For our daughters 5th birthday we threw a huge bash!
We choose a tropical mermaid and friends theme. Inspired by an awesome clearance sale (napkins, goody bags, cups, banners, plates all at 90 % off!!) I scanned one of the napkins and with the help of my Print Shop software printed up her invitations. We sent out about 50! Our decorations came out incredible, again starting with the napkin and pulling out the characters, we made 4 life sized palm trees and arranged them around the party zone. Around the railing of our deck I stapled blue tulle to the top which gave it a wavy ocean feel, I made little sea creatures out of fun foam in all rainbow colors and stapled them along the spindles. I placed 90 balloons in all rainbow colors all over the yard with curling ribbon and the games themselves were decorative. It was a rainbow tropical paradise. Now with a potential yard (weather permitting) full of 1 - 8 year olds I began thinking of ways to keep them entertained for 3 hours. As the kids arrived I had them start on the craft which was colored Popsicle sticks, sparkly fish stickers and glue. Most of the kids made frames, some of them made small boxes. To fill the frames I made a life sized mermaid, cut out her face and took pictures of all the girls in it, which we'll send to them in the Thank you cards. For the games, I started with the traditional party games like ring toss, hot potato and basketball dunk and gave them a twist. I took the characters off of the napkins and made them life sized on scrap pieces of plywood. I made an octopus and screwed 4 colorful baskets on and used brite colored ping pong balls for the kids to toss into the baskets which each had different point values. I made a ring toss out of diving sticks and rings by cutting the ends off of the sticks, drilling holes into the plywood that I painted a seal on and hot glued them secure. I took a smaller piece of plywood painted a dolphin, drilled some holes and fit it over top of the back board of our basketball net with zip ties for a "dolphin dive" game. We played hot potato, except we used a fish. I purchased 12 light weight floating crabs, whales, sharks and octopus numbered them in 3 sets of 1 - 4 and sewed metal dowels on their backs and threw them in our smaller kiddie pool, we made fishing poles out of wooden dowels, eye hooks and fishing line and used magnets as the hooks. Which ever number critter they caught was the amount of Kendall Kash they received. Of course we had to do the limbo which was made out of PVC piping. The kids received Kendall Kash for each level they finished. When the games were all played the kids got to cash in their Kendall Kash for prizes of their choice (ring pops, push pops, blow pops, sunglasses, punching balls, erasers, pencils, markers, fun pads, yo-yos, fun fruits, pixie sticks, bouncy balls, water guns, cups, crazy straws, visors, paddleballs, jacks, airheads) 4 different items to each Kash value 1-5. For food we served snacks, goldfish crackers and fishing stick pretzels, sea creature cookies and tropical popcicles. Instead of having a regular cake, my sister made cupcake sticks (lollipop sticks, gumdrops and mini cupcakes) After my daughter opened presