Help with a princess party

[BlueBayou]

Hi!

I hope I am posting in the correct place. After a year of lurking I am finally posting.

Here is my predicament, my daughter is turning 4 and is insisting on a princess party with a piñata. The piñata is not a problem, but the games and other activities are a serious issue.

You have to understand we have never done a party for her. The thought was too overwhelming. Her dad and I and her baby sister would just get a cake and party hats and open presents. At her old daycare there was a boy that shared her same birthday, so we always went to his big party that included everyone from her class. Well, on her 3rd birthday after his party, when we were sitting down to our family celebration, she started asking “when are my friends coming to my house.” It was very sad. It only lasted a few minutes, but I knew then, we had just had our last party where we got away without inviting other guests.

We are planning on having about 6 other girls all the same age. We might have our 5 year old next door neighbor who is a boy attend too.

I have made the invitations using a Aurora in a blue dress clip art. It says something like you are invited to a princess party for her 4th birthday. It also says feel free to dress up. We have set the time from 2pm-4pm.

I am not artistic, but my husband can draw very well. For activities I was thinking about making a “pin the kiss on the frog” game. I have also found a “decorate a foil crown” activity online.

So what else could we do? Thanks in advance for any suggestions! Please remember we are kid-party challenged

 

[Disneyland_emily]

An easy activity would be to get a singalong songs video with princesses maybe to watch at the very end

Another one kids love (but a bit messy) is to decorate a sugar cookie- you could get girlie shapes of cookie cutters and have them decorate their own treat.

An easy one would be to get copies of princess coloring sheets and have a coloring contest

You could change names in popular kids games ie instead of duck duck goose it could be princess princess toad- Simon says- Princess says etc.

From what I remember of kids parties it went

1/2 meet and greet intro to activity one say craft
1/2 craft/game
1/2 cake and presents
1/2 another craft or game

I shall have to think more -em

 

[KaitlinsMom]

Have you considered a bounce house? Kids love those and it helps to take up a lot of time -

Less is more - Remember that -

Kiss on the frog sounds great! -

Have you thought about a craft? They could make their own crowns? Cut paper in the shape of a crown - Have them decorate it by coloring, drawing, gluing things on (buttons, "jewels", etc)
(I just read in your post about the crown - I should read carefully before I post!)

My friend put up a craft table - Wasn't a set time to do it - Some kids would go in the bounce castle while others would go to the craft table - They would decorate their own take home bag (brown paper bags) - They also made a picture frame out of popsicle sticks -

If you can hire a teen to help you, that works wonders too!

Just my opinion - I have done this for my DD - I now go to places where they do it all for you (Art class parties, Build a Bear Party, etc) - They do set up , entertain, and clean up - I just find I can enjoy the party with my DD better that way. When we throw the party ourselves, we just feel we miss all the fun cause we are too busy with everything! We do not do this every year for her, She gets a party every other year - This is just what I prefer, everyone is different.

Good Luck! I am sure you will do fine!

 

[pjlla]

Okay.... I'll try to be brief, but I'm a rambler.... here goes....

For my DD's first "friends" party when she turned 5, it was an Arield party. I made the invitations myself with Printmaster.... very easy. (Same with the thank you cards). We had the party at home, in the back yard. I did serve lunch (burgers/dogs on the grill, salad, chips), but only because I knew many Moms would be coming and staying (we invited friends from preschool, most of whom lived over 20 miles away). I only had three planned activities. Other than that I just expected them to play on the swing set and in the sand box, which they did and enjoyed. I had them color to start....that way there was something to do when we waited for the late arrivals (there are always some!). I just printed out a few Ariel coloring pages from the computer and put out two shallow plastic pans with two big handfuls of crayons in each.

For the next activity they made necklaces.... creative, easy, and CHEAP. Buy a few pounds of bulk plastic beads, pony beads, alphabet beads, shaped beads (like hearts, butterflies, animals) (with large holes) at your local Walmart or Craft center, as well as a spool of plastic lacing. Measure out a length of the lacing for each child in advance (be sure it can easily go over the child's head when tied.... use your child as a guide). At one end of the lacing tie a large bead with a knot. That way nothing will fall off the end when they are stringing the beads. When they are done stringing you can either leave the knotted bead or remove it, double knot the two ends of lacing together and ....ta-da! Have these strings ready ahead of time to cut down on chaos.

