My Little Pony -5yr- Manes of Yarn

MY LITTLE PONY birthday party for 5-year old  The idea of the party was that the girls would be transformed into a My Little Pony.   

ACTIVITIES:
ARRIVAL ACTIVITY -  I bought a lot of MLP ponies on eBay and set them out on a blanket in the living room for the girls to play with.  I has also ordered tiny pony party hats on eBay and I had each girl choose her "pony partner" and put a party hat on that one. The ponies went everywhere with them.     Then I had them sit in a "horseshoe" shape around the blanket while I told them how they were going to be transformed into ponies, with 6 stations. I had instructions for the adults helping pre-printed at the stations so that parents could just come in and be put to work!  I had the girls start at different stations so they wouldn't have to wait and so that no one would get last pick of everything.

1.  MANE EVENT We made manes out of yarn for the girls to wear, using the instructions on "familyfun.com -pony party" (got the idea from another entry on this website).  Much of it was too difficult for my daughter to do, so I premade parts of it.  [MANE INSTRUCTIONS, modified: I got all the supplies from Wal-Mart.  You will need 2-3 skeins of yarn. Suggestion: buy 2  cheap and one special one (like rainbow). Get a pack or two of cheap headbands. Each headband uses 5 little yarn bunches, which you make by cutting twelve (12) 15" strings. Cut the pony ears out of self-stick felt. Fold the ears over the headband, placing the ears about 3" apart. (Note, the self-stick felt is REALLY sticky, and if you do it wrong you can't unstick it!) Cut and glue a small piece of pink felt onto the front of each ear as the inside.  Tie all 5 bunches between the ears off center so the short end looks like bangs.]  I made the bunches of yarn in advance.  I marked the ear places on the headbands with tape and let the girls select their headband color, put on their own ears, and glue on the inside ear pink felt.

2.  TYING STATION (Adults' Instructions: Let child choose 5 bundles of yarn, then take it to an adult to get them tied on.  If the child has not selected all one color, decide how to arrange the 5 bundles symmetrically. Tie the bundle unevenly so that the front side is shorter.)

3.  BANG TRIM (Adult's instructions: Trim the bangs so they don’t hang in front of her eyes.)

4.  TAILS & FLOWERS Tails were premade from yarn. [The tails are 30 strings 18" long tied in the middle with more yarn or ribbon, make a simple long belt to tie aroung the children's waist.]  (Adult's instructions: Let the child select which tail she wants, then tie it around her waist. Give her a flower necklace (lei), explaining that ponies in parades often wear flowers around their necks.)

5.  BRANDING I ordered customized MLP tattoos from eBay and the girls got one on one hand.  (Adult's instructions: Explain that horses get branded to show who they belong to.  This is like the pink brand on the bottom of the My Little Ponies.)

6.  CUTIE MARKS I gathered up all my stamps and had enough for each girl to get a unique stamp.  I made a sample sheet with each stamp shown and made up a name for that mark, such as Heart's Desire, Cuddly Bear, Petunia, etc. (Adult's instructions:  Explain that all My Little Ponies have a Cutie-Mark to represent their name, and let her choose from the printed list which stamp she wants. Cross off the one she chooses so that each girl will have a unique mark. Stamp that mark on her hand. Wipe the used stamp on a wet paper towel before putting away.) 

PONY PARADE  Before the parade, I had the ponies line up on their hands an knees (pony stance) and took their picture.  I had a few friends outside to watch the parade and played music from a radio on the front porch.  The girls came out the front door and pranced to the corner and back. I tonly lasted about 2 minutes but they loved it! 

HORSESHOES - We played a simple game of horseshoes in the driveway (we are in a brand-new house with no grass yet).  I bought a 3-in one game set from Wal-Mart that had plastic horseshoes.  We put the stake in a brick that had a hole in it, and let the girls toss the horseshoes from a line on the driveway about 3 feet away. No prizes, no one cared!

INVITATIONS -  Made my own, using MS Publisher, by copying and pasting a pony graphic on the cover.  I used the phrases "Gallop on over" and "RSVP by 'yeah' or 'neigh'" as another submission suggested. 

DECORATIONS:

FRONT FLAGS - I made 10 paper flags with MLP graphics and the words "Happy Birthday Brianna" and pkg-taped them onto stiff wire and stuck them in the ground along our front walk.

RAINBOW OF BALLOONS - I made this for the mantle of our living room.  I took a long piece of pretty stiff plastic-coated wire (WalMart), doubled it over, and roughly shaped it into a rainbow.  I used masking tape to hold the two pieces together.  It doesn't have to be anywhere close to perfect. To hold it up, I put each end in a mason jar and filled the jar up with rocks.  Then I blew up water balloons (with a Pilates ball pump) and masking taped them on with sections for pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue.  I used about 8-10 balloons of each color and the rainbow was about 3' from one jar to the other.

TABLE - The table was a decoration in itself, with a centerpiece and plastic flower petals to make it jazzier.  That was all we really needed, since the pony transformation stuff was in 2 other rooms of the house. 

FOOD - Ordered a MLP cake from the grocery store. Not very original, but beautiful! Rainbow fruit platter(someone else's idea): red watermelon, orange catuolope, yellow bananas, green honeydew, blueberries, and purple grapes.   Watermelon juice, b/c my daughter thinks that horses like watermelon.

FEED BAGS - Coloring Book that I made (went to the coloring pages on mylittlepony.com, copied uncolored graphics (had to edit them with MS Paint), pasted them into a Word document, copied them on a copier that makes stapled booklets.)  \* Trail mix \* MLP Pony stickers \* Pony-tail holders \* Party blowers, Ring, Stencil  The girls ranged in ages from 4 to 6, and they all loved it!!!