Theme Party Thursday: Butterfly Party

Invites: Use colorful paper, stamps or clip art to make your butterfly invitations. Here is some sample wording:

Another year has fluttered by.

It's [child's name]'s Birthday of Butterflies.

Flitter and Fly- Come on by!

Gracefully Soar- See What's in Store!

[date]

[time]

At our Cocoon

[address]

Regrets Only, [ph #]

Activities/Games

Paper Butterflies (super easy and they love this). Get several different color packages of tissue paper and pipe cleaners. Cut the tissue paper into as big of rectangles as you'd like the butterflies to be-4x6, 5x7, or for really big ones-8 1/2 x 11. Then, layer about 4-5 different sheets of tissue paper together. You can then either fold accordion style, like you would for a paper fan, or just sort of scrunch and fluff. Once folded, take pipe cleaner and twist it in the middle to hold the tissue paper together. You can even curl the ends of the pipe cleaner up like little antennae. Viola! Each girl has their own unique butterfly to take home. The best part is, you do all of the prep work (cutting) ahead of time, and there's little mess because there's no glue or paint. For really sparkly butterflies, buy the sparkly tissue paper.
Monarch, May I? - played just like Mother, May I?
Butterfly Memory. Using card stock or poster board, cut into 30 equal-sized squares. Find 15 different butterfly stickers (or use clip art from computer), and make sure to get 2 of each (2x15=30). Then on one side of all of the cards place the stickers. On the other side, write the word memory, or leave blank. Then, following the rules of the board game Memory, let each girl have a turn to see if they can locate a butterfly match by turning over just two cards at a time.
Cocoon Relays. For this race you will need two sleeping bags and a large room (or yard). Divide the girls up into two teams. One girl from each team will get into the sleeping bag (with the sides zipped up). On "go" they have to inch their way (scoot) to the finish line. Once they reach the finish line they crawl out of their sleeping bag (metamorphosis) and take the bag back to the next girl in line, who then climbs in and inches her way to the finish line. Repeat until all contestants have had a chance to complete their metamorphosis. The first team done wins.

Food: make simple sandwiches, cut them kitty-corner, and invert them so that the uncut corners touch, resembling butterfly wings. Occasionally I have found butterfly fruit snacks and graham cracker shapes too. If not any type of "flower" or "berry" fruit snacks will work. We did Cream Cheese and Strawberry Jam sandwiches. They loved them.

For "butterfly punch" use rainbow sherbet, 1 can pineapple juice, 2 - 2 liters of ginger ale. Stir gently in large punch bowl.

Party Favors. If they made their own paper butterflies (see above) they can take those home. You can also melt chocolates and place into butterfly molds. This can be a party activity or made ahead of time as a party favor. Pixie Sticks also seem to be a hit here too. Check the dollar sections of your local stores like Target, JoAnns, and of course The Dollar Store. There are almost always butterfly things like stickers, garden toys, floral embellishments, etc.