Miss E's Mermaid Party - The games and activities

With 15 girls at a 3 hour birthday party, I was in need of easy, enjoyable and fairly time consuming activities to keep the girls entertained. Miss M (my 7 year old) invited 2 of her friends (who had little sisters as guests at the party) to come along and I put them in charge of leading the games and crafts. It made Miss M feel very important and she loved guiding the younger ones. It also left me with a lot more time to concentrate on helping Miss E to greet the arriving guests.

 We had a long low table that our neighbour lent to us and Mr Cotton Kiwi came up with the idea of balancing one of my market trestle tables on sturdy boxes to make a table the same height. We pushed them together and put a big cloth over both and then I sent my girls on a big cushion hunt around the house. It's amazing how many cushions you can rustle up in a party crisis! Miss M and her friends used a corner of the table and a chair to run a 'Mermaid Makeover' salon for guests when they arrived. We had pink sparkly sticky gems for earrings, some silver glitter hairspray and a treasure chest of jewels, should the mermaid feel the need to accessorise.

 Another corner of the table had a crown decorating area. I bought sparkly craft foam from The Warehouse (New Zealand's version of Walmart) and cut it into crown shapes. I punched holes in the sides and threaded elastic through. The girls had a combination of mermaid stickers, craft foam sea creature shapes and gold stars and glue to decorate their crown (everything came from the Warehouse or the $2 shop).

It was quite tricky making decisions on the best combination of items for your crown.

 I made sure every child had their name written on the back of their crown and the first party game we played was a relay race with 2 teams. The girls had to crawl (mermaid swimming style) across the floor before climbing onto the rock (our ottoman), finding their crown, putting it on their head and 'swimming' back to tag the next team member. I have to say that it was a bit of a disaster as the vast majority of the kids had no idea about how to be in a team or about relay races. It hadn't occured to me that pre-school kids wouldn't have any experience of this kind of race. I think they had fun anyway and all of them got some lollies from the jar as a prize.

Another part of the craft table was a mermaid peg doll making station. I used this tutorial as the basis of the dolls but cut up pieces of yellow fleece into strips to use as the hair instead of yarn. I also painted the tail end of the pegs green in readyness for the party as I knew paint would be a disaster. The craft foam and fleece stuck on pretty well with a Uhu glue stick so there was no need for adult supervision at all. They used felt tip pens for the faces.

We played lots of other games including 'Mermaid, Mermaid, Fish' (Duck duck goose);, Mermaid statues and a hilarious game that involved popping balloons to get a challenge out and then completing the challenge. Again, not ideal for all 5 year olds as about 4 of the kids were frightened of the balloons popping. The others loved it though. I got my ideas for party games from here.

There was lots of dancing and an hours worth of enterainment from the lovely Mermaid entertainer.

We had afternoon tea about 40 minutes before the end of the party and then I just let the kids loose with balloons and a bunch of mermaid dolls and they entertained themselves for the last 20 minutes or so.

Hope you get some ideas from these posts!

Miss E's Mermaid Party - The food

The incredible cake my Mum made for Miss E.



Oysters and Pearls.
Madeleine cakes split down the centre and piped with pink icing and a yoghurt raisin.
Inspired by these

Mason jar of lollies to give to the kids as prizes.
The octopus is a craft foam sticker that I got from the local emporium.

Starfish cupcakes.
We used a star cutter to make the starfish then gave them texture using a bobbly piece of plastic.

Jelly Fish
Blue jelly with fish shaped lollies from our local dairy (I've also seen them for sale in KMart)

Another view of Mum's incredible cake

Dolphin sandwiches and Cheerio (cocktail sausage) octopii.
The dolphin cutter came in a set of 'Lunch Punch' critter cutters
(which are brilliantly designed to cut sandwiches without waste.) You can get them from here

You can see my tutorial for octopii cheerios here.

I'll show you the games and activities tomorrow.

Miss E's Mermaid Party - The Decorations

E's birthday party was yesterday and it went brilliantly. The 15 little girls who came along all behaved beautifully and the birthday girl had a blast. I've just downloaded 137 photos of the day so I think I'm going to have to share the party with you in sections! Today, I'll show you the decorations and tell you a little bit about where the ideas and tutorials came from so you can copy them if you want to for your own mermaid or under the sea party. Here goes:

Fish in seaweed curtains.

These are pretty self explanatory to make. Take crepe paper in 2 different colours and cut a slightly curved line through all layers of the folded up paper. Cut another curvy line about 6cm apart until you've cut up all the paper. Unfold the crepe paper and staple it over string. Print out fish from here and cut them out. Staple them in place.


More crepe paper ribbons loosely knotted over the curtain rail



Fish net covering our book case

I bought 4m of bird net off  Trade Me to make the fish net. My girls decorated and cut out fish shapes and I stapled them to the net.

The party bag table

I bought these gorgeous under the sea paper boxes off another Trade Me seller. Instead of filling them before the party, the party guests won the contents of their take home box by playing games. Everyone got the same prizes but I found that getting the kids to put their own take home gifts away meant that they didn't empty the bags out just before they left (which normally happens) and I didn't get any treats left behind by any of the guests. They also put the things they made at the party in them and one child even put her shoes in the box to make sure she didn't forget them!

I named each party box and showed the girls where they were. All the girls were old enough to recognise their name.

I made this Mermaid and another out of different coloured card. They are now on E's bedroom wall. 





