Our daughter was turning 3 and had been "jipped" out of a one-year party like her older brother.  So, when she really wanted a Princess Party (we all love DisneyWorld and the Princesses!), it was hard to say "no".  With her daycare class and close friends, we invited 27 two-to three year olds, boys and girls.  Our 6 1/2 year old son(George) was going to wear his "Prince Charming" costume that I had made in October for our breakfast in the Castle at Magic Kingdom (he didn't wear it at the party because he had a chin injury that was bothered when the jacket was on) and our daughter, Victoria, wore a blue satin/organza Cinderella ball gown that I had made.  We invited everyone to dress up as their favorite princess or even as a modern prince. (There were two boys that came and wore crowns that their moms had made.) The girls were in an array of Disney princess costumes. When the guests arrived, the gifts were placed on a table in the dining room to be opened after the party guests left (at that young age, it is really hard for them to watch someone opening toys, especially the one they brought, and not getting their own). There were foam crowns placed on the tables outside with a large assortment of stickers (even animals and sports for the boys), there were also cardboard jewelry boxes to decorate. I had bought two very large "under the bed" boxes and made a frame for each one out of scrap 2x4's so that it was a "free standing" water table and a "free standing" sand table. The water table was filled with clean water, a large assortment of large shells, sand dollars, and sea horses, some plastic jewelry, small plastic fish, and cups and bowls for Ariel's grotto. The sand table was filled with gold-painted riverrocks (large and smooth-painted with Design Masters gold)shiny necklaces, bracelets, rings, horses, tigers, camels, scoops and shovels for Aladin and Jasmine's treasure trove. All of the activity took place in the backyard. We have a plastic playhouse, which became the home of Snow White and the 7 dwarfs, and a climbing structure that we called "the castle" where they could conquer dragons and other invisible enemies. The children loved playing in the water table and sand table and kept themselves extremely clean (only one child ended up with wet shoes!). Meanwhile, with the help of 2 moms, I took plain white t-shirts and took each child, painted their palm with flesh-colored acrylic paint and the rest of their hand/fingers with another color of their choice, and put their handprint on their shirt, (fingers up) and using a black paint pen, wrote "Princess...." or "Prince ....." underneath, added eyes and a smile, outlined the "crown" which was their finger print and top of their palm. Using a contrasting color paint pen, added a few "gems" in the crown.  One mom helped by putting the shirt onto the plastic lid to paint on and the other mom had wet wipes for the hand after we painted. Then we went inside for cake and juice.  As the children were finishing up with their cake, we went into the living room to sit down as we played "Pin the shoe on Cinderella". I had taken the picture out of the book of the Duke placing the shoe on Cinderella, and using an overhead projector, transfered the image onto a large piece of cardboard (a large display board works great!) and painted it all according to the book with acrylic paint. I didn't paint on the glass slipper, but instead completed the foot as if it were barefoot.  Each child had a light blue cutout of a "glass slipper" with their name on it,were blind-folded, and using doublestick tape, tried to get the shoe on the foot. The children were in hysterics and laughing when some of the shoes ended up looking like Cinderella was "kicking them off".  For the last 15 minutes before they left, I pulled out a bucket of foam beads and elastic for them to sit and make a necklace for themselves, or the boys made them for their moms. For their take-home back, there was a small bottle of bubbles (12/$1 at the Dollar Tree), small package of Cinderella crayons, a blow-out, and a few stickers of Disney princess. They also took home their shirts, crowns, and jewelry boxes with an assortment of shells, "gold nuggets" and jewelry from the sand and water tables.  This took a lot of work, but it was worth it.  The children are still talking about it.  It might seem rather expensive, but I was able to use the boxes for clothing storage, the wood was what I had around the house, and between Oriental Trading co, and dollar stores, it was around $3/per child in total expense (I had the paints already). It took more time to clean up the house than to do anything else! I highly recommend keeping a bucket of beads around--for a few dollars, it really keeps children occupied!  I am looking forward to the next party!