Rapunzel Turns Five! {Tangled Birthday Party Ideas}

From the day she first watched the movie Tangled (after confusingly meeting Rapunzel at Disney World before she knew who she was), my daughter’s one wish for her birthday was to ‘see the floating lights, just for 24 hours.’  No pressure, right?  My daughter’s birth was the single best and worst day of my life.  So when she shared her wish for a Tangled birthday party with the whole ‘floating lantern’ thing, I knew I had to step up to the plate BUT do so without stressing out the family or going too over the top.  Stop laughing at me.

Contrary to what my family probably thinks, I fully embrace the semi-handmade concept.  Who has time to bake complicated cakes from scratch or stitch birthday dresses or craft lanterns out of wax paper?  {if it’s you, please, don’t tell me.  I’m jealous.}  Here’s what we came up with : a few (reusable) Tangled themed craft projects, an embellished store bought cake, and several other inexpensive touches that will only make it look like you went over the top without you having to actually become crazy party lady.

No really, STOP LAUGHING AT ME.  😉

Princess Invites

Of all the pieces of the party, the one thing that got the most compliments were these gorgeous tri-fold custom princess invitations that I was given by Pear Tree Greetings.  Plus the birthday girl LOVED them.  These are keepsakes for sure!  We were able to customize the text, photos, initial, and more.  Love love love!

Party Decor

Rapunzel’s Hair Wreath: I’ll post a tutorial later this week, but I made a Rapunzel braided wreath for our front door.  I found the idea on Pinterest with no blog source so I had to figure out how to do it myself.  It’s not difficult, but does take a good hour of unwinding, braiding and hot gluing.  WORTH IT!

Kingdom Flags:  This was another DIY craft project I made with my daughter.  I cut purple cloth and we stamped it with a chunky foam sun stamp in brilliant gold.  Then I sewed them together in one long string to make Kingdom Flag Bunting

Princess Goblets:  I will not make a ‘pimp cup’ joke here.  I WILL NOT.  These are PRINCESS GOBLETS.  For PRINCESSES.  Anyways, they’re simply clear plastic cups from the Dollar Store covered with Dollar Store stickers.  They make juice look fancy.

Centerpiece:  The base was our Rapunzel Hair Crown from the Disney Store.  I ran it down the center of the table and hoped no one would get grossed out by {fake} hair on the table.

Then we tucked faux flowers along the braid, including these fun large yellow ‘magic flowers’ that were $1 at Michaels.

Since we had extra flowers from the wreath, I collected them into a clear glass bowl.

We also included a wooden castle adorned with Rapunzel’s signature hair that my daughter had painted earlier this summer.  It’s a fun project idea for princess loving kids.  Got the unfinished wooden castle at Michaels and my little artist gave it her own stamp.

Another Pear Tree product I was able to review were these paper party decorations.  Aren’t they great?  They’re perfect for celebrations such as birthdays, graduations, retirement, and so much more.  They filled in our centerpiece nicely and I scattered the rest around the table.

Floating Lanterns:  Obviously we couldn’t have a Rapunzel party WITHOUT THE FLOATING LANTERNS.  I purchased them both in stores when I saw them and also online for the more unusual shapes.  We probably had 20 inside the house and outside over the front door.

We added our kid-crafted foam lanterns to the mix as well (find the kids craft lantern tutorial here):

Yellow streamers (a.k.a. Rapunzel’s hair) were draped down the hall, through the kitchen, and around the dining room.  We kept looking for Rapunzel to swing down and scream ‘BEST. DAY. EVER!’ at any moment.

And look who greeted the guests outside?

Dollar Store flower pinwheels led the way.

Rapunzel Birthday Cake

Do you have any idea how many over the top Rapunzel cake ideas there are on Pinterest?  TOO MANY.  My daughter never asks for anything, ever, so when she said she wanted a cake with floating lanterns I knew that’s what I had to do.  I showed her some of the {totally over the top} cake photos and she didn’t really like any of them.  WHAAAAT?  She wanted lanterns against a night sky.  Not a tower, or lots of hair, just lanterns.  Against a night sky.

So I had our local supermarket (Giant in PA) make their standard Tangled cake.  They jazzed it up by making it more purple and even put on edible glitter.  Here’s the fresh-out-of-the-box cake from the supermarket:

First I took off the plastic sign.  For the lanterns, I purchased Duff Cake Decorating Wires (affiliate link).  There’s mixed reviews as to whether it’s safe to use wire in a cake so I used coffee stirrers as a barrier between the wire and cake (I should have trimmed them more, but truly, the kids were awestruck and didn’t notice the cake stirrers).  Then I hung ‘lanterns’ made from sheet fondant.  In hindsight, I wouldn’t have splurged on the fondant I would have just used paper.  No one needs to eat the lanterns.

We also added Flynn, Pascal, and the boat figurines–we mixed together a few sets that she got for her birthday.  Here’s the Rapunzel and Flynn figurine set with the boat and this Tangled set has a Rapunzel holding her hair (affiliate links).

Again, terrible photo.  But the cake and the lanterns were a hit for sure.  I mean, really.  Check out her face!

Party Favors

Since it was a small party, I didn’t mind splurging a bit on the party favors.  Can you believe how cute these ‘satchels’ are?  Obviously a sun symbol would have been better but considering I found these bags premade for just $2 each I was NOT complaining!

Each satchel contained a hair brush, chalk, crown (got them in a pack of 6 at Michaels), and a Pascal party blower.

We tied them together with another Pear Tree goodie, personalized favor tags.

Pascal Party Blowers

The directions came straight from the Disney website (along with some other fun Rapunzel party ideas and coloring pages if you want some activities).  Please note where it says ‘USE ADHESIVE FOAM’.  Apparently I don’t read well because I skipped over that part and ended up clipping the foam pieces with clothespins while they dried.

The kids didn’t care how I made them, they seemed to love them regardless!

 I had a few kids crafts ready to go, but we were short on space, it was a hot day, a skunk had sprayed our house the night before, and the kids were having just too much fun running up and down the stairs to distract them.  In other words, the seventy bazillion toys in our playroom were the only extra activities needed that day.  Though nothing was able to overcome the smell of skunk on a 95 degree day.  That was NOT supposed to be part of the fairy tale.

Many thanks to Pear Tree Greetings for providing the invitations, paper party decorations, and favor tags.  I was not compensated for this post, but did receive those products free for review.

If you’re a Tangled fan you can guess what I’m going to say next… my daughter thought her Rapunzel themed birthday party was the BEST. DAY. EVER.  From the Rapunzel cake to the Flynn-themed satchels to the floating lanterns and Tangled craft ideas, it was all worthwhile.  But next year?  This tired semi-handmade mama is taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese.  😉

{Rapunzel Turns Five! Tangled Birthday Party Ideas is linking up with: Monday Funday | Crystal & Co. | The 36th Avenue }