For her daughter’s fourth birthday, Karen Ayars took a super creative spin on the ever-popular Cinderella theme with this wonderfully unconventional “Before the Ball” Cinderella Party, or as she cleverly worded it… Be4 the Ball. ;) An adorable “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique” awaited the princesses while they finished all of their “chores”, including laundry, Madame Tremaine’s breakfast, sewing the stepsister’s clothes & more! There are so many darling details in this fairy tale of a party, but I’m especially loving the amazing soapy dish bucket cake & bubble gum measuring tape!

PARTY HIGHLIGHTS to look out for:

• Breakfast-in-Bed cake decorating station with chef hats
• Dish, soap & brush sugar cookies + soapy dish bucket birthday cake!
• Bubble gum measuring tape (with edible marker writing)
• Spools of licorice & “Spool of Thread” Push Pops
• “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique” complete with Disney princess dresses & makeup station

PARTY DETAILS, as told by Karen…

A lot of details went into this one. I wanted to make this party feel like the true fairy tale. I didn’t want to focus on the part that we always see focused on when talking about Cinderella.

The invitation asked the girls for help. My daughter was turning 4, so nothing more perfect than Be4 the Ball. When the girls arrived, there was a chalkboard specifying the chores that had to get done before they could go to the ball. They had to sew the stepsister’s dresses (with real sewing machines as you can see in the pictures and with the help of the moms, of course), make the stepmother breakfast (the decorating the cake station), do the laundry (when they reached inside the hamper there were cookies of “dirty clothes”.) And only then, after they had done it all they went to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique to get ready for the ball. All the little girls wore rags the entire party… and then after they went to the boutique they changed into gowns. More detailed descriptions are as follows:

• Measuring tape made out of gum and edible marker for the mending stepsister’s clothes station
• Drizella’s Old Beads made with pearlized gum balls (the one she throws away and the mice gather to use for Cinderella’s dress)
• Push-up pops that I made into a spool of thread for the sewing station
• 6 real working sewing machines for the little girls to “mend” the stepsister’s dresses
• On the kid’s main table, the “plates” were turned into a clock for when it strikes midnight mention
• Madam Tremaine’s Spool of threads on the spool holders made of licorice candy
• The Favors: “loads of dirty clothes” wrapped in white sheet with a handmade doll on top. The favors were a Cinderella and a Fairy-Godmother doll
• The real looking plates, utensils and cups that are ALL amazing delicious cookies
• The “dirty” spoons and bowls covered with chocolate
• he soap and brush for doing the dishes, also cookies
• The “dirty clothes” cookies that were inside the hamper when the little girls had to open it to do their “laundry”
• The Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique that they went to after they finished their chores
• The invitation that was done in a piece of cloth to look like a rag and went inside a paper bucket with a mop and Gus Gus the mouse
• The “buttons” on the sewing station that were actually candy buttons and I did paint little dots in every single one of them with edible marker so it would REALLY look like buttons
• The prince (the father) that danced with all the little girls, but at the end picked THE ONE he had fallen in love with. His Cinderella.

And she lived happily ever after… The end. ;-)

So, anyhow that was the party. The kids had a ball (literally!!), it was truly magical.