Della’s 4th Trolls Party

I asked Della what theme she wanted for her 4th birthday and she enthusiastically responded, “Trolls Dance Party!!!!” From that second on, it was “go” time…I took her request and ran with it. I started by making a list of the iconic segments of the movie to see what would make the best decorations.

I cut out the Trolls logo from cardstock and covered it with glitter in efforts to save money. I would have used glitter cardstock instead if I had extra.

After I had a rough game plan, I had to figure out exactly where to have this party, our house at the time wasn’t big enough to occupy 18 kids, so I went to my resources. My boyfriend, Jose is a dancer with Cirque du Soleil. His manager owns a dance studio, perfect! We inquired and were able to rent out the space for four hours! Unspoken Dance studio is a great location in Las Vegas if you are ever looking to rent out a space.

I started collecting my Michael’s and Joann’s coupons to slowly start buying the items I needed at a discount. I bought the cardstock for the paper flowers one pack at a time as the coupon was only good for one regular priced item. I had every intention of making at least 20 flowers…..After about 5 flowers and several hours of assembly, I didn’t see how I was going to be able to manage that many. A little disappointed, I continued on with other projects. I hoped to be able to come back and make additional flowers if there was enough time. I saved my scraps from the flowers and used them to make the troll’s homes called pods! I simply googled photos of “Trolls Pods” and then cut the different shapes out of paper and glued them together with a glue stick.

Hug time is serious business when it comes to trolls, so I didn’t want leave it out. I decided to make a hanging ring as background for the food table’s focal point. I added balloon clusters and hung “hug time” cut out of glitter cardstock in the center of the ring. Keeping with the theme, I thought hug time would also be a fun “activity” for the kiddos. 1 hr into the party, we played the chiming hug time sound and all the little ones stopped in their tracks and started hugging each other. We all turned into puddles, it was adorable.

The cake would be the center piece for the table, I wanted it to be a little over the top, it’s Trolls after all! I found some great short cuts along the way with this cake! Be sure to check out the diy troll drip cake tutorial! I had the HARDEST time finding these lollipops in December…. I ended up getting them at party city and they were a kinda out of my budget…. Definitely stock up on these when they are available at the dollar store.

Della really wanted a trolls tree cake, this is what I came up with. I bought mini cup cakes at the grocery store, removed their icing, and piped my own buttercream to make a tree! I added metallic sixlet’s my Mom found at her local candy shop, some mini trolls, and called it done!

I wanted to make Della a princess poppy costume for the party. I would like to preface this with, I am NOT a seamstress….This would normally be a fake it till I make it, eyeball it – cut- then hot glue situation. But Lucky for me, I work with some very talented people. Ronnie, is a skilled costumer and is always willing to teach me little nuggets whenever possible. He showed me how to pattern an old dress of Dell’s and turn it into a poppy dress!

With my background being in wigs and makeup, it was an obvious choice to make her a wig and apply a simple poppy makeup for her special day. I made her wig out of an elastic crochet headband I found at the dollar store, and then I attached strips of tulle using the same technique as the trolls headbands.

Cut strips of tulle
Fold them in half
String folded end through the hole of the headband
Place ends of the tulle through the loop
Pull it tight to make a knot

Here’s a progress shot about half way through the process

I did this all the way around the head band starting at the bottom edge and working my way to the top! Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of this process, but it was very simple! I made the headband by cutting flowers out of felt and hot gluing them to a strip of felt. I used velcro to attach the band to the wig.

The wig lasted long enough for me to get a photo of her wearing it and then off it came! She ended up wearing one of the little diy trolls hair headbands instead.

When the kiddos arrived we had them pick out their very own troll hair and get their little troll nose painted. I had a few activities to keep everyone occupied. We had a tissue paper flower making stations, trolls coloring books with trolls crayons I scored at the dollar store, and a diy hug time bracelet. They loved it, all of the activities doubled as their favors!