each set of wings.

The butterfly is totally adorable–we cut wings from fancy, double-sided scrapbooking paper, and added a gummy worm in the inside for the butterfly body. With a little fancy folding (not really–we just folded in a little space in the inside of the butterfly wings for the gummy worm to sit flat.

That way, the wings stood up, ready for flight, and the butterfly body sat comfy inside.

Our many butterfly wings. . .

 folded such that the gummy worm-butterfly body can sit flat inside.

Gummy worms, soon to become. . .

BUTTERFLIES!

It’s a magical metamorphosis cupcake miracle!

Cora helped choose bodies for each of the butterflies.

Yes, the paper got a little messy after being on top of the cupcakes, but we placed them on about 30 minutes before the girls arrived, and they just put the wings on their plates after they ate the gummy worm.

After cake, the girls batted around a butterfly pinata filled with sweets and super-small treats.  They used their goodie bag to catch and store treats, which worked out perfectly.

When the butterfly pinata had met its match, the girls made sure that everyone had about the same amount of candy and treats.

Butterfly pinata makes a playdate birthday bash crazy fun.

And then they played.

And then they sang. Because what 6 year old girl can be in the same room with a a full-blown rockstar stage and not want to get on the mic?

When they were ready to go home, we packed up their Awesome ME Boxes (Butterfly Chests) for them, using the same boxes they arrived in, but with name labels so we didn’t get mixed up.

We cut the Awesome ME notes and put them inside an envelope, along with the extra sheet of notes.  When the girls’ boxes are dry, their moms will put their notes inside the boxes.

Awesome ME Boxes are ready to head home!

And each morning, the girls will open their box to find a special Awesome ME note. . .

 . . . so they can begin each day with a pat on the back and an extra push of love and confidence.

Overall, it was a super-awesome, simple and sweet Butterfly Birthday.

Though there’s no new baby (yet!), we’ve got a six-year-old who hasn’t stopped smiling–or rollerskating–for several days.

What more could we ask for? 

 

fyi: I wrote this post as part of the Melissa & Doug Blog Ambassador program.   Melissa & Doug is currently working on a super-awesome Birthday Bash campaign, where tons of cool birthday party ideas will be shared. Read the Melissa & Doug blog to get the skinny!