Fairies & Wizards 6yr - Wings & Capes

FAIRIES AND WIZARD PARTY (or Wizards and Fairies Party)  Ever since we watched the video Fairy Tale about 2 girls who made friends with fairies, my daughter has loved fairies.  Santa also had brought her a dozen Christmas fairies.  For her 6th birthday (in January) she wanted a Fairy Princess Party.  She wanted to be Queen Mab, queen of the fairies, and she wanted a castle cake.    Simple enough for the girls, but what about the boys? 

Six to 10 year old boys do not want to be fairies, gnomes, or pixies.  We had invited 16 girls and 8 boys.  Our first thought was a Peter Pan party.  Well, we couldn't find many party favors for Peter Pan.  We found plenty on pirates, but fairies, pirates and castles didn't seem to match.  We had watched the Harry Potter video, and decided to have a Fairies and Wizard Party.  The castle cake was appropriate for a fairy Queen, and Hogwats school is also a castle.   We bought some party supplies from Birthday Express, Oriental Trading Co (which sells packages by the dozen) and the Dollar store.  

CASTLE CAKE.  We used the castle cake idea from Birthday Express, but modified it a bit.  We did not cut the ends and stand them up.  We ordered a large cake from Costco, with a princess on it.  (I asked them not to add the other decorations.)  We put blue frosting on 4 pointed ice cream cones, and put them, point up, on each corner.  Then put jumbo gumdrops around the edge of the castle.  We also put blue frosting around the cake for a moat.  We cut pieces of fruit roll-ups to make the door, windows and drawbridge.  My daughter loved it (she also helped decorate it). 

FAIRIES:  We bought a fairy costume and gold crown for my daughter. We got fairy wings for all the other girls (Birthday Express had the best price).  The homemade invitations said, wear your fairy best, so several of the girls wore fancy dresses, shirts with fairies, or Tinker Bell costumes.  We also gave each a star magic wand.  Favors included fairy dust necklaces, jewelry, Tinker Bell stickers, a small fairy bear (Oriental Trading Co), glitter nail polish or lip gloss, pixie stick candy, Pop Rocks candy, blue glow in the dark stars.  Party hats were just the regular ones from the dollar store. 

WIZARDS:  I made black cloaks for each boy (1 yard of black fabric, gathered at the top, and sewn with black seam binding with extra binding to tie them.).  Favors for the boys were the Harry Potter boxes from Birthday Express which included magic wands, bean bag owls, a lightening bolt tattoo, Harry Potter stickers, and a golden house cup.  And we added pixie stick candy, Pop Rocks candy, and blue glow in the dark stars.  Party hats from the Dollar store were spray painted black for wizard hats. 

DECORATIONS.  We had the party at the clubhouse in our mobile home park.  We are not allowed to attach anything to the ceiling or walls.  So we decorated with balloons.  Of course we had a Tinker Bell and a Harry Potter balloon.  We took groups of 3 balloons and tied a fairy on each group.  So we had fairies flying around the room.  The owls were too heavy or we would have done that too. 

ACTIVITIES:  Treasure Hunt:  We bought treasure box kits from Oriental Trading Co. When the kids arrived they decorated their treasures.  Then we had a treasure hunt for gold candy coins which were hidden.  (Younger kids got to look first).  We told the girls they were the Tooth Fairy and they needed to find the coins to put under kid's pillows. We told the boys they needed to find gold so they could buy the school supplies for Hogwarts.

Flying Freeze game.  We turned on music and everyone flew around until it stopped.  When the music stopped, the kids had to freeze.  This was a big hit, even for the older boys.

Quiddich Practice:  We bought 2 brooms, made out of sticks from an arts and crafts store.  My husband used a wood burning tool to burned the words Nimbus 2003 onto the broom handles.  We formed 2 teams (but didn't play as competition).  We stood up 2 small hoops, a few inches off the floor, at one end of the room (from our Toy Lending Library).  The kids had to use the broom to push a balloon to the other end of the room, and through the hoop.  Then run back and give the broom to the next person.  If the balloon popped, they had to get a new one and start over.  The kids really loved that game. Piñata we bought the star piñata from Birthday express.  (Clubhouse had a place outside for hanging the piñata.) 

SNACKS:  Magic wands pretzel rods dipped in melted chocolate chips.   Dragon eggs Jell-o eggs made in the Jell-o Easter egg mold.  We put a flying dragon on the edge of the bowl. Fairy Wing crackers (Butterfly crackers from - Pepperidge Farms Entertaining Cracker Collection).   Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans (we just used Jelly Bellies).   Blue Fairy stars Rice Krispie treats sprinkled with blue sugar and cut into star shapes with a cookie cutter.     Harry Potter coke (just happened to find those in the grocery store!)   Juice boxes in an ice filled black cauldron.  Rainbow push-ups, (instead of ice cream). 

GIFT OPENING I finally found a way so everyone could see the gifts being opened.  Usually the kids end up crowding around to see, then kids in back can't see.  This time we made a circle of chairs, and told the kids they had to stay in their chair.  The birthday girl had 2 chairs next to her.  Who ever was giving her the gift sat next to her.  We took their picture and used them in the thank you notes.  Since each child was in a chair, there was no crowing around the birthday girl; everyone got to see everything.