Hey there stranger! It’s been a long time since I’ve given you a traditional party blog post. So today, I’m sharing a real life virtual princess party I hosted this summer for my daughter’s sixth birthday.
The summer is always such a slow/busy time for our family.
I like to keep summer fairly unscheduled for the kids because we only have 18 years with them so I like to soak them up as much as possible.
This summer has especially included lots of time together, haha 😉
But it’s also busy because three of the four of us have birthdays. Starting with my daughter in June, then two weeks later my husband’s birthday, and then two weeks after that my son’s birthday.
Throw in four other friend’s birthdays on top of that too.
Needless to say it’s been birthday palooza this summer.
With this year’s current restrictions and limitations on gathering people, planning the parties and celebrations for all of these birthday’s has been tricky to say the least.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to recap all of those parties for you. And you’ll see that how we hosted the party starts fairly restricted and then get a little more unrestricted.
I hope seeing these gives you ideas of how to continue to celebrate in this crazy new normal.
And If you need more ideas on how to celebrate in a quarantine/lockdown/bubble situation, then check out episode 2 of my podcast, Conversations with the Hostess.
First up in the birthday palooza is my daughter’s birthday. Because things were so restricted still in June for us I think I went over the top with the at home celebrations to still make it feel special. That and her being older and almost demanding certain things for her birthday. Haha!
How To Get Your Kid’s Opinions On Their Party Without Losing Your Vision of the Party
Because she is older I wanted to start including her in the planning process and ask her opinion on what she wanted to do for her birthday.
I had a general idea of the theme she wanted, a princess party, but I wanted more specifics from her.
To involve her and not lose my entire vision of how I saw the party, I found several options in each party category and asked her which she preferred.
What I didn’t expect to happen is her giving ALL. OF. HER. OPINIONS!
As I was showing her options on my Pinterest board dedicated to her party she started saying she wanted surprises in the morning, a bouncy castle and a bunch of other stuff that just wasn’t going to happen.
So I had a few things I did want to do to make her day special.
All Day Birthday Celebrations for a Kid
I wanted to have some surprises for her when she woke up and came downstairs so I put up some decorations around the table. Here are some bad lighting photos of our morning set up.
We also always do sprinkle pancakes for birthday breakfasts. And now that she’s older she wants to be the one that does the sprinkling. I got creative this year and tried to make number 6 pancakes, but they could also double for the letter G, haha!
So with this princess party theme I went with more of a Frozen color scheme of turquoise (my daughter’s favorite color, this month, it will probably change 14 times over the next week), white, silver, and gold.
I didn’t want anything overtly princess themed. Like actual photos of Disney princesses.
So I threw in a bunch of crowns and castles.
After the morning celebrations of decorations, pancakes, and presents, we made sure she could celebrate with her class since we couldn’t invite them to an in person party.
We made crown cupcakes for her to take to school with turquoise icing and silver and gold sprinkles. And I love that my daughter is getting to an age when she’s able to help with things.
She cut out all of the gold glittery crowns that we used as cupcake toppers.
Then after school we had another physically distanced celebration at a park with a group of our friends.
Thankfully we’re all able to spread out and let the kids run around. Plus, she got to have the moment of being sung Happy Birthday to and blowing out a candle on her cupcake.
How To Host a Virtual Princess Party
Then the Saturday after her birthday we hosted a virtual birthday party. This is how I’ve had to pivot my business during this time.
I’ve had several clients need party plans that allowed them to celebrate via Zoom.
We did the same thing!
We invited most of her classmates and with some creative party timing we were even able to invite some friends from back in the US where we used to live.
Like the virtual parties I’ve planned for others, I wanted to include some fun things like an on theme backdrop for the Zoom and activities to keep the party fun.
Virtual Princess Party Backdrop
Keeping with the color scheme and theme of the party I created a backdrop of pinwheels and snowflakes.
I purchased all of them on Amazon here and here. The colors of the gold foil pinwheels were great and they were super high quality.
I also used a gold backdrop fabric I’ve had for a long time. You can see it in this party.
I cut out a castle shape from cardboard and sprayed it with gold glitter spray paint but it just didn’t turn out very gold or very glittery.
Whenever you’re doing any party, virtual or in person, having a large focal point like this is a great way to get your theme across to your guests and focus the party.
Rather than spreading out all of those pinwheels all over, putting them in one place all together makes a much bigger impact.
Virtual Princess Party Dessert Table
Unfortunately, because we were hosting a virtual party, none of our “guests” were able to help with the desserts. I really wish they could have though because the COVID weight gain is real.
This is the cake recipe I used and I covered it with store bought vanilla icing. The cake topper is the same lace crown used on her first birthday cake!
I did jazz up the cake with some homemade candy jewels. I legit felt like Walter White in Breaking Bad making these jewels though.
Only because I had to YouTube how to make broken glass and the video that kept turning up was how to make fake meth like in Breaking Bad.
I watched this video and of course mine didn’t turn out nearly as good as the one’s in the video. I think I poured mine to thick and they didn’t have enough time to harden all the way. So if you do make something like this in the future, be sure to do it like a day or two before you need it.
Mine turned out gooey and super sticky. It was really hard to get off of my fingers. But I was able to kind of ball it up to make it look like gemstones.
I think it turned out ok. What do you think a Pinterest fail?
In addition to the cake we also had leftover cupcakes from earlier in the week and I made this simple colored sprinkle popcorn.
My kids love popcorn like this and it has quickly become something we have at almost every party.
Keeping Kids Entertained During a Virtual Party
To keep the party fun and entertaining, I sent crown favors home with the kids earlier in the week and encouraged them to wear them during the party.
I also made a Princess Bingo card that I emailed to the parents of the kids on the Zoom so we could all play along together.
The kids really got into it and enjoyed yelling Bingo whenever the princess themed item was called out.
If you want your own personalized Bingo cards, just email thedailyhostess@gmail.com and I can make them in the colors and names you need for only $5.
We also did a quick game of guess the lyrics with Disney princess songs. So I would play a song into the computer then pause it and ask the kids to tell me what the next word or lyric was.
I had contacted several “real-life” princesses to join the Zoom call to sing and play with the kids, but all the ones I knew were already booked. But that would be a great way to let someone else entertain the kids for a few minutes while everyone is on a call together.
Shop This Party
If you liked what you saw for this virtual princess party and want to get any of the items I’ve used or similar ones just click below.
Overall, I think my daughter had a great week long celebration, even during restricted gatherings and without all of the extravagant requests she had.
Be on the lookout over the next couple of weeks to see some of the other parties we hosted this summer.
And because we are in full blown fall mode over here in England, lots of fall content is coming too!
