BEE PARTY!

When my youngest daughter weas turning three she surprised me with wanting a “BEE” party. I said, “Huh? Bee?”….but her wish was my command, and we created a birthday bash that left everyone buzzing about the fun!

Invitation: I used a cute clip-art image from istockphoto, then created an invite (2 to a page) with “bee” themed wording on Microsoft word and printed the  invites on my home computer. I had my daughter help me decorate the envelopes for invites with bee stickers we found at Michael’s craft store.

Decor:

-We have a few black tables, so we just taped yellow streamers on them to make bee stripes.  We used a few yellow table clothes on other tables and taped black steamer stripes to them.

-We hung yellow and black streamers vertically to make bee stripes over entry ways and archways

-I printed lots of various size clipart bees and hung them everywhere.

-I made signs using bee clip art  that  had some fun themed wording on it to celebrate my daughter’s bee-day.

-used yellow chalk to draw bees on our driveway and concrete area in our backyard

-yellow and black balloons-We did not splurge on getting them filled with helium. We just blew them up left them all over the ground and tied them to trees , tables, patio umbrella, swing set, etc.

-I found random bee decorations at Michael’s for 75% off, bee clips, a bee garden sign, felt bee cut-outs.

Arrival/Activities: We had different stations the kids could do during the party with different activities at each point…

            -Bee transformed---a table with bee masks, bee head bands and bee hats all

found in the $1 bins at Target, kids could pick what ever they wanted to get into the bee theme.

-Bee colorful—bee coloring sheets and crayons

-Bee creative---bee suncatchers kids could paint (got these in the $1 section

at Michael’s) and bee hive sticker craft (card board hives kids could

decorate with bee stickers) found at oriental trading.com

-Bee bouncy---a small Little Tike bounce house

-Bee a builder---a table of wooden blocks…only the yellow ones

Food: Part of the reason my daughter likes bees is her favorite color is yellow. So all of the food and drinks were yellow...Food included: bananas, pineapple, tortilla chips, cheese-its (not the orange ones), and popcorn. For drinks we had lemonade and yellow Gatorade. Afterward, I thought it would have been fun to include "honey" food items like: Honey Nut Cheerios and Honey Graham crackers.

Games:

-Pull-String Bee Piñata (purchased online) filled with yellow trinkets and small toys (found at Party City)

-Musical Bees: a game like musical chairs, but when the music stopped if a child was standing on a number I called the child received a bee finger puppet…we played until everyone got a puppet.

-Bee Search: I found cute bee shaped magnifying glasses in the $1 bin at Target and gave each child one so that they could find various clipart bees in our back yard.

Cake:

This is not for the faint at heart….using my pyrex batter bowl I created a dome shaped cake that a piped frosting on to create a hive. I used a chocolate melt to make the hole for the hive. Then I created bee cake pops (bakerella.com). It was my first time making cake pops and they were much harder to make than I thought they would be…decorating each one to look like a bee took several hours. I am not a baker though…so this might not be as challenging if you are a "natural" at baking and cake decorating. The bee pops were a HUGE hit…the kids thought they were getting a real treat and parents liked that the kids got a small portion of cake instead of a regular piece of cake.

Party Favors:
-A bee book and squishy ball (found in the $1 bins at Target) and a honey straw....plus all the items from the "Bee Transformed" table (mask, headband, hat)

***Last detail: we purchased a used bee costume on ebay for our daughter to wear, that she is also was going to wear for Halloween…love double using things!