Pixies/Pirate Forest Party -5yr- Pixie Hollow

Each year my parties become more frugal because I am able to re-use things.  This year was by far my most in-expensive and creative party yet.  My Tinkerbell-obsessed 5-yr old had both boys and girls in her class to invite so we had a Pixies and Pirates party.

 INVITATIONS:  I printed off on computer paper and then soaked them in coffee and dried them with a hair dryer.  I added cut-outs (made with my Cricut machine) and dollar-tree stickers to look like an old treasure map.  The invites read:   Calling all Pixies & Pirates Think of the happiest things it's the same as having wings Come fly with us to Natalie's 5th birthday party You provide the faith and trust  We'll provide the pixie dust Watch for the signs you need to follow  To get to the fairy woods of Pixie Hollow Go through the waterfall past a babbling brook To get to Neverland  home to Captain Hook The magic starts at 2:00  Gateway to Neverland is __(address)__   To fit the pixie/pirate theme:  My mother is an expert seamstress and had lots of tulle she wasn't using.  I tied the tulle on ribbon (discounted at Hobby Lobby) for the fairy skirts and got fairy wings for $1.00 each at AC Moore.  Each girl was asked to wear a leotard (or borrowed one from my girls dress-up clothes) and received body glitter when they arrived ta-da fairy friends.  The boys in the class were both sick (so I sent their foam pirate hats in with my daughter the next day at school), but my nephew was there in pirate costume.   

The DECORATIONS were cheap and easy.  We cleared out all the furniture from the den (into garage and dining room).  Then we bought plastic green table cloth (75% off because it was after Christmas).  We covered the walls in green, then tacked up Christmas garland (ours and some borrowed from friends) .  As luck would have it they were trimming Cypress trees down by the power lines near our house and disposing of the branches.  I asked them if I could take them and they gladly agreed since it made their work load smaller.  I used the garland to bend around and hold the branches on the walls so the entire den looked like the forest (Pixie Hollow).  I took the stuffing out of the pillows I used from the Jasmine party to stuff remnant fabric and taped them on coffee cans for mushrooms.  I took the butterflies from the ceiling of my daughter's room and put them in the den. 

In the hallway I had some blue balloons inflated and the rest I blew up and tacked up to the ceiling.  The walls were covered in the blue cloth I had from a previous luau party.  My husband works with a guy that hosts haunted houses at Halloween so we borrowed black lights and a smoke machine from him.  This transformed the hall to Mermaid Lagoon.  The last room was Neverland and had a huge refrigerator box pirate ship, a bean bag toss (recycled from Jasmine party that was sanded down and repainted with Hook & Pan).  The walls in this room were covered with more leftover blue tablecloth left over from the luau.  I just painted scenes from Peter Pan on it.  I glued pom poms on Tink's shoes and cotton balls on the clouds. 

GAMES/ACTIVITIES:  We started the party in the den where each guest sat on a mushroom.  We told each guest to take out the map they could find under their mushrooms.   The hunt started in Mermaid Lagoon (Stickers were hole punched and tied to helium balloons).  Guests had to pull the strings and try to find ones with stickers. Then it was off to Neverland where they were to look for pixie dust (pixie sticks) in Captain Hook's ship.   The guests walked the plank and got a wand (paper cut wand that was run through sticker maker) and pinned the wand on Tink.  

Then off to the bean bag toss for the next prize.  I found bubbles for 75% with the Christmas stuff and simply peeled off the snowflakes and attached a paper that read: Fairy Love and fairy light, Bring sweet dreams to me tonight. Every night when I rest my head Blow these fairy bubbles around my bed And as I curl up in the blankets nice and tight The fairies will guard me through the night Each new day I greet the sun They'll be ready for more fairy fun  Everyone then went back into the den for pass the pinecone.  We moved the mushrooms in a circle and played music.  They passed a large pinecone around and when the music stopped whoever was left holding the pinecone was out.  When you were out you picked a prize (25cent rings or eye patch) so no one minded being out. 

FOOD: We had the party at 2:00, so everyone already had lunch.  We did cake (Tinkerbelle cake from Publix), Pixie Punch (punch with pop rocks in it), and Neverland grapes (grapes stuck on pirate sword toothpicks)   The treasures from the hunt were put in bags for the guests to take home as favors.