The third activity was a treasure hunt and the prize when they found it was their goody bags. I made up a few rhyming clues and placed them around the house (in the mailbox, near the tv, on the swing set) and the children would go from clue to clue with me as I read the notes and they figured out where to go next. For 4 y/o's it could be easy clues like...."Go to the place where you would see Blue's Clues". I had a treasure chest (bought at the local Big Lots or Christmas Tree Shop) filled with their goodie bags, hidden under a table outside with a long cloth on it. It was actually our gift table!

The goody bags for my DD's party consisted of the following... it was a small silver wire/metal basket filled with one tiny barbie dress (found them at Big Lots for 99 cents each), a small handful of silver/gold wrapped candy, a stretchy bead bracelet, a tiny bottle of that Bon-bon nail polish in sparkly (but light) colors. Can't remember what else. All together the goody bags were probably $4-5 each.... but it was worth it. And it could certainly be done cheaper!! I lined the basket with tulle (so the little stuff didn't fall through) and covered them with blue saran wrap tied with a ribbon at the top.

I had the cake done at the local grocery store (I HATE to bake). THey just did a plain frosting and I added some plastic Ariel figurines to the top (if I remember correctly). Very cute and quick. The plates and napkins were Ariel that I bought through Birthday Express. I have used them many times and been very happy with them. But I usually by the stuff a la carte, not by the package. For cups I found plastic sippy type cups with a fish theme... I printed a waterproof label for each child and put their name on their cup. That way we didn't have to go through a pile of paper cups. I had a 2 gallon jug full of water and a 2 gallon jug full of lemonade available for drink. The jugs are the coleman kind with a spout.... very handy!

I wanted the backyard to look kind of like underwater. Instead of paper tableclothes I bought cheap (99 cent) lightblue shower curtain liners and used those for table clothes.... they were the right color and re-useable. We hung some different color blue streamers around the tent (a big blue plastic tarp tent that we put up with poles. We hung up some fish that we had colored and cut out, and I had found (maybe at Oriental Trading??) some cheap fish wind chimes that we hung everywhere. At the end of the party each girl got to take one home. Plus we used LOTS of balloons. I love balloons... what's a party without balloons!? I usually either rent a helium tank from my nearest party store (about 20 miles away) if I will be around to return it the next day, or I buy one of those disposable ones. But it takes lots of time, so if you live closer to a good store, buy them at the last minute already inflated!!

ANYHOW... if you made it this far you deserve a prize!! I love the "kiss the frog" idea, as well as the crown idea. But also give them some time to just "play". But the timing of your party is good.... no need to serve anything more than cake and punch! The two hours will fly by! Just be sure that each parent understands when pick up time is (you will be ready for a big break by 4pm). And make sure that you have some help that day, either your DH, a friend, or a teen helper. That way you will be able to spend some time getting pictures, video, etc. I hope you have lots of fun with this.... I really get into planning my kids parties! (Maybe I was a professional party planner in another life!)...........................P

 

[BlueBayou]

Disneyland_emily - Thank you so much for the suggested timeline. That REALLY helps.

KaitlinsMom - I SO wanted to do a zoo party where they take care of EVERYTHING. However, my daughter has her heart set on having her friends come over to her house. Maybe next year

pjlla - Thanks for all the ideas. I am very interested in the shower curtain. I had not even begun to think about the goody bags. That is going to be my next focus of worry after I get the activities set.


I really have a fear that none of her friends are going to be able to come. I just don't know what do to if that happens. Okay... I am worrying too much!

 

[ibouncetoo]

Welcome to the DIS my friend!

I don't know why I didn't remember this, but I have a Disney Princess coloring book I picked up last April at the outlet store near WDW! I just had a little twinge at the thought of giving it away (see, 50 years old and still don't want to share my coloring books!). I'll bring it in to work and we can copy the pages that will be the easiest (or prettiest) for little ones to color.

Told you that you'd get some great ideas for the DIS crafters!

 

[kidzmom3]

http://familyfun.go.com/parties/birthday/feature/famf1001_princessbday/

family fun the magazine has a website and in are birthday themes. here is the link to the princess one. above


and below is a link to a party supplier that is good and reliable with the full princess line.

http://www.birthdayexpress.com/bexpress/product.asp?sku=E25321

 

[fun & fancy free]

Mt 4 yo dd just went to a princess party. They made necklaces out of fruit loops cereal (at that age more gets eaten than used for craft), each girl got their nails painted and instead of your usual paper goods the used tea party setup. That's right the platic toy stuff your kids play with. It was great and all the girls enjoyed it. It turns out the mom who through the party ran a princess tea thru our parks& recreation dept.

