Disney Princess Royal -5yr- Decorate Frames

My 5-yr old wanted a princess theme. Though her guests would include more girls than boys I didn't want to leave the boys out in any way. 

Invitations:  I take my invitation ideas from the web. I found a pretty pink border with flowers, a crown and a sceptor. It read  Hear ye hear ye.  The King and Queen request the pleasure of your company at the Royal Celebration of Princess Jailyn.  The royal ball will be held at "last name" Castle on …date time rsvp info. I used the most royalmajestic yet legible font I could find. On the back of the poster-style invitation I listed the names of the invited children for example: Lord William and Lady Klarissa. For those that live in my neighbord I left the back of the invite blank rolled up like a scroll tied with a pretty pink ribbon placed in a spare flower petal basket my daughter once used in a wedding dressed up my 2 yr old in his fanciest attire and had him hand deliver the invites. Soooo cute!  Verbally I requested all the girls to dress in their princess dresses I'm sure they all had one. Most did but my daughter had spare dress up clothes we lent to those who didn't. I'll get to the boys later. 

Decorations: I found a castle theme wall mural at Hobby Lobby that is easily hung up on walls with tacks or sticky tack. We used this not only as deco but also as a backdrop for the kids to take pictures in front of with the birthday girl or with whoever.  Pics were later printed in a 2" by 3" size for a later birthday party project. I found a Disney princess birthday banner which I used my computer/printer skills to print. I could have just purchased it but I was trying to save where I could. This party was for about 35 kids. I found a pretty Cinderella-blue elegant looking table runner at the Dollar Store!! I also found tiny glass shoes at a party store and a cream colored glazed ceramic pumpkin at Hobby lobby.  I used these for the main table and just plain white table covers for the rest.  BTW my daugther chose to dress as Cinderella in case you hadn't guessed. 

ACTIVITIES: Since all the girls came as princesses I crowned them with plastic silver tiaras from a party place when they arrived. I made all the boys swords and shields out of cardboard.  Well the shields were cardboardspray-painted black. I printed a medieval lion from the web and glued it to the center.  I took a bunch of cheap cabinet door knobs and secured them thru the cardboard thru center so the boys have a way to hold on to their shield. These went on after spray painting before lion print out went on. I also labeled the back of each shield with a printed name label ex: Lord William so they don't get them mixed up.

I made swords from a foam posterboard cuz I needed it to be sturdier than card board. I cut out swords with utility knife spray painted blades with a silver/metallic spray and handles black. I also secured black foam to either side of sword handle to make it more comfy to hold. I knighted each boy with their gear one by one. Later the girls had a princess make over area while the boys played with their new swords. I had also cut out crowns from foam sheets in diff colors: pink/purple for girls blue yellow black for boys. I stapled clear plastic windows to make them picture frames.  During the party the kids decorated their picture frames with sequicne glitter glue ang gems and later got a print of the pix from earlier in front of wall mural as a souvenir.   

Games:  I made two versions of pin the tail on the donkey. For girls I found a frog with a crown online. Using banner mode on printer I printed a large copy and several sets of puckered lips.  For the boys I printed a large dragon and printed several swords.   Another game was a take on a cake walk. I printed individual pix of all disney princesses and burned a cd with several disney princess movie songs.   I taped pix on the floor forming a circle. While the kids walked on top of the pics of the princesses they had to try to figure what princess the song corresponds to. Whoever lands on princess wins. We played a few rounds of this.  

Instead of having a pinata I told the kids that a dragon had come down and eaten the pinata along with the candies and treasures. In the two weeks prior to the pary I actually paper mache'd 30 plus dragon eggs spray painted them in distinguising colors for boys and girls and filled with candy and either toy dragons snakes gold coins for boys or necklaces wands(sceptors) rings and sticker earings for girls.

After telling them the short story I sent them on a dragon hunt in my back yard. I had to at some point in the party get all the kids inside my house for a game with the help of the parents of course and a few more parents helped hide the eggs in the back yard while the kids were inside.  We had standard punch chips and store bought princess cake and ordered pasta from a favorite local Italian place for this one.  Although the food was great the party was more about the activities."