G's Shoes and Swimming Party

Griffin's 11th birthday was back in April and between sports and school activities and one million other things we couldn't find a day/time to plan a birthday party for G so we decided to push it into summer break which ended up being the best thing EVER!  Believe it or not, G had never had an "at home" birthday party before and she dubbed this THE BEST PARTY EVER! :)

Her requests were a craft, swimming and Taylor Swift and so I ran with those ideas and managed to pull together something cute and fun.

I found the "In my birthday era" banner HERE and it worked perfectly with the cake topper I had made that we used for her family birthday dinner as well.

The cake was a $20 cake from Walmart and I LOVE that you can completely customize them.

I pulled out my disco ball bin and grabbed her roller skates and thought that this little cake table area turned out so cute!

We decided it would be fun to paint some shoes ala-1995 because I'm fairly certain I was 11 and painting shoes then as well ;). I found these shoes for $13/pair and these totes for $3/each and laid them out on the table that I had covered with wrapping paper to protect it...

... and then I just put out a bunch of fabric paint, acrylic paints and paint markers, puffy paints, etc. 

The wrapping paper was a Homegoods find and Griffin was OBSESSED!!!  I used plain pink wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby underneath it so that the whole table would be covered up.

I bought several pairs of size 3, 4 and 5 and then let the girl spick their sie when they got there.  I returned the extra pairs the next day - super easy.

I grabbed a few little goodies as game prizes...

... and about 30 mins before the girls arrived decided it would be cute to personalize the heart glasses with their names and some smiley and star beads.  We had the glue and beads already and it took about 10 minutes total.  SO SO SO EASY!!!

All I did was put down a line of E6000 and then lay the beads on the glue.  The end!

The girls arrived at 5:00 and after a quick trip to G's room for some squealing and girl talk they were back downstairs to get started on their shoes and bags.

Rosie kept an eye on the situation ;)

This kept their attention WAY longer than I anticipated.  We had a Taylor Swift playlist going on the speaker and they painted and giggled for close to two hours.  

We finally convinced them to put the paint down and let things start to dry for a bit and so then it was POOL TIME!  How cute are they in their glasses?!?!

This was the point in the party where Mrs. Harmon (one of their teachers) showed up and surprised the girls!  Their reaction was PRICELESS!!!  

I mean - is there anything sweeter?!?!

The boys got in the pool and pretty much just threw girls off of floats for as long as they asked ;) hahaha

We did chicken tenders and fries for dinner...

... and cake and presents in the hot tub ;)

We had the Eras Tour movie thing going on the big screen and the girls swam and played categories and just ran amuck and it was precious.

Griffin had planned some games including Left, Right, Center (for prizes), Bean Boozled and "The Flour Game" and originally we were going to have the girls dry off around 9:00, come inside and play games and hang out but nobody wanted to get out of the pool so we just played them outside in between swimming ;)

It was the SWEETEST party and I had so much fun putting it together for her and her friends.  

I linked everything HERE, but if you have questions or need other links leave a comment and let me know!  HAPPY THURSDAY, friends!