Ariel Party -4yr- Pin Tail On Flounder

For my daughters 4th Birthday she wanted an Ariel party.  So I got to work planning, and looking at your site and purchasing things several months in advance. 

For the INVITATIONS I collected plastic water bottles and removed the paper from the outside and sent the invitation in the bottle through the mail, cost about 45¢ each to mail.  The invitation was printed on ocean background paper with this: Mermaid Gabriella is turning four; Won't you join her on the ocean floor? Swim or sail over to Mermaid Gabriella's Secret Hideaway Under the Sea! We will be dining on oceans of food and searching for long lost treasures. Please join us for a swashbuckling, fin splashing, oceans of fun birthday at sea! Sea Castle: (Our Address)  Set Sail: (Date) Dock your ship at: (Time).  I tied some raffia around each invitation and put it into the bottle with some ocean confetti to set the mood.  I used clipart to add a small picture of a mermaid to each label and addressed each child as Mermaid so & so with their address.  (Beware one invitation was lost in the mail or thrown out by mistake). 

DECORATIONS:  The party was mainly in our garage and I converted it to an under the sea paradise.  I covered the walls with blue table cloth, the kind sold in a large roll, and I hung it from the ceiling in waves.  (I got the rolled table cloth from OTC but it was very thin so I had to double it up, it would work better with a thicker table cloth). 

I also purchased a fishing net to hang filled with fish and tissue paper fish, plastic sea shells and other under the sea decorations from OTC and from my local store the Wishing Well.  I used different shades green crape paper streamers to create seaweed along the walls (coming up from the bottom like seaweed growing) and I hung a bunch of green streamers over the doorway coming into the garage from the house and some from the ceiling too. 

Then I blew up some blue and aqua colored balloons with helium and I just let them float free in the room to look like bubbles in the water, (I just bought the small helium tank from Wal-Mart or any party store for about $19 and it was plenty for my needs). I also hung up stuffed fish and other sea creatures from the ceiling and at different heights, so it looked like they were swimming. I collected most of the stuffed animals from Thrift stores, I just washed them real good, and I found a Sebastian, and flounder on EBay that I also used as decorations. 

I set some of the plastic shells around the room on the floor so it looked like the ocean bottom and a made one section look like Ariel's secret stash of human objects.  I used a grey blanket to look like rocks and I covered a small chair and other objects to give me some height.  I displayed all sorts of human objects here, like a fork, rolling pin, candle sticks and other fun stuff and hung a sign above it that said Ariel's Grotto.  

I also bought the Disney's Ariel Studio Story for the commuter, on EBay and I printed out all sorts of fish and characters that my daughter had fun coloring and we hung those around the room too.   My daughter also had some other small Ariel character toys that we used around the house as decorations and we had the Ariel Bubble machine so we had that going in the garage with the Ariel Soundtrack to set the mood. I bought the Ariel soundtrack at a local used music store and it worked perfect. The setting was perfect and we got lots of comments. 

PARTY ACTIVITIES:  As the children arrived I had coloring sheets of different characters from the movie on the tables in the garage and the children colored and looked around the room as we waited for everyone to arrive.  After everyone arrived they each went on a treasure hunt with their parent.  I made a different map for each child on cardstock paper and wrinkled them up and burned the edges to make it look really old and authentic. It showed the shape of our house and other outside items to help them find their way and each map had a huge red X and a red doted line to help them along.  

I hid little treasure chests that I purchased from OTC as a craft but once they arrived I realized they were too hard for the kids to complete that day, so I made them all ahead of time and filled them with jewels, necklaces, rings and coins that I purchased at OTC and Wishing Well.  We had all girls, but it would be easy to make Pirate things for the boys to receive. 

Next we went back to the garage where we played pin the tail on flounder (I printed out a flounder picture from the Disney Program and I blew it up and made lots of copies of the tail and laminated everything so we can use it over and over.)  

Next we ate, for FOOD I served a cold Spinach Linguini and chicken that I called Seaweed and Eel Salad and baked spaghetti that I called Mermaid Hair. We also had fish garlic bread, (I used regular white bread slices and used a fish cookie cutter to make create the fish shape and then I spread the butter garlic mixture and baked).  I also served punch that I called Prince Eric's Punch and a green salad that we called Sea Anemones Salad.  All the food had little signs with the creative titles & pictures that I printed from the Disney Ariel Program. 

For the CAKE we had a local bakery create an Ariel cake special for this occasion. When it was time to open presents my daughter dressed in her mermaid costume and each guest had their photo taken with the mermaid in the garage and we used these in the thank you cards. It was loads of fun and everyone really enjoyed themselves.