Best! Birthday! Party! Ever!

Can I just say I LOVE theme birthday parties?

And I think this one was the most fun ever!!!

Nancy Drew?  You rock!  Pinterest?  You rock too!

So let me tell you all about it!  And by all about it, I do mean alllllll about it. (yes - go get your tea or coffee now)

Invitations:

I scanned in one of my vintage Nancy Drew (ahhh man.....these were the books from my childhood.....I guess I must be vintage myself) books, inserted it into a Pages document, decreased the opacity to 30%, and put the invitation details in a text box.  I used a very tiny font size.  

We made the envelopes with the wonderful Cricut and I found cute little magnifying glasses at the party store that we included with the invitations.

Decor:

We used plastic tablecloths I cut in half as streamers.  

(Oh my!  You are seeing pictures of the room in our house I haven't ever really done much with it.  It's on the list of projects on my sidebar.  I have so many dreams for this room!) 

Cute printables I found online helped tie it all together.

Crafts:

I found an etsy seller that sells kits to make your own bottlecap necklaces.  So again, I scanned in more vintage Nancy Drew book covers, used a 1" hole punch to get Nancy's faces.  

I also typed up some words that made me think of Nancy, such as "amateur sleuth, girl detective, mystery, a clue, and intrigue."  I made the font quite small and I cut these up too.

I wish I got pictures of all of the cute ones the girls made.  They were adorable and so easy to do.

Activities:

While I helped the girls make their necklaces, I had several bags set up around the room with numbers stapled to them.  I put items I picked up from the dollar store in each bag.  

The girls could touch it, squeeze it (gently), and smell it.  Then they wrote down their guesses.  We then checked their guesses and the one who guessed the most correctly (or close) got to choose the bag they wanted.  We went from the most correct guesses to the least correct and each girl got one of the bags as a prize.

I also had the girls pretend to be sketch artists.  I described a picture of Nancy Drew I printed and the girls drew their sketches from my description.  They worked on this a long time.

And of course, we had to watch the Nancy Drew movie with Emma Roberts.  Such a cute movie, but not quite the same as the books.

Food:

Since we had the party in the afternoon, we decided to have baked treats (like Hannah the Housekeeper from the books).  

We made Neiman Marcus bars, buttermilk devil's food cupcakes with white chocolate frosting, and - of course - lemon bars.

And for the Big Mystery:

You didn't think I'd forget to have a mystery for the girls to solve did you?

It started with the girls out in the sunroom and I said, "Did you hear that?  What was it?  We better go check it out!" Meanwhile, Worker Bee was banging on windows, trying to open locked doors, and just making scary noises.  He rang the doorbell and left a box on the steps.  It was wrapped in brown paper and said, "There is a mystery.  Will you help?"

Inside the box were notebooks and pencils for all of the detectives.

The first clue said - Within the dishes of green, a second clue remains unseen.

It was hiding in the kitchen with all my jadeite dishes.

The second clue said - By the beds of three, a second clue waits for thee.

I hid this one on the bench we have in our kitchen garden (where there are three flower beds).

The third clue I wrote in code with A as 1, B as 2, C as 3, and so on.  It said  - A three corner cabinet of black will surely give you the answer you lack.

This clue was hiding in our hallway corner cabinet (which I still haven't painted, but that's for another day).  

I made a mirror image of this clue so they would have to read it in the mirror.

The fourth clue said - Many a relaxing time has been spent at this table, find this clue if you are able.

This clue sent them all over the yard.  But the clue was really hiding in a drawer we have in our living room coffee table.  I had to hint quite a bit to get them to realize where this one was hiding.

This fifth clue said - You are such clever girls, but can you find where the flag unfurls?

I sent them outside again for this one.  I had pinned the last clue to a small garden flag we have in our picket fence garden.

This last clue said - One last clue to find your stuff, go the water colored room with the friendly fluff.

The girls got this one right away, but I made it a bit harder by hiding it on the top shelf of Baby Bee's closet in a basket filled with all her stuffed animals she still loves and can't quite let go of.  Inside was a picture frame that Baby Bee can paint and put a picture of her friends in.

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I have to give credit to the sources of several of these ideas.  Several ideas were inspired by this post on The Decorologist.  Another blog that helped inspire this party is Me and My Insanity.  And the best of all was this recent post from Paging Supermom that included great printables.  If you want to see more, please visit my Nancy Drew board on Pinterest.

Now you deserve a reward for sticking through this entire post.

How about a lemon bar, just for you?

Thanks so much for buzzing by!  Your visits and comments are always such a treat (sort of like a lemon bar)!