Kokeshi Doll Birthday Party

For Penelope's friends party this year we decided to do a Kokeshi theme.  Our basic idea was we would decorate it Japanese style and paint our own kokeshi dolls.  It worked out great!

 Penelope set up this next sign herself.

We used benches and pillows for a little floor seating eating area and hung lanterns and fans around the house.

At first I didn't have balloons because I didn't think it went with the theme, but Penelope said she wanted balloons, so we added some in. 

 Penelope and Scarlett dressed up and were happy to pose for pictures.

She was excited for friends to come.

I wanted something for the girls to do while others arrived and came up with this coloring sheet.  It was perfect.  They quietly and nicely colored for almost 30 minutes!  It worked out really well because one of the moms was stuck at the dentist and some girls were pretty late.  All they missed was coloring, no big deal.  The sheet also had one blank doll and I encouraged the girls to practice their design on that dress.

Once coloring was finished we painted the dolls.  I prepainted the eyes and hair and thought they faces could be left blank.  That way the girls could do the dresses however they liked and no one would get upset.  Sometimes Penelope gets frustrated if her drawings don't come out how she envisioned them so I thought me doing a little prepainting would help with that.

 I also had beads to paint and hot glue to their heads to make buns.

They turned out so cute!  I love how different they all are.

Next we played a couple of chop stick games while waiting.

The first was a relay.  We split up into groups and the girls had to use the chopsticks to get marshmallows from one bowl to the other.  The girls were all really into it.  Penelope even said this game was her favorite part of the party.

I also had the girls get in a circle and use the chopsticks to pass a large marshmallow around the circle.  I had music playing and when the music stopped, if you were holding the marshmallow you had to either say your name or a Japanese word.

I totally forgot to get pictures of this, but before the cake the girls all sat down and ate some sushi.  It was dessert sushi, made out of rice crispies, fruit roll ups, and Swedish fish.

I struggled a bit to figure out the cake, but it turned out cute in the end.

Lastly we had presents.  I keep debating if we should just ask for no presents at the parties or not, but of course the kids love this part.

For their goody bags I opted to pass out homemade fortune cookies.  The fortunes all said "Thanks for coming to my party. -Penelope"  The reviews online said that these would be easy to make, let me just set the record straight on here that they were not easy to make!  We spent hours and I feel like my fingers were burning off because you have to quickly fold them after they bake but before they harden.  I could only bake two cookies at at time.  The kids sure had fun helping make them though and adding in their own fortunes.  They turned out pretty tasty.

The party was a success!  Now I feel like I can rest until the next one.  These parties always become stressful, but I love it!