In General: How to let your “Magic Princess” make things even more memorable!

Games and Activities:
Pin the wings on the fairy (pin the tail on the donkey, but with a picture of an elf and butterfly stickers to stick on the back blindfolded).

Ask us to teach flying lessons. We’ll say funny things, like “We all know everyone can fly, it’s just that the grownups…well, honestly, it makes them nervous…there is so much pressure on those poor grownups to not be silly and to not believe in magic, but I know they WANT to, still it’s not their fault. Whenever I fly in front of them, it makes them really nervous! How can they ever act normal and drive cars and be expected to just go to work after seeing someone fly? It’s just really hard on them! And so, it may not work so perfectly right now, still I will teach you how to fly which you can try when you are alone, but because that’s when flying works best! And of course, the very first time you fly it has to be all alone, if you’ve flown you know that, because other people’s fear of being able to fly can actually pull you right back down! Isn’t that amazing! That was actually the hardest part for me when I was learning to fly, I’d be flying very well, then see someone else looking so surprised and thinking it’s ‘impossible’ and their surprise would just pull me right back down! It takes practice not to let that happen! To just know you are flying no matter what they think! Well, here’s how you’ll try it alone later…First, feel you feet. Now feel your hands. Your feet feel the ground, right? And your hands feel nothing but the air below them, right? Now you simply must get that feeling you have in your hands – feel it? – of having nothing below but air, you must get your feet to feel that way. Let’s try it together, but again please don’t take off just yet. Wait until you’re alone later.”
Inevitably someone screams out, “”I flew a little bit!!!”
The fairy can say, “I know! You can try it again. But the grownups get so nervous when they see real magic, so we should ask them before just flying all of a sudden, keep but it will work better later (wink!)…”

Food:
Mooncakes: Get circle and/or moon shaped cookie cutter. Bake or buy rice crispy treats and decorate them with vanilla frosting and white or blue sparkles.
Salad with edible flowers
Call the birthday cake “enchanted dreams cake”

Party favors:
Fairy wings
Flowers
Fairy dust (glitter in special tiny containers)

Decorations:
Streamers, crepe paper, think primary colors
Hang ropes, trapezes (two strings with a dowel hanging from them), etc. from the ceiling to make your house look like a circus tent
Old circus posters
Balloons, balloons, and balloons… did I mention balloons?
Make a huge ring with silver duct tape on the floor of each room in the house (circus rings, get it?)

Invitations:
Send out owls, small stuffed animals, photographs, or drawings with a rolled up invitation tied or glued to the feet.

Send plain, old-looking envelopes with simply written invitations inside (sounding mysterious and of course, very official). Seal the envelopes with wax and while the wax dries, stick brown and/or white fluffy feathers to it, so that it appears to have truly been delivered by an owl.

Address the invitations to “room at the top of the stairs” or wherever guest’s room is in their house.

Decorations:
Make golden snitches by spray-painting Styrofoam balls with gold paint. Stick feathers into the sides of the Styrofoam balls and hang from the ceiling all about the house, scatter them upon your tables, give them as gifts.
Create a sorting hat as a centerpiece for your table with an old hat (the

older and more tattered the better). Perhaps before cake, guest names could be called out along with House names as they try the hat on and they could sit accordingly, this could also work for teams for games, craft tables, etc. (Take note of any house preferences beforehand to deter upsets.) Clap like crazy when each guest is ‘sorted’.
House banners hanging from everywhere.

Games and Activities:
Make or buy a large amount of bubble solution, small bottles of food coloring and (if you feel risky) small bottle of oil. Put the bubble solution in clear plastic cups or plastic dishes. A lot of fun can be had here adding a little color to the bubbles, oil can keep colors separated and make all sorts of mysterious effects. Try to limit the colors to 1 or 2, because after 2, the colors generally get muddy. Of course, use straws to move the color around and blow mysterious flying magical orbs!
Make puffskeins with pompoms and googly eyes

Before the party, prepare a mixture of cornstarch and water, which make a strange, but not too messy subtance, fondly known to all Girl Scouts as “Ooplack.” Fill easter-egg type eggs with thie substance, maybe with some food coloring and one little toy dinosaur. As guests arrive, have our wizard hand out these Dragon Eggs and instruct children to keep it warm until the hatching which we will do together when we gather for birthday cake. Even better, you can provide little nests for each child, where they can rest their Dragon Egg while they play. Instruct them when the time is right….if you want o really make it phenomenal play some music, like the soundtrack from Harry Potter and everyone gets to hatch their very own Dragon Egg!

Food:
Mooncakes: Get circle and/or moon shaped cookie cutter. Bake or buy rice crispy treats and decorate them with vanilla frosting and white or blue sparkles.
Jelly beans
Licorice (wands)
Sour gummy worms (whizzing worms)

Party favors:
Felt capes
Sticks (wands)
Brooms

Invitations:
Map of Hawaii, with an arrow pointing to a certain island and your address listed there, as if that’s where the party will be!