 

[Allabtprincesses]

For my DD 4 year old princess party last year we did much of the already mentioned activities. Made copies of Disney princess coloring book pages (and other characters for the boys) for the kids to color as they arrived. Decorated paper crowns I found at Party City-jewels at Michael's. Bought a bunch of cheap necklaces/rings/leis etc. at Dollar Store and Party City and had the kids "Dress" for lunch. Played "Find Cinderella's Glass Slipper" after I read a condensed version of Cinderella to the kids. Found a box of small, plastic "glass slippers" at Walmart. Ended up being a beautiful fall day in Oct. so the kids also had fun running around playing on swingset etc.

For decorations we did the standard balloons, crepe paper etc. And I made flags out of wooden dowels and pink and purple felt. My DH drilled small holes in the posts of our backyard fence and we put the flags in every few feet. Pretty inexpensive and it made our backyard feel like a castle

Mother of two (almost 5) and (1)

 

[nicurn]

we did a cinderella party for dd when she was 4 also. when they arrived made them take off their shoes.... (needed one of everyone's later). we did colouring pages, random craft (sorry it's been awhile since that party) played freezedance (you have a radio playing, they all dance like crazy and then you hit pause or turn it off and they all have to freeze in the position they are in until the music starts again) and we had a treasure hunt that was very easy, they had to follow the silver footprints to the treasure which was some candy in their missing shoe (because cinderella lost one of her's so they at this point were all princesses looking for their shoe). the silver footprints were just the bottom of a shoe I had traced on tinfoil and cut out. We also had a castle cake (I think that you can find this on the family fun site) it was the cutest cake! (very easy to make) good luck and have fun. maggie

 

[nicurn]

here is the link to a castle cake... you could naturally change it around to suit your party. maggie


http://www.birthdayexpress.com/bexpress/planning/castlecake.asp

 

[PigletsPal]

As a special surprise for you DD you can also get a special BD call from her fav. princess for $2.49 by going to disney.go.com/princess. I'm going to have this done for my 4 yo neice.

 

[OurDogCisco]

I've done the princess party twice for my dd. I did the cake from the family fun magazine. I also had the kids make crowns. I cut out crown templates from gold poster board paper then, I bought glitter glue, rhinestones to glue on, stickers, etc.... This isn't princessy game but the kids went wild over it. We played bingo from cards I made from the internet. I gave out princess prizes like rings, jewerly, etc... This was a much bigger hit than I thought it would be. The bingo symbols were characters not numbers or letters. Good luck... Don't worry the kids will come and have a blast!

 

[BlueBayou]

ibouncetoo – The copies of pages sound great! As a child of a mom that had her own coloring book, plus her own big box of crayons that I was not allowed to touch, I completely understand.

kidzmom3 – that link is very good. I am getting more and more ideas from it.

fun & fancy free – I really think that edible instead of real beads might work better in our home. I also have an 18-month-old who may have a little friend over (a little brother to one of may older daughter’s friends - it is so cute my two girls are closest in their classes to a brother and sister) and I would hate to have choking hazards around.

Allabtprincesses –Thanks for the ideas. I do have to keep in mind something for the boys. All of the potential guests from her school are girls, however our next-door neighbor and the grandkids from across the street include boys.

Nicurn – I have been really thinking about doing the castle cake. That is my greatest memory from my childhood parties. My mom would make the cakes, and my dad who was very artistic would decorate them. My 12th birthday was a sight to see. I always thought of it as my Cinderella cake. (but Cinderella didn’t have a cake did she). My parents had a stacking cake set that could make a 4-tier wedding cake. Mom made the chocolate cake. Daddy made icing birds holding icing bunting. It said in script one dozen. It was blue and white. I believe it was different shades of blue using varied amounts of blue food coloring. Dad liked to oil paint, this way just a different canvas for him. When I told my mom I was thinking about doing a castle cake, she said “why waste your time, they probably won’t even eat that much. Just go buy one.” I was floored. I explained that the cakes are some of my most vivid memories of my early parties. And her attitude was they were a lot of work for them. I lost my dad in ’92 so I can’t get his take on just how much work it is. But that castle cake looks pretty easy. You know come to think of it, I think my mom didn’t use mixes, I think she made everything including the icing from scratch.

PigletsPal – I am thinking about doing the birthday call (can’t decide on Aurora or Cinderella) on her actual birthday, since it falls midweek. We are having the party the weekend after her birthday.

OurDogCisco – You know, we always played BINGO at my parties when I was little. I bet that would go over well. What did you use to mark the cards?

