FROZEN Birthday Party

Disney's FROZEN movie was such a hit our at house (and all over the country) that it was a perfect fit for my daughter's 4th birthday party theme. She watches the movie in the car all the time and she sings every song at the top of her lungs.  She has listened to the CD so often I had to buy a second one. This was such a fun party to plan.
        The first thing the guests saw as they arrived at the party was this gorgeous sign that my sister created for the door.  Some how one of my nieces happened to have a can of that fake snow that we sprayed around the whole perimeter of the glass door entrance around the sign. Very cool effect, if you can find snow on the off season.

 As guests arrived they colored pre-printed FROZEN coloring pages and created these Sparkly Snowflakes.  Materials:  iridescent white pipe cleaners (cut them in half.It takes 3 half pipe cleaners to create one snowflake) and crystal beads or pearls.  Each child made an X with the 2 pipe cleaners and twisted to hold them in place. Then they placed the 3rd pipe cleaner vertically between the X and wrapped it around once to secure the whole snowflake together. They chose little beads to put on the end of each pipe cleaner. Finally I helped them twist a loop at the top of the longest pipe cleaner so they could hang it up at home.

 Next guests got to experience having the magical freezing powers like Elsa by creating these beautiful FROZEN FRACTALS! Just add one cup of Epsom salts to 1 cup boiling water, stir to dissolve. I let the mixture cool before I set a cup of it on the craft table in front of all the kids. Each kid dipped a paintbrush into the mixture and painted it onto black paper. It looks just like water at first. As it dries, it slowly starts forming little crystalline sparkles. To speed up the drying process and make it happen right before their eyes, I used a hair dryer on their paintings.   It really was magical!

 I had plans and supplies for the little ones to get to create their own crystal bracelets. It was some stretchy cord and lots of crystal-like beads. But when I saw how difficult it was for some of the 4 year olds to even put beads on the stiff pipe cleaners, I knew the beading of bracelets wasn't for this age group. (At least not in a large group setting.) I should have just made them ahead of time and let them take them home as gifts. However, if you have older girls, I bet they would love getting to make their own crystal bracelets.

This was the tablescape for the FROZEN Birthday Party!!! 

 The table was covered with a gorgeous iridescent, sparkly, white paper table cloth. (Party City) 

The cake took center stage.

Here are the FROZEN cake and cupcakes I created. My sister loaned me a lighted, crystal wreath that I placed in the center of the table. In the middle of that,  is a simple glass vase filled with glass jewels. (My sister had those already too. Sorry I don't know where she got them. But you could fill the vase with just about anything, Easter grass, tissue paper, dragons tears, etc) The first tier is actually a round class microwave plate. (don't laugh...I told you I wanted to use the things I already had) I encircled the plate with drapy ice crystals.  (yeap, my sister's too!) Then I placed the cupcakes on this tier. 

I made cupcakes to make it easy to serve and eat for little ones. I crushed up some of the Rock Candy I made and used it to decorate the rim of the cupcake. Each cupcake was in a silver wrapper and topped with a diamond shaped , crystal jewel. (Yes, more leftovers from the 60th anniversary!! yea!!!) I was sure to take the jewel off the top before I served it because it was not edible. It was a fun surprise to bite into the cupcake and find out it was BLUE VELVET cake (mix available at Walmart) on the inside. You have to have ice cream at a FROZEN party. So to make serving easier, I scooped vanilla ice cream into silver cupcake wrappers & sprinkled them with blue sprinkles, the day before. I put them back into the freezer on a tray until party time. This was the easiest idea yet for serving ice cream at a party!!!! 