Decorations:
Real pineapples and real coconuts
Surfboards
Palm fronds

Games and Activities:
Make volcanoes out of modeling clay and then let them erupt with baking soda, vinegar and a little red food dye
Lei making (real flowers are the best)
Hot potato with a coconut or pineapple

Food:
Macadamia nuts
Ham sandwiches
Tropical fruit smoothies
Pineapple upside down cake

Party favors:
Leis
Sunglasses
Beach balls
Sand bucket with sand toys
Flip flops (this is Kris’ favorite party favor – seriously! Who gives out great pairs of cute flip flops – that is awesome!)

Invitations:
Official looking Royal Ball invitations, think wedding invitations, rolled into a scroll and tied with a ribbon or sealed with wax.

Decorations:
A red carpet to the doorway
Blue and white streamers
A glass slipper set on a fancy pillow
Pumpkins painted white

Games and Activities:
Hot Potato with a glass slipper*

Make fun games out of housework! Sweep the ashes, dust the pictures, scrub the floors. This can be made extra fun if they have rags to wear and then later have gowns to change into. Mothers could play a wicked stepmother at the beginning of the party and then change into a fairy godmother with a magical closet full of their gowns!

A dance with the king! Everyone takes turns dancing with Dad.

Pin the star to the end of the fairy godmother’s wand

Pin the glass slipper to Cinderella’s foot (use the picture of her running down the stairs.

Hide a glass slipper in the house and play “search for the missing glass slipper”

Have the children remove one shoe when they arrive, hide the shoes while they are busy with another activity, and then they have to find their other shoe.

Have the children remove both shoes and redistribute them. They have to find the owner of the pair of shoes they now have without talking. Nodding ‘yes’ or ‘no’, trying the shoes on, etc.

Food:
Make miniature wedding cakes. Let the children frost and add sprinkles to their own cupcake and have a bride and groom figurine for each child to put on top of their “wedding” cake.

Make a dip bowl carriage with a large round loaf of bread hollowed out and full of dip (a white kind). Attach crackers with toothpicks to the sides like wheels.

Princess punch

Have a toast with champagne flutes and sparkling soda or juice

Party favors:
Feather dusters
Mice, find the little mice that they sell as cat toys at a pet store.
Glass slippers (found as wedding favors or in the craft store)
Classic wedding favors

Notes:
Make a “glass slipper” by painting a high heel shoe with glue and dusting it with silver and/or white glitter or spray paint it with silver paint.

Games and Activities:
Decorate sand buckets with paint, glitter, shells, glue, etc.
Put a shell (candy, plastic, real, whatever) inside clear balloons. Tell the children that the mermaid’s voice has been trapped in the “bubbles” by the sea witch. They have to release the voice by popping the balloons by, yes, sitting on them. (Of course, then they get the shell, too!) Good fun!
Pin the flower on Ariel’s hair
Hot potato with Flounder (not a real one, goodness!)
Guess the Dinglehopper: place about twenty everyday items (from a pine cone to a watch) in a treasure chest. Guests take turns choosing items and making up new names and uses for the items.

Party favors:
Place them in a treasure chest
Sea foam (blowing bubbles)
Sand buckets with beach toys
A real goldfish in a fishbowl, mini-aquarium, there are a lot of possibilities here. (Check with the other parents first if this is okay.)

Pin the baby blue bird to Snow White’s hand.

Hot potato as pass the poison apple. No one wants to be caught holding that!
Food:
Apple pie!
Candy or caramel apples

Party favors:
A small bag of “jewels” that the seven dwarves found in their mine  

Decorations:
Pink and blue crepe paper and decorations
Roses

Games and Activities:
Have Dad wake up your little sleeping beauty on the morning of the party with a kiss! You can tell her the night before it’s coming so she can feel like Sleeping Beauty when she wakes up! Kid with her that she’s been sleeping for 20 years and that you really missed her!

Make a bed set up in the house somewhere, with the covers turned back, as though Sleeping Beauty had been sleeping there, but has woken up. You can put sparkles there or some other “evidence” of her. You could put a note there, “Friend, it seems I was asleep so long! I went out to see the beautiful world, but I will come back to see you during the party! Love, Sleeping Beauty.”

Food:
Aurora’s spinning wheel (rent a cotton candy machine)

Invitations:
Attach an invitation to a real rose, hand-delivered (no thorns!).

Decorations:
Roses
Rose petals on the walkway
Yellow and red streamers
A rose stuck up into Styrofoam or florists’ clay under a glass cake dome
Signs written in French
French music

Games and Activities:
Flower arranging (with roses of course).
Book-making (Belle loves books!)
Hide the completely decorated cake area (the dining room perhaps) with sheets in the doorway or decide to have cake in a room that you can close off. Tell the guests that this is the forbidden west wing and no one is allowed inside under any circumstances. Hide a

special-looking key in a book within a pile of books. When it is cake time, tell the guests that they must find the key to the forbidden west wing amongst the many books that Belle loves to read. When the key is found (rig the game so that the birthday girl finds the key), it can be used to open the door or sheets, etc.
Run from the wolves (tag)

Food:
Tea from teapots
Scones
Finger sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly, cucumber and cream cheese, etc)
Crepes
Croc monsieurs (grilled ham and cheese sandwiches)
Pom frites (French fries)
Mini quiches

Party favors:
Handled mirrors
Fake rose tattoos
A real book Belle would have like to read. Beforehand you could endorse each, personalized like, “Dear Jonah, Thank you for coming to Kylie’s party. I hope you like this book, it’s one of my favorites! I read it with the Beast all the time! Love, Belle.” You can have your Magic Princess sign each in this way too – really cute photos – if you save time in our party plan or hire us for longer.
One real red rose, given out by our Belle or the birthday child!