I am really pleased with all the help and support. I am feeling slightly less overwhelmed. The invitations are out so there is no turning back. I plan to look for decorations and maybe goody bags at a party store this weekend.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Originally posted by BlueBayou
ibouncetoo –
OurDogCisco – You know, we always played BINGO at my parties when I was little. I bet that would go over well. What did you use to mark the cards?

I used candy for the bingo pieces. I know bad but fun.... Also, I printed the bingo cards from this site.

http://www.dltk-cards.com/bingo/

Tina

 

[MerryPoppins]

We played Duck, Duck, Goose at DD's Cinderella party years ago. The kids used a wand to touch the others on the shoulder as they went around the circle chanting "Bibbidy, bobbidy, bibbidy, bobbidy, . . . boo!" (That is probably spelled wrong, but you get the idea)

I've done two castle cakes over the years. If you are interested I can look up how they were made. I also have a Disney party book with loads of party ideas. Someone once said they'd seen the book on ebay if you are interested in your own copy. Let me know if you want me to search for mine and see if any other ideas jump out at me.

 

[disneyma2]

Hello,
My daughter, who will be turning 4 in Oct has had 2 princess birthday parties. Wehad all the girls dress up in their fav princess dress or costume. As an ice breaker, when children were arriving, I had jewelry boxes for the kids to decorate at a table, their names were on the boxes, so they knew where to sit. After that, we went on a scavenger hunt for ariels's precious treasures. Then I had a big bowl, filled it with rice, then put a lot of play rings in it, covered it with foil and they fished for their own treasure. We played kiss the frog(put the lips on the frog). You can also read a story, play pass the apple, when the music stops, the one with the apple lays down, just like snow white did. Try www.familyfun.com for more ideas. You can make glass slipper magnets for the kids out of wood. You can make magic wands for the kids out of wood too. I got a lot of my favors from www.orientaltradingcompany.com
Good Luck
Have fun
I dressed in a cinderella dress, my mom was in town and was snow white, we had a blast. Oops, there were some boys, and they decorated treasure chests instead.

 

[UMTerp]

My DD's last birthday party was a princess party. We did have a moon bounce too since it was going to be pretty nice weather (for March) and she always wanted one. I bought regular party hats (the pointy ones) and bought two rolls of toule from the dollar store. I cut lengths of about 1 1/2 ft. , put a knot in one end and threaded the other end through the top of the hat. Turned out cute! I made kid-friendly "tea" sandwiches (tuna, pb&j, b&c, cream cheese and strawberry preserves). Made the sandwiches and cut them in quarters/triangles. Had a big bowl of cut up fruit, chips and punch.
It was a little cool out so we took turns in the moon bounce and came back in and played princess freeze dance. The girls didn't come dressed up but got to choose one of my DD's dress up outfits to put on for the game. I had picked up some adult fancy dresses at a yard sale for $1 each. Got a plain cake and just set little princesses on top (from the party store). Also got a disposible camera and let the girls take pictures of themselves dressed up - they turned out interesting!

Hope you have a great time!

UMTerp

 

[BlueBayou]

I wanted to thank everyone for their help. I am just a few hours away from the big event.

We are keeping it very simple. There are only six guests able to attend. We will do princess coloring. Make necklaces out of fruit loops. Hokey Pokey, Simon Says (princess type commands), Duck-duck-goose (bibbity bobbity boo), and the piñata. I also got a bunch of Crowns and Jewelry from the dollar store for them the wear and take home. I am also going to follow the schedule suggested in the thread.

The birthday girl will be Sleeping Beauty. Her 18-month old sister is a little Belle.

If there is a lull, my husband (who is good with voices) will read a princess story.

The castle cake I made is interesting. The turrets are leaning. But my daughter thinks it is "silly and weird" which seems to be a positive. She really was excited when I was making it last night. She kept sneaking out of her bedroom to watch me. I had out a Disneyland book so I could get the color scheme right for Sleeping Beauty's Castle. Looking at my final result, it is humorous that I was actually trying to make it look a real castle. Mine looks like it belongs in Toon Town.

I am serving pineapple rings with cheese and a cherry on top and sliced apples with cream cheese and caramel. For the adults I will have a chili, cheese, and sausage dip. Juice or milk for the kids. I also picked up some sodas for the parents.

I do want to thank everyone for their help. There were some great ideas. This board really helped me calm down and eased my stress of this.

Now I just need to get the girls to nap so we can finish decorating.

Sher

 

[laurie31]

How did it go? I came to this thread too late to offer advice, but my dd had a princess party when she turned 5 and it was so much fun! My castle turretts also leaned! I told people the cake had "architectural issues" but dd loved it. I hope your party went great! Let us know!

Laurie