Rapunzel Tangled Theme Birthday Party Ideas

I just love cute birthday party theme ideas, so when this local OC mom contacted me to share some inexpensive and easy things she did to create a Tangled theme birthday party I was thrilled to share them! Thank you Elle for sharing your amazing party! Here is what she wrote…

“So what mom doesn’t want to throw each of their little ones a spectacularly fabulous, especially memorable birthday party every year? Let’s face it though, it’s not always possible, whether it’s due to a limited budgeted, limited time, or both.

Falling into the latter category with 4 kids, moving and running on little sleep from having a baby who was still waking me up 2-3 times a night, when my third child’s third birthday was on the horizon I was feeling a little inadequate…but wanting to see my little girl’s face light up motivated me to plan a little something to make her birthday a special celebration.

Being on a limited budget we decided to have a party at home with just a few close friends and family. My goal was to pick a theme and keep things simple.

Since my little girl is totally into Disney’s Rapunzel, I decided to throw her a “Tangled” party. I did some basic searches for “tangled theme parties” on the web and grabbed some ideas. Yep, I admit, I got most of my ideas from other awesome moms that posted ideas and photos from their Tangled parties and I’m not ashamed to say so!

But while some of the ideas were really wonderful, some were a bit too time consuming for me (i.e. making paper lanterns) and I knew that some of the ideas were nuances that would go right over my still 2-year-old’s head.

So here’s what I decided to keep to give our party just enough “Tangled” to it to make it a “Tangled” birthday party theme…

5 ideas I used to make our “Tangled” theme:

1) Rapunzel braid
2) Sun bunting/banner
3) Printed Flynn Rider “wanted” signs
4) Jello “boat” cups
5) The cake

You can buy all the stuff in quick, inexpensive stops to Michaels and Target or the grocery store.  If you purchase supplies from Michaels, make sure you print out some coupons!

Shopping list from Michaels (my total was less than $5:)

* Yellow yarn (for Rapunzel braid and banner)
* Yellow craft paint (for banner unless you use the print option)
* Purple felt (for banner unless you use the print option)
* Yellow/purple paper (for “boats”) – optional because you can use any paper you have, even white and and color it. I just used scrap card stock.

Target/market list (I think my total was just about $5 here too:)

* Boxes of blue jello
* A few small oranges
* Toothpicks
* Small clear cups

Here’s the how-to’s:

RAPUNZEL BRAID:

You may need some help to make this braid. My older daughters are both braiding obsessed so they were my helpers.

You will need scissors and some rubber bands. First, unroll and stretch the yarn out across the floor. You will need a reasonably open space and flat floor surface. Cut the yarn however long you want to make your braid, our strands were about 12 feet long. We cut 3 bunches of 15 strands each and rubber-banded each group. If you want your braid to be thicker you can cut more strands. If you get tired of cutting yarn you can do less.

Tie the bunches together and BRAID! Then tie the bottom together and voila, you’ve got your Rapunzel braid! You can use the braid however you want to decorate. Use it as a centerpiece, drape it over a door, use it like a streamer or drape it over the banister like we did.

I embellished our braid with flower clips and bows to mimic Rapunzel’s braided hairstyle in the movie. FYI, I intend to use this braid as an additional bow hanger post-party in our girls’ bathroom.

SUN BUNTING / BANNER

For the banner i used a template found here. You can easily just print this if you want or you can create a sun template. I traced the sun on a Trader Joe’s pizza box, cut it out and taped it. I then stenciled the sun with yellow paint onto the felt, poked holes, then strung the pieces with yellow yarn and hung it over the kitchen and eating area.

FLYNN RIDER WANTED SIGN

Another simple decoration we used was an image I found here. All i did was print out a few of these and taped them around the house. Quick, clever, cheap!

TO THE BOATS!

Here’s a tasty, fun and simple thematic treat. Make blue jello in plastic crystal cups to look like “water.” Cut orange wedges adorned with paper triangles to mimic the “boats” scene where everyone in the kingdom flocks “to the boats” for the lantern send off for the lost princess. Set out a canister of whipped cream as a topping and to my surprise the jello was a hit! Not a single cup left. The birthday princess loved them and had a second “boat.”

THE CAKE

And last, the cake! This was actually a lot of fun. Since I’ve never made a cake that wasn’t rectangle and straight out of a box this was the one thing that seemed a bit daunting. I enlisted a friend to help with the baking.I came up with an idea to decorate the cake with using a Rapunzel figurine as my topper and then frosted her “hair” down the tiers of the cake in loops. I decided to use a frying pan as my cake platter incorporating Rapunzel’s weapon of choice in the movie.

It actually worked out better than i thought too because the frying pan lid really made for a convenient cover for the leftover cake. If i do say so myself the cake was a success and a big hit with the guests!

Additionally, I played the movie in the background and kept a book out as a helpful reference for our guests who weren’t as familiar with Rapunzel.

For our party favors I simply printed out some Tangled coloring pages, tied them together with yellow yarn and added a Thank You tag. I accompanied the coloring pages with a set of Crayola paint brush pens since Rapunzel loves to paint!

Another very simple and useful party favor could be a cute hair brush.

Lastly, to give my sweet daughter a fun Tangled outfit for the party I ordered a customized tee shirt from Mary over at Banana Bear Boutique. I asked Mary if she had a chameleon design and she made one up for me. She is wonderful to work with and I highly recommend her!

My princess was thrilled with her Pascal shirt and all the little and easy things we did to make her party a Tangled one. I hope our party can help another mom out with a Tangled party so they can let down their hair with their princesses and guests without a lot of stress or fuss! :)”

Thanks for sharing Elle!  If you have a party you would like me to feature to help other moms with theme ideas (extravagant, simple or somewhere in between) please send me an email to jennifer {at} tinyoranges.com.

[Rapunzel image in first graphic above found on the Disney Wiki]