Name: Stella, 3
Location: Chicago, IL

I was thrilled how this ballerina party turned out for my 3 year old daughter Stella's birthday. It was a party full of relatively simple, inexpensive DIY decor projects that made for a big impact. Handmade ballet slippers, crepe paper roses, and a tutu birthday cake were the stars of the show (in addition to the little ballerina herself, of course!). Here are the party details:

The ribbon wall was as simple as stapling a mix of ribbons and crepe paper streamers to some twine and hanging on the wall. The ballet slippers were made from a paper template by Etsy seller Piggy Bank Parties. They turned out so cute but are time consuming to make (it took me a good 30 minutes of cutting and taping per pair). So if you plan on making these, make sure to give yourself plenty of time prior to the party! 

These crepe paper flowers were also time consuming (about an hour a piece), but they were really fun to make and turned out gorgeous! The best part is my daughter now has them displayed as a keepsake in her room. Her middle name is Rose, so incorporating the roses into the party gave it a little personal touch.

The homemade angel food cake with buttercream frosting was topped with some more of the ballerina paper cutouts (I taped them to skewers) and a few pom-poms I made from tuile. The tutu cake stand was actually a big kitchen pot overturned and covered with one of my daughter's tutus.

I kept the desserts simple with some pink rice krispie treats (I just added a little gel food coloring), store bought pink wafer cookies that I stacked decoratively, and some pink and white sandwich cookies displayed in a bowl.

DIY Invites and Thank You Notes
The party invites and thank you notes were each easy DIY projects. The invites were made by printing the party details on rose patterned note cards from Snow and Graham and gluing on a ballerina paper cutout from Etsy seller DieCuts4U. For the thank you notes, I used some edging scissors to make a decorative border on plain white cardstock and affixed another one of the ballerina paper cutouts. I also lined the envelopes with Snow and Graham rose wrapping paper.

Thanks, Haeley! Readers, you can find step-by-step tutorials for the ribbon wall, crepe paper roses, and ballerina cake on Haeley's blog, Design Improvised.

(Images: Haeley Giambalvo)

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