Barbie's Boracay Bodacious Beach Birthday Blowout -  The invitations asked you to come along and help Dora the Explorer look for Barbie's party to celebrate my daughter's 5th birthday. We covered the doorways to the den/kitchen/porch half of our house, so the guests could not see the Beach Party set up in the back.  The guests were greeted with a map of the house, a purple backpack ($2 each, plastic blow-up ones from on-line discount store), and the following story:  "You need a plane ticket to get to the beach party. But Swipper stole it and tore it into 6 pieces!  So, you need to use the map to find all the pieces and glue them back together." Six different rooms were set up with decorations and games and crafts.  Plus, there was an envelope in each with another piece of the puzzle.  The crafts and decorations were all simple - most websites have downloadable pictures to print and party ideas: The rooms were: 1. Jungle - pictures of Stanley, Eliza Thornberry, Lion King and green crepe paper strips hung from ceiling...animal pompom craft, tossed balls (food) into bowls in front of stuffed animals (to feed them), lion king tape playing in background for mood.  2.  China - Sagwa, red crepe paper and fact about China on all the walls...decorated kite..practices moving things between bowls with chopsticks.  3.  Nowhere Land - Pictures of Maggie, the Ferocious Beast, their friends and red dots hanging from ceiling and walls...giant Beast made from felt, with felt spots to be tossed onto him...puzzle of all the characters made from print-outs with velcro loop on back and a felt board on which to put them  together. 4. Under The Sea - pictures of the Little Mermaid, blue and green crepe paper hung horizontally, fish cut outs, fish netting hung from furniture and walls...made seashell necklaces from plastic beads...beanbag toss game decorated with fish.  5.  Paris - pictures of Beauty and the Beast and Madeline, cutouts of Paris scenes from party store and printouts of pictues and facts from encyclopedia hung all around...giant pink hopscotch game to play on the "Streets of Paris"...little plastic castle shaped bottles they could fill with sand, to have a castle like Belle. 6. Cyberchase - pictures from the PBS web site...computer was logged onto the PBS web site with lots of games for people to play...and finally, a place to glue together all the ticket pieces.  We also found punch balls that were printed to look like globes and they were hung all through the house to add to the fealing of travel. Once they had the ticket, they could come past the curtain into the rest of the party.  Boracay is a beautiful island near the Orient, with many different cultural influences. So, we decorated with Chinese lanterns, tissue paper flowers, pictures of Barbie, and lots of Luau stuff.  The ceiling in the kitchen, beakfast room and den were crisscrossed with all colors of crepe paper and other decorations. The backporch was decorated like a beach, with the large wading pool filled up. The girls each received a purple hula skirt, make from a section of purple fringe table skirting.  The food included something from each place visited: eggrolls, shrimp, etc...  We finished up with a fun round of limbo and a sun shaped pinata.  We knew at the time that we were moving away within a few weeks, so this was a great way to both celebrate my wonderful daughter's birthday and share one last get-together with so many great friends!