Princesses & Knights -5yr- Royal Puppets

For my daughter Megan's 5th birthday we planned a royal celebration for all Princess's and Knight's in the Kingdom.

For the invitations I purchased blank cards and envelopes.  On the front I used a picture of my daughter dressed as Cinderella. I scanned, cut out the picture in a large wallet size and pasted it to the front of the the invitation. On the inside I glued pink stripped paper, cut about 1/2 smaller than the card itself, then I glued the greeting 1/2 smaller than the pink paper and glued it on top, giving it a layered look. At the top middle of the pink paper I glued a lace bow. The invitation was slide inside a plain whte envelope, the addressee names were printed in fancy gold writing the I tied a pink lace bow around the card like it was a present and I sealed the back with a gold M.

The invitation read: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, by the order of the King and Queen, Princess (and or) Knight (guest name) of the house of (guest last name) are cordially invited to the Royal Caslte to celebrate Princess Megan's Fifth year of her birth!!! The royal celebration will begin at 12:30 in the afternoon on the 22nd of August. The King has asked that you come in your most royal attire upon your carriages arrival, princess will be greated with royal wands and gems. Knights will be given swords for bravery.

The royal cook has prepared a feast of goodies for the celebration There shall aslo be festivities including royal pony rides, a bounce in the royal castle, games, crafts and fun for all The excitement will heighten during the slaying of the royal dragon pinata Have your carriage arrive at 4:30 in the afternoon when the celebration commences. Please RSVP (regrets only) with the Queen Mom The castle needs to plan for your arrival This is a magical celetration not to be missed!. Preperation is the key in all parties. We had all summer to plan a make lots of decorations. I made princess hats with silver metalic cone birthday hats (dollar store), I glued long cascating streamers of pastel colored (pink, yellow, blue, purple and green) tule and and assorted pastel, metalic and white ribbons from the top of the hat. For the wands I purchased pastel sparkly pencils (dollar store), I used star garland (dollar store) and shapped it into a heart I twisted the end of the wire to the top of the pencil and then glued it to extra fasten it. Then I tied long ribbons to the top of the pencil.

For the boys I used thick card/poster board and I cut out sword and sheild shapes. I doubled up on the swords so they would not bend. Then I spray painted them silver and black and then decorated the sheild and swords with gold designs. For the sheilds I printed out dragons and clued the dragon shape to the front. Usuing large sheets of card/poster board I painted a child size Cinderella and Bell (I had my daughter lay on the board and I traced her body to get the size right). I cut out the face so the children could put there face through for a poloroid picture. I made a Knight in shinning armor for the boys and did the same. I also painted a Snow White for Pin the Tiara on the Princess.

Other games played were muscial chairs, simon says and hot dragon( hot potatoe) and of coarse the slaying of the dragon piniata. For fillers for the piniata and goodie bags, I purchased bulk toys (from Oriental trading) I also purchased the disney princess sticker book. Instead of buying the pricie princess goodies, I used the small stickers to stick on yo-yo's, lip glosses and all sorts of toys. In all there were 150 pieces of toys and it cost about $15.00 total instead of $4 per 4 treats. For activities I set two free play tables up a playdoh table with Playdoh Snow White and bell set. And another table I set up with princess puppets, including Cinderella, Bell, Beast, Prince John, the clock and candle, a dragon and a hoarse for the kids to play with.

For a craft I cut out Princess and Knight shapes from 12 by 20 sheets of poster board. I drew faces with a black marker. Then I cut dresses, pants, shirts, armor and shoes out of fabric scraps. I purchased all sorts of jems and eyes. I also cut out scraps of ribbons, beads, lace and fabric  and made lots of bows and cut swords out of construction paper. I set up an activity table with glue and all the children were able to make there own princess or knight.

For the party wear I purchased pink, blue, yellow and green paper products and table cloths from the dollar store. I purshed only the cake plates and coctail napkins in the actual princess theme and I mixed that up by buying all the different pricness themes. I purchesed a birthday hat shapped ballon weight, it originally had a Happy birhday cut out clued to the front I took that off and attached a picture of Cinderella on the front. I got the picture from Disney.com. You can print out double sided princess for a mobile. I also printed out another Cinderella, Bell, Aurora and Snow White.I cut them out clued them face to face as directed for the mobile then I attached a paper clip the the bottom.

I purchased 4 small shoes .50 each at the party store. I used flower foam to fill the inside of the shoe and I stuck the princess on the paper clip in the foam in the shoe then I filled the rest in with pastel flowers, used these as centerpeices. I used pastel streamers and balloons from the dollar store 3 for $1 to decorate the area and I purchased one large balloon with all of the princess and I tied this to the balloon weight as the main centerpeice on the birthday table. I also purchased 3 other Disney princess balloons. For food I keep it simple I had hoagies for the adults and P&J for the kids.

For the cake I had  my sister make a Bell Princess using a doll as the top and the cake as the dress bottom. Since this wouldn't really be enough, my mother made cupcakes using Disney princess cupcake wrappers. We couldn't find toppers so we used tooth picks and used more stickers from the diseny princess book and stuck them back to back at the top, this worked out nicelly because in the book there are boy realed stickers the the dwarfs. Each cupcake was a different color with candy jems on them.

For the goodie bag's I purchesed the princess bags. I filled them with some of the same goodes as the piniata and then I bought on sale 5 for $1 crayons, glue sticks .19 for two (target back to school sale) then I printed out pictures of all the princess from Disney online for the girls, for the boys I printed out pictures of shreck, dragons, batman and superman and stapled them together as coloring books with the front page being a simple crown that said princess in the middle and the tittle was Princess Megan's 5th Birthday. All the kids had a ball we own a moonbounce and we rented a pony for $150 an hour all the kids had a great time. I also rented kiddie table's (2 at $6.50 each)and chairs ($1 each) We had about 20 children. By doing most of the decorations myself and preplanning I saved a lot, the party only cost about $375. Try that at chuckie cheese and buying all the "name brand goodies", I have no idea how I will ever top this.