A Sweet 3rd Birthday {Paige's Nutcracker Ballerina Birthday}

Our sweet, little girl adores ballet. She doesn't just like it. And she's definitely not on the fence about it. She LOVES it and her fabulous ballet teacher, Lauren Owen at The Tallahassee Ballet School. If I so much as mention going to ballet, she immediately wants to go get dressed in her leotard and tights and asks repeatedly, "Is it time to go to ballet now?" It warms this former-ballerina-Momma's heart.

So for Paige's 3rd birthday we decided on a Nutcracker {due to the time of year} Ballerina Birthday. Pinterest of course provided me with much great inspiration. I rented out a small, old one-room historic school house that is now used for a community center through the city parks and recreation department. The invites were custom designed by Green Beansie on Etsy.

Front

Back

My talented friend Linley captured the precious photos on the big day.

Terri Smith Details provided me with many great party rentals and much of the food table decor for the festive event. Terri rents the adorable petite Chiavari chairs {she has gold and dark brown}, pint-size tables, lots of great furniture pieces {including the couch you see on the back wall}, chandeliers, serving pieces, drinkware, holiday decor, twinkle lights, buckets, framed chalkboard, etc...too numerous to mention it all. I can't say enough about how many compliments on the party I got because of the goods I got from Terri. Definitely check her stuff out for your next party!

My mom helped with my many Pinterest projects.  The tutu wreath...

Snowflake ballerina cutouts...

And no sew tutu favors for the girls to practice their best ballerina moves.

Strung from a clothesline behind the food tables, the tutus also doubled as room decor.

My mom, of course, also made Paige's beautiful "Clara" party dress and pantaloons.

For girly activities, we had fingernail painting...

And Nutcracker character face painting...

And Nutcracker coloring pages.

In addition to the tutus, each girl took home a ballerina shoe ornament, sparkly nail polish and candy-flavored lip gloss in these cute little take-out boxes all found at after-Christmas sales.

There were plenty of yummy treats from the Land of Sweets.

Dew Drop Fairy Marshmallow Wands, Sheperdess Staffs, Petite Fours, Tea Cookies, Sugar Plum Fairy Punch and it wouldn't be a party without my Cake Ball "Bon Bons".

The Bon Bons {cake balls} were leftover strawberry-cream cheese birthday cake from Paige's actual birthday. I mixed the leftover cake in a bowl,  rolled into balls and froze until closer to party day. I dipped them in pink and purple melting chocolate, topped with a dollop of white chocolate and a pearled Sixlet candy. I brushed all of the chocolate with edible pearl dust to give them a sparkly finish.

We also had story time of the classic Nutcracker tale read by none other than Clara herself {it pays to have connections in the costume shop and with dancers at The Tallahassee Ballet}.

And photo ops with the little ballerinas and Clara.

Either before the holidays or after, Paige's birthday party is always a mad whirlwind due to the time of the year. I must say though, that we had so much girly fun that it was definitely all worth it. And don't these little girls all look like they had a blast? Their precious grins and Paige's sheer excitement was reward enough for all of the hard work. I only hope that my mom, dad and Ben felt the same about the crazy crafting and furniture moving that I put them through ;-). Thanks to them and all of the little ballerinas that attended to make this party a sweet success for our little sugarplum's third birthday!