Celebrating a DisneySide Princess Playdate

Here at Trips With Tykes, we obviously love all things Disney.  Naturally, I couldn't resist the opportunity to participate in an exciting Disney blogger tradition: hosting a #DisneySide @Home Celebration.  The totally awesome folks over at Disney and Mom Select sent me a complimentary party pack, and we were on our way to planning an amazing DisneySide princess playdate.

What is a DisneySide @Home Celebration, you ask?  For a while, I wondered that too!  It really can be anything the host wants it to be.  Many hosts use it as an excuse to throw a party with no reason other than to celebrate their love of Disney.  Others use the supplies for a birthday or special occasion.  With a kindergarten age daughter, I knew it was the perfect excuse to have a few of her friends over for a playdate.

The theme of our party this year was princesses and most of our Disney goodies featured the very popular Sophia the First from the Disney Junior show.  All things purple (with a little pink on the side) were the order of the day.  My daughter invited several of her girlfriends over to our home after school on a Friday for a get-together celebrating princesses galore.

Our guests came dressed in their finest royal attire.  We had a wide variety of princesses present from the Disney collection - Merida, Jasmine, and Elsa were in attendance, as well as several other princesses the girls dreamed up all on their own.  The girls had a blast playing Disney Bingo and coloring their favorite Disney characters.  We were blessed with a warm and sunny California day during the party so the princesses took the party outside as well.  With a bunch of 5 and 6 years olds in attendance, unstructured play time was a necessity too.  A few of the moms hung out during the party and watched the Disney madness with amusement.

Of course, our #DisneySide party also featured lots of eating.  The food highlights were definitely the purple swirl Sophia the First-inspired cupcakes as well as Mickey Mouse made entirely from Rice Krispie treats.  Tutorials on both are at the end of the post (I'll let you in on a little secret: they were both super-easy for those of you who aren't that crafty but super-cute too!).

The princess play date was a resounding success and something I hope we can do again soon.  Each girl left with a Doc McStuffins box full of favors, including some Disney-provided goodies as well as a few Disney-themed treats I couldn't resist picking up in the dollar section of Target.

Sophia The First Cupcakes

Ingredients & Tools:

• Duff Purple Rain cake mix
• Pillsbury Bold Purple Funfetti icing
• Icing piping bag & decorating tips with couplers (I love the Wilton deluxe decorating tip set)
• Purple sprinkles & pearl decorations of your choosing

(Note: you can find the cake mix and icing at both Target and Walmart, but you'll likely need to visit a craft or baking specialty store like Michaels to find purple candy pearls).

Directions:

• Make & bake cupcakes from Duff Purple Rain cake mix per box instructions.  Be sure to layer the purple & white batters for maximum effect!
• When cupcakes are cool, pipe purple icing on top.
• Decorate with a variety of purple sprinkles and decor.

Rice Krispie Treat Mickey Mouse

Ingredients & Tools:

• 6 cups Regular Rice Krispies cereal
• 6 cups Cocoa Krispies cereal
• 2 10 oz bags of miniature marshmallows
• 6 Tbs butter (divided)
• Non-stick cooking spray
• White Wilton ready to use icing
• Black Wilton ready to use icing
• Red Wilton sparkle gel
• Wilton Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake pan ($13.99 on Amazon)

Directions:

• Liberally coat the Mickey cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.
• At the same time but in two separate pans, make 1 batch of regular Rice Krispie treats and 1 batch of Cocoa Krispie treats (Basic Rice Krispie Treat recipe: In large saucepan melt 3 Tbs. butter over low heat.  Add 10 oz mini marshmallows and stir until completely melted.  Remove from heat.  Mix in 6 cups of cereal and stir until coated.)
• Add some of the Cocoa Krispie mixture to the ear portion of the pan.  Use a spatula or spoon covered in non-stick spray to press flat.  You will likely have to use your fingers to trace and shape the outline of Mickey's ears.  Add the same mixture to the nose portion of the pan.
• Add the regular Rice Krispie treats to the remainder of Mickey's face and press flat to match the level of the Cocoa Krispies (you'll have some left over of each type of Rice Krispie treat).
• Allow treats in pan to cool.  Once everything is completely cool, gently ease your creation out of the pan (running a knife gently along the edges of the pan helps).
• Put on a platter or cutting board to decorate.  Use the icings and gels to add eyes and a mouth, and your Mickey is complete!

Disclosure: Disney and Mom Select and their sponsors graciously provided free products for this party.  As always, all opinion are my own. 

A special thanks to my friend Diana from Modern Heirloom Photography for taking many of the photos in this post.  For all my local readers in the San Francisco Bay Area, she's available for hire!