Elise's Princess 3yr - Disney Princess Bingo

For my daughter’s 3rd birthday, we transformed our modest home into a Princess Castle!  We took two dryer boxes and one refrigerator box, painted them purple and created a castle out of them by creasing the tall box to make a tall turret, cutting windows and arched doorways, and gluing paper  royal crests on the outside with Princess Flags (made from Disney Princess downloads from the internet glued onto dowels).  We strung artificial ivy in and out of the castle.  My husband took an old chair, covered the seat and backrest with pink shimmery fabric, and spray-painted the wood gold.  I made a royal-looking peak to glue to the backrest, and we glued plastic jewels all over to look like a throne.  (The birthday girl sat in it as she opened gifts, and also for pictures with each of her friends.)  

INVITATIONS: Just 5x7 Castle invitations that I made using a Castle download from Microsoft.com and Royal lettering that said The Kingdom of xxxxxx, Cordially invites you to a Royal Ball to celebrate the 3rd Birthday of Princess Elise, Saturday, (date), at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, (address).  Please come in your royal princess attire (All of the girls wore darling little princess dresses!) 

PRIZES/LOOT:  Each child received a sparkling wand, a princess hat, necklace, & bracelet (from the dollar store!), Disney Princess Stickers, Stick-on Earrings (from OTC), and a lip-gloss.

ACTIVITIES:  I took a shoebox and made a traveling puppet theatre for a Cinderella hand puppet we have.  I simply made a hole in the bottom of the shoebox, large enough for my hand to fit through, made a curtain out of pink felt and used foil doilies and gold shimmery ribbon to decorate.  The Cinderella puppet then gave all the directions for the games and let the kids know what was coming next.  We had small wooden trinket boxes painted pink that each child got to decorate with plastic jewels and glitter.  While those dried, we had a Royal Ball in the family room where the girls all danced to Classical Music around  the Ballroom Floor (Oriental Rug).  I had spraypainted small soccer cones pink and put a Paper Princess flag through each with  a dowel, and then placed the Princess Flag around the ballroom floor.  Each time the music stopped, the girls ran to stand next to a Princess (Flag).  The birthday girl then drew a card (made from Disney Princess Valentines) that had a certain Disney princess on it, the girl standing next to that princess got a prize!  

Also using Disney Princess Valentines, I made Princess Bingo Cards, using three princesses on each card.  We  used Checkers for the markers, since they have crowns on the backside.  The first girl to cover all of her Princess cards won a prize. Last we played "pass the slipper" which is like hot potato except we used a Princess slipper to pass around the circle.  My daughter has a play Disney princess castle that has a tiny clock which chimes at the stroke of midnight.  She was in charge of turning the clock, and each time the clock chimed, the girl holding the slipper got a prize! 

DESSERT:  The cake was a two layer castle cake, that actually took 5 cake mixes.  I made a large 9x13 for the base, then stacked (2) 8x8, and a 4x4 to give a castle appearance.  I took four 8x10 sheets of firm tag paper and rolled them into 10 cylinders, placed a sugar cone upside down on each to be the spires, then frosted each lavender and placed small flags using toothpicks out of the top of each cone.  Each cylinder was a tower at each corner of the 8x8s, poking down into the 9x13.  around the edges of of each layer of the cake, I spaced sugar cubes to give the brick castle look.  For a doorway and windows, I used gold paper doilies that I just pressed into the frosting.  I made a drawbridge with paper and frosting, and placed the whole cake on a sheet of irredescent blue tagboard to represent water.  I then placed my daughter’s dancing Cinderella & Prince on the drawbridge.  On the top of the 4x4, I used  ¼  of a paper towel roll, frosted it, and made one last tower with a sugarcone spire and flag.  I got the idea by looking online at Castle cakes, and used a Castle Wedding cake as a model---mine didn’t look nearly as spectacular, but it was impressive to a bunch of 3-year old princesses!

Around the table I had heart confetti and heart shaped dove chocolates.  Because it was near Valentine’s day, I was able to get heart napkins and pink/red m&m’s.  I stacked heart-print cups in a pyramid, and had my daughter’s toy horse-drawn carriage posed as if it was coming from out of the pyramid.  The icecream was a Princess Ice-cream cake that I made by simply buying a round tub of pink/orange icecream sherbet, turning it upside down on a platter and trimming it to look like the lower part of a gown.  Then I just took one of her princess Barbie dolls and pushed her down into the cake until only her torso was sticking out, making it look like she was part of the ice-cream cake.  Then I just decorated it with frosting flowers.  Quick and easy! The punch was served in a large crystal punch bowl, and the candy in crystal bowls to complete the look! The princesses all had a wonderful time, and the castle was played in for another month!