The top tier was a glass serving platter stacked on top of the microwave plate. I baked a two-layer, nine-inch cake and  iced with buttercream icing. Then there is the ICE CASTLE. I knew that is the one thing (along with a staircase) that I just HAD to have on top of the cake.  It is created with homemade Rock Candy (it is a simple recipe of sugar, corn syrup and water heated to 300 degrees, hard crack stage) It took some trial and error to figure out what exactly we could do with this candy and how to get it into something shaped like an ice castle. One of the hardest was to get it a bluish color. The first attempt of adding drops of regular liquid blue food coloring to the boiling mixture just created a green color. So we ended up adding a teensy bit of water to a teensy bit of Wilton Royal Blue food coloring and applying it to the hardened candy pieces with a paint brush.   To make the castle pieces, we free- handed ice castle shapes onto waxed paper and laid it out onto a large baking sheet with sides. Spray the waxed paper liberally with cooking spray. As soon as the sugar mixture reaches the hard crack stage, quickly pour it out onto your baking sheet. Spread it out gently, but quickly with the back of a large metal spoon. Watch it carefully, as it begins to harden (but don't wait too long or it will be too hard) Use a knife, even a butter knife will do, to cut the candy along your tracings. It will not cut it completely at this stage but it will at least form a crease so you can break it along that seam when it is hard enough to crack. We found it helpful to lift the edges of the paper and candy slightly to separate it from the tray before it cools completely. Let cool. Then gently run your knife along the seams. We used one square piece as the floor of the castle that we would build the other wall around. (We learned this technique the hard way. With the first cake I made, we just stuck the castle walls directly into the cake.  A few moments later, we noticed the backside of the cake was falling off. Basically it had just been sliced by the castle walls. oops) Now remove all of the other walls of your castle and simply start placing them around your square.  We used three large triangularly topped pieces for the main structure. Then placed the same shaped pieces (cut in half during creation) on either side of the building. Now, we planned to hold the castle pieces together with simple sugar or something. ( I don't have enough experience with candies to know what would have worked ) But at this point, 10 minutes until party time (seriously) we just got out the good old hot glue gun!! As long as you don't look too closely at the ice castle, it worked great! We, of course, made sure not to serve any parts of the ice castle to the guests. Although, it would have been edible without the hot glue! We stuck a few gorgeous clear crystal pieces that came off of a wind chime on either side of the castle. I thought these were the perfect shape to make it look more like a castle edifice. Since no Frozen or Elsa thing was available at any store or online for a reasonable amount, we borrowed an Elsa from our neighbors for the top of the cake. (I believe it is the Infinity Elsa used for the Wii game??)  I thought she was the perfect size and I just love that she is doing her "ice power" motion which looks like she just created the ice castle. 

Then we needed an icy stairway to the ice castle, of course. But .....I believe my sister's comment was something like, "You can't create a stairway out of thin air." I insisted we had to have a stairway. I know how much my daughter loves that part of the movie. I've seen her play on the playground pretending to form an icy stairway to the top of the slide. At home each night as we ascend the steps to bed, she blasts the staircase creating the icy stairway for us to climb. Then,  I also believe..... it was my sister who reminded me that the stairs from the Barbie house are removable.  Yeap! Those are Barbie stairs! I quickly retrieved the pink stairs from the large Barbie house in my daughter's room. We just covered them with aluminum foil. Then I whipped up a small batch of Royal icing and iced the stairs. I used hot glue to apply some crystals on both sides of the stairway and finally shook some sugar crystal sprinkles all along the stairs. Surprisingly the stairs were the exact right height to bring Elsa to the ice castle at the top tier. I cut off and iced a small piece of cake from one of the first flub-up cakes I made and placed it in the gap  in between the staircase and the cake.  This was the perfect place for Elsa to stand.  I used some more crushed blue rock candy to form a little walkway for Elsa to the castle and to surround the base of the cake.  

On either side of the cake, were glass vases filled with iridescent Easter grass with sticks of blue Rock Candy in them. (Rock Candy available at Party City.  The candy is pretty messy and turns their mouth blue so  I put it in baggies and sent them home with each guest. )  The clear forks and spoons were in a glittery, silver server. 

This is simply blue Jello (see recipe here)  cut into cubes to resemble little blocks of ice! 

"Some people are worth melting for!"

Guests drank blue juice (Blue Hawaiian punch & Sprite) in clear cups or they selected melted snowman. (aka water) 

 Above the table were our regular kitchen lights. I strung pearly beads all around them to make them look like a chandelier. I hung three dimensional sparkly crystal snowflakes from the ceiling and all around. (Thanks again, sis, for letting me raid your Christmas decorations) I borrowed more crystal containers, trees etc and decorated the fireplace mantel. These pieces created an icy atmosphere. 

"Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?" 

