Fancy Nancy Soiree 2014

An annual tradition at my library is a Fancy Nancy Party. This was my first time doing it, so I took what has been done in the past, searched Pinterest, and had a blast. I might even use the ideas for my own daughter's 4th birthday this summer. :)

We had to limit the number of people who could attend, due to only having space to comfortably seat 30 people at tables and chairs. Next year I plan to offer the party twice in the same week, as we had a handful of people on our waiting list this year.

I managed to fit into an old bridesmaid dress,
and fancied it up with a feather boa.

"Center stage" for photo opportunities.

Because of the FN book I was planning to read,
I brought my own wedding dress and
put it on display at the entrance. 

Found these fancy words in the
book Fancy Nancy Tea Parties

When girls arrived, they were asked to sign their autograph, then find their assigned seats at a table, and begin decorating their tiaras. The foam tiaras are from Oriental Trading, as are the sticky gems - which I scattered on the table as decorations. 

The punch bowl was also available at the beginning, I ended up mostly using the recipe found here, but added some cranberry juice to darken the pink color. 

Girls were encouraged to borrow some of my extra accessories, to make themselves even more fancy (hurray for the dollar store)!

Once everyone had arrived (well, nearly everyone - we did have two no-shows) I greeted the girls with as much fancy flair as I could muster, using words like bonjour and magnifique. I introduced our two special guests, Miss Belding and Junior Miss Belding (our town has an annual pageant).

While the girls sat at the tables and finished their tiaras and sipped their punch, I read the newest FN book: Fancy Nancy and the Wedding of the Century.

The queens then led the girls on a parade around the library, showing off their fanciness to staff and patrons. While they were out, a couple parents and I set out cupcakes. A very generous gal who works in the deli at our local grocery store volunteered to make cupcakes for us for free!!

After our snack, we played Fancy Nancy Bingo. I just used the game boards that had been used in previous years, though I did seriously consider these really cute bingo cards from Etsy. I had a few copies of the FN book Bonjour Butterfly that I had gotten really cheap at a Scholastic Warehouse Sale that I gave away as prizes.

All of the girls moved to the floor in the center of the room, and Miss Belding read the FN book Too Many Tutus. An early-reader book of that type was PERFECT for her to read, as she was really scared and claimed she couldn't "read as well and as dynamic as you". She ended up doing a fabulous job, and the girls loved being read to by a queen! :)

(This would have been the PERFECT opportunity to get a photo of all the girls and the queens, but I forgot. We did get a photo later with most of the girls, though some families had already left.)

At this point I gave the girls instructions about the last few activities they could do. The queens would be available for photos, all of my FN books were on display and could be checked out, and we had a butterfly scavenger hunt. I put ten colored, numbered butterflies around the library and the girls had to find them and write down the colors. When they returned their paper to me they got a goody bag -- simply filled with candy (I scored after-Easter clearance for half price!) and some Fancy Nancy coloring pages.

I encouraged the girls to keep their earrings, hair clips, and of course their tiaras, but to please return the other items so we could plan to dress up again next year.

And that's it! It lasted almost exactly an hour and really was a ton of fun. I was SO glad I did this in April -- it's been in February in the past, which in Michigan always means snow. So the girls were able to wear spring-y dresses and strappy sandals without worry.

If you have any other questions about how I did things, please let me know! Here are a few other photos from the morning:

Goody bags and my other supplies