These are some of the decorations in our basement. We set up a staging area for the Mermaid entertainer down there so we could finish preparing the food (and have a cup of tea in peace!) before the kids all came upstairs again. The white fabric with the shells on is a shower curtain that I purchased for $2 from our local emporium. I got 5 of them so I was able to cover up most of the walls and shelves (which were full of very distracting toys as this is where our kids play!). I closed the curtains so it was quite dark down there and put on a low light to really give the impression that they were underwater. The girls walked through blue streamers to get into the room. The mermaid was brilliant and the kids all absolutely loved her. It's the second time I've used an entertainer from An Enchanted Party and they are worth every cent. I think my now 7 year old slept with the fairy dust given to her at her 5th birthday party under her pillow for about a year and when I went to drop the girls at school this morning, several of the party guests came up to me to talk to me about Melody the Mermaid. One Mum told me that her daughter hadn't stopped talking about how the Fairy Queen had granted Mermaid Melody legs for the day so she could come to E's party. Very cute!

And here's our little mermaid. I bought the costume from America via Ebay but I have seen a similar one on Trade Me. I don't think they are designed to last (more of a one off Halloween costume) and E's costume had split down the side by the end of the day. She loved wearing it though so it was well worth it and I can mend it so all is not lost!

I'll show you the food tomorrow if you want to see more!

School holidays, good friends and party preps

I had a conversation with my other half last night that went a bit like this:

Me: "Oh I am so ready for the kids to go to bed tonight."

Him: "How many have you had today?"

Me: " Just our two."

Him: "I was actually talking about bottles of wine."

The seaweed curtain we made yesterday for E's birthday party. I'll give you the instructions for it at a later date.

 Today is the last day of the school holidays here in New Zealand. Much as I love my children and really enjoy having all their friends over to play (seriously, I really do!); there is only so much picking up of toys; picking glitter-soaked glue off the upholstery and breaking up of fights over who gets to hold the very tolerant cat that a person can take. I'm sure you are nodding right now.

E making a fish for the school of fish we are planning on hanging from the ceiling.

If you are new to the parenting game, I highly recommend that you start making friends with other people with similar aged kids as soon as possible and set up an informal swapsies arrangement with them during the holidays so you can get a break from the inevitable bickering that breaks out when the kids spend too much time together. I am lucky enough to have a wonderful group of girlfriends with similar aged kids and our children have been all around the different houses all holidays. One of them took my oldest daughter all day and night when the youngest was sick earlier in the week. You don't have to ask with friends like that. They just know what you need and when you need it. Wonderful. 

The paper plate fish we made using the tutorial here

I am looking forward to the holidays being over and the kids being back in their routines (and me in mine) but I also don't want them to end because my baby is turning 5 and will be starting school. Her party is on Monday so we've been busy getting ready for the big day. The entire kitchen table is covered in fish shapes and glitter today whilst the kids finish off making the school of fish we are planning on hanging from the ceiling.


Maisy decided she was joining in the kids game of zoos.

There's a paper mache fish shaped pinata in the oven (it's been so damp here, it's just not drying so I decided to give it some help today!) and my house generally looks like a complete tip. My parents are arriving this afternoon from Australia and I haven't even thought what I'm going to cook for them for dinner or done the shopping for their favourite foods that I like to get in. I think I am going to dig out the trusty slow cooker, take the kids to the shops and playground and try not to panic! There's definately one thing I don't have to worry about and that's the cake. My amazing Mum has made a mermaid cake for E. Have a look at this!

 Isn't it beautiful and everything a little girl having a mermaid party could wish for? This big girl certianly loves it.

My only concern (that some of you may have picked up on already) is that she made it in Australia and is therefore bringing it over on the plane. Keep your fingers crossed that it arrives in one piece!!

Crafternoon Tea anyone?

I've got a lovely new range of tea towels which I'll be selling for the first time at Crafternoon Tea market tomorrow. They are $12 each or 3 for $30.

I've nearly finished some gorgeous Tape Measure Rose Brooches so I'm hoping to bring those along too.

See you there? Crafternoon Tea, 16th July 10am-2pm at the Trinity Methodist Church Hall. Corner of Sandringham and New North Roads, Kingsland, Auckland City.

If you want me to put any of these aside for you, let me know via email or facebook (the links are in the sidebar.)
Sarah x

Broccoli is NOT party food

I love the conversations my kids have when they think we aren't listening. We have been having lots of conversations recently about what we should serve at E's mermaid party. This is what we came up with last night.

The octopii are cheerios with 8 legs cut out of 3/4 of the sausage (The easiest way to do this is with a small sharp knife. Starting 3/4 of the way up, cut the sausage in half then quarters then score down the middle of each of the quarters with your sharp knife. Don't worry if you don't manage 8 tentacles on each octopus. Not many kids would take the time to count the legs on all their sausages!!Once they are cut out, stick them in the microwave in a little water for a couple of minutes and the tentacles will curl up as they heat.If you don't have a microwave you can use a pan of water. The starfish are carrots cut with a star cutter and the seaweed is green beans and broccoli. This is what caused the outrage because Broccoli is NOT party food. Don't worry, I wasn't planning on serving broccoli at the party but it was fun to suggest it to the kids!

Bubba and Babushka

Remember this Babushka?

 Here she is with her new owner (who is also sporting a Cotton Kiwi Babushka onesie). So cute!!

Don't you love that expression? Priceless! Thank you so much to Emma and Melanie for emailing me the photo. Love it.