All of the kids got to build their own snowman. I displayed all of the snowman parts in various sized glass containers at different heights. Jumbo marshmallows (the bottom), medium marshmallows (body), flat marshmallows (head), and mini marshmallows (for feet) were used to form  OLAF.  Mini chocolate chips were for the eyes and regular sized chocolate chips for buttons.  We used orange Mike and Ike candies for OLAF noses. When we couldn't find shoelace licorice, we just cut regular black licorice into one inch pieces. Then used scissors to splice it into three sections for OLAF's little tuft of hair.  Pretzel sticks were the arms.  I had everything ready for the kids.  All they had to do was get the parts and use some melted white chocolate to assembly all of the parts of their snowman.  I gave each of them a toothpick to dip into the chocolate and apply it to hold all the parts in place. You have to have some patience. It takes a bit for the white chocolate to harden and hold. They turned out cute!! Each of them were unique and they really enjoyed creating it themselves.

As they finished creating their own OLAF, kids joined the birthday girl for "ice skating" to the FROZEN soundtrack. Just give each kid two pieces of waxed paper, one for each foot and they slide around on the carpet. It is actually a lot of fun.  If you've never done it, you gotta try it!! The ice skating scene from the movie was playing(on mute)  in the background . It turned into "freeze skating" when we turned the music off and on. It kept them entertained for quite a while. It was one of the favorite activities!! So fun and easy!! 

"Queen Elsa" and I found a sparkly, blue piece of fabric (at Joann's Craft Store) and tied it around her neck for her Elsa cape. Later we found the perfect flowy, blue dress and strapy, sparkly silver sandals (at Burlington Coat Factory). Her side braided hair was topped off with a bling-bling Queen crown.  

Another activity was, Pin the Nose on OLAF. The noses are made of thin orange foam. We even got out the two "Don't Break the Ice" games that we have. 

 This is the gift table that held the kids treat bags and provided a place to put the birthday girl's gifts as guests arrived. The table is draped with blue shiny fabric. I know, who has a crystal tree? Well, my sister did! She has used it on many occasions (including our parents' 60th {diamond} wedding anniversary) It was a perfect fit for FROZEN tree. We started adorning it in dangling crystal pieces that came from wind chimes but didn't get the whole tree covered in them. It really reminded me of the amazing scene in the movie when they were walking  in the icy forest as they enter the North Mountain. For the treat bags, I was  looking for some pre-made glittery bags.  When I couldn't find them quickly enough, the day before the party, I decided to go with plan B and use stuff I had around the house. I am glad about it now because they turned out really cute and didn't cost me a dime. They were  pretty simple to make too. I already had a ton of white lunch sacks. I snipped off the top edge with fancy cut scrapbook scissors just to make it a little more decorative. Next  I used some Elmer's glue to draw a simple snowflake design and I sprinkled the wet glue with blue glitter. The birthday girl even got to help by shaking out the glitter. It was fun getting to see how giggly she was to use glitter!!!  I let the glitter dry. I was afraid the glitter would rub off real easily and get all over the place. So I took a can of clear spray enamel sealant and lightly sprayed the snowflake to keep the glitter in place. perfect!

Here were some of the items the guests took home in their treat bags. Ring pop, lip gloss with glittery cap, blue rock candy stick, clear heart-shaped box with lid, (both previous items available at Party City) They also used the sack to carry home the crafts they  created during the party. (the sparkle snowflake and the Snowflake painting)

The next day, I created these simple thank you notes to mail to all of the guests. It is white cardstock cut into half and folded in half. I used the same glue, glitter and clear sealant technique that I did with the gift sacks to make a snowflake design on the front.  I placed a FROZEN sticker (this was just about the only true Disney FROZEN merchandise item that I purchased for the party {Party City} We already owned the FROZEN movie DVD and music CD. I wrote "Thank You" on the front in silver pen. Then I hand wrote personal thank yous on the inside with light-blue felt marker. 

I had a spectacular time planning this Frozen party.  My daughter enjoyed all the party planning and of course had a great time at the party too.  I hope it was a memorable event for all of the guests as well. 

If you haven't had a FROZEN party, you should consider it for a theme. It can work for anytime of the year, and for any type event. I think it would work for a girl or a boy. All age groups love the movie too.  A few blue items, crystal, glitter and sparkles go along way to create the FROZEN mood without having to purchase any Disney FROZEN merchandise (which is all sold out at the stores right now any way) 

Enjoy & LET IT GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!