Isn’t it great fun when both you and your children enjoy the same movie? Tangled is one of those films. It’s got everything – humor, magic, mystery, suspense and beautiful people. Admit it, Flynn is easy on the eyes. Even if he is only a cartoon.

It was a no-brainer to theme Emma’s first birthday party after one of her favorite movies. There were so many marvelous ideas that I found all over the web, and Pinterest, of course. And therefore, so many projects for me as I prepared for the big day. I became obsessed, and spent more time and money on this party than I probably should have. But it in the end it was a hit, so I thought I’d share the details.

Tangled Theme Birthday Party

The invitation tells your guests what kind of party to expect, and I wanted them to expect an awesome, well-planned party, and I was inspired by these handmade invitations. I went off to the craft store and purchased specialty paper, yarn, ribbon and bows. I already had hot glue and bristol board on hand.

Expectations set. Now I had to deliver.

Decor
I decided to get my art on and make the snuggly duckling sign. I drew it out on foam board, painted it and cut it out with my xacto. I’m happy with with the way it came out, but I wasn’t a fan of the lettering I hand-painted. I need a cricut. One of these days.

Rapunzel’s hair (a.k.a. 2 lbs of yellow yarn) was strung between the pillars in our dining room, as well as over the front door. I printed the wanted poster, the modified version and put them up both inside and out.

Then I printed kingdom flags. Lots and lots of kingdom flags. These are ink cartridge killers, but it really completed the look of our room. I cut them out and strung them onto fishing line. They adorned the dessert table and I strung them on the drapery rods.

The central component in the film are the paper lanterns so I had to incorporate them. I purchased 8 1/2 x 11″ vellum sheets and printed the sun motif directly on them using my printer. The printer didn’t like the vellum paper though, so I had to tape each sheet to a standard piece of paper so that my printer would accept it. Tedious, but worth it in the end. I put some over the lights on the chandelier, lit some on the table using battery-operated candles and even strung floating lanterns from the window.

I framed the movie quote printables found here in $3 frames I found at a department store.

Food
Long before I had decided on a theme, I knew I was going to keep it simple and serve pizza. I made frying pan plates out of black paper plates I purchased at the dollar store, but we forgot to use them.

The work went into the dessert table. Rice krispy and pretzel rod paintbrushes, jello sailboats with printable sun sails, “apple” oreo pops, marshmallow paint buckets, golden flower punch (lemonade) and cupcakes. Wilton makes these flower shaped cupcake liners that totally look like the golden flower.

A Rapunzel party wouldn’t be complete without the tower cake. I made a modified version of the Disney tower cupcake. Instead of using a styrofoam block as the base I had the tower sit on a homemade cake. I used a bundt pan so that I could stuff the center with a rice crispy treat to give the tower strength.

Entertainment
I hired two sisters to play Flynn and Rapunzel. Unfortunately I was unable to find the costumes online after the Halloween season was over. But thankfully their super crafty mother offered to make the costumes and I agreed to pay for the materials and the wigs.

Before the party I downloaded the movie soundtrack and played it in the background, but we played some of the kids’ other favorite songs by request and had a little dance party.

Flynn arrived late, so the kids went into attack mode. I’m so glad we used  the frying pan plates after all!

Activities
The area where I struggled most was the activities. I’d have loved to let the kids paint, but not in my house. It would have been appropriate to be in the woodsy back yard, send off real paper lanterns and paint, but this is the ongoing challenge with celebrating a birthday in December. It all worked out in the end, though.

I printed these coloring pages and set out cups on the table filled with crayons, so that the kids could color as they arrive. Once we got everyone together, the girls assembled pascal party blowers with the kids. I precut the shapes in advance.

The tower and wanted poster props that I made were enjoyed by kids and adults alike. Inside the thank you cards, I included photos of our guests using these photo ops.

I found a hi-res image of Flynn Rider online for the poster, and printed this frying pan printable so the kids could play pin the frying pan on Flynn.

Finally Maximus’ Apple picking – a game of balloon popping for candy and prizes instead of whacking a pinata, which doesn’t work well indoors. This was a hit!

Favors
After purchasing enough inexpensive watercolor sets for the kids, I removed the packaging and printed “Rapunzel Paints – Thanks for coming” on peel and stick address labels. I really wanted to use this printable because it looks a whole lot nicer, but I didn’t have any full sheet labels.

Some of our guests still talk about how much fun they had, and I really enjoyed putting together all of the fine details.