Invitations:
‘Boarding passes’

Decorations:
A big sign at the entrance that says “XXXX’s Train Station” or “XXXX Express”

Games and Activities:
Hace us greet guests at the door, at a ticket counter and “sell” them tickets as they enter. During the party, have us walk about like it’s a traincar, collecting tickets!

Have our Engineer tell a train yard story of choo-chooing all around to find the magic birthday gift.

Provide a line of different sized boxes, all tied together with rope, with an Engine looking box at the front. Assign everyone a box of their own to decorate and then sit inside to “ride,” maybe when we sing Happy Birthday as our very own unique train made just now. Together, at this party!

Food:
In the ‘Dining Car’
Serve lunch on divided plates wrapped with plastic wrap (like train/airplane food)

Make the cake shaped like a ticket with your child’s name on it like, “TIMMY’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAILROAD – ONE ROUND TRIP TICKET FOR FRIENDSHIP.”

Party favors:
Pick up at the ‘Baggage Claim’
Wrapped in brown paper to look like a post parcel (you could use cut up grocery bags)

Games and Activities:
Musical Magic Carpets (You could print a picture of a Persian rug on paper and use these to stand on or use carpet samples.)
Pin the lamp in Jasmine’s hand
Henna body paint

Notes:
Dads make great genies!
You can plan wishes with the birthday girl ahead of time, ie. she knows at some time to make this wish out loud or you prompt her, “I wish we could have cake.” “I wish Princess Jasmine were here.” “I wish everyone had a tiara.” During the party, all of her wishes come true right after she wishes! This is especially great if she has a magic lamp to rub while she wishes!

Have the children earn their party favors or goodie bags with a treasure hunt. Ideas abound depending on your special theme (save the captured princess, find the magic shell, hunt for buried treasure with our pirate, find the

secret potion, etc.) Place clues in different places that lead from one to the other. This can be really terrific if there are challenges they have to complete at each clue, like jumping over a stick, crawling under a chair, draw a picture of XXXX blindfolded, etc.

Face painting is the time when children actually get a chance to visit with the famous princess guest, and waiting for their turn can be tough. This is a great time to have a craft for the young guests to do that they can easily start and stop and then come back to after being painted. Or, better yet, and less work, and undeniably powerful, get a matching jump house. We really have never seen any child get out of one willingly.

When it’s time to open the presents, seat the birthday girl or boy in a special chair with another empty special chair (maybe not as special as the first one) beside it. Seat the children in a circle and let them pass an object (dependent on the theme: butterfly, glass slipper, magic wand, rose, balloon) while music plays. When the music stops, the child holding the object gets to bring their present to the birthday girl or boy and sit beside them while they open it. This makes the gift opening more interactive, fun and gives some space for opening the present. Tears can sometimes be shed if presents are being opened and everyone is crowding around a little too tightly. Keep tears at bay, by making everyone feel special and taking the boredom out of present after present with a game! Of course, control the magical music so that only those who have not given a present get the ‘hot’ object.

At princess parties, call all the guests “Princess (guest’s name)” or “Prince (guest’s name)”. Of course, “Lady ___”, “Sir___”, “Duchess___”, etc. are great as well.

Have extra “gowns” available to wear for princess parties, so no one feels left out.

Though not for any specific princess, a great princess game is “Turn the Frog into a Prince” Get or make a cute poster of a frog with a crown on his head. Each girl takes a turn putting on lipstick and is then blindfolded. They try to “kiss” the frog and whoever is closest wins! (It’s like pin the tale on the donkey.)

For games with winners, have a little prize for everyone who plays and then a slightly more special prize for the winner, i.e. many little bracelets and one wand.

Wedding favors can make great inexpensive and unique party favors.

How to let your “Magic Princess” make it even more memorable!

Have a hiding place set for your magic princess, which is the final place in a treasure hunt, for when she first arrives. You can imagine the surprise!

Create a throne with pretty fabric draped over a chair for your princess to sit in. This will also be magnificent for taking pictures. A backdrop of a castle is always lovely. You could even buy butcher and ask the birthday child to draw the castle the day before! It will be what she will have it be and that’s GREAT!

Have the older brother play courtsman and toot a real or play or cardboard horn to announce the princess’ arrival!

Photographs with the princess make terrific “Thank You” cards, especially if you leave enough time or hire her for an extra 30 minutes to take one-on-one shots with each guest.

Most princesses will be happy to lead an art or craft like flower arranging, tiara decorating, etc, as long as you have it prepared and let her know how you’d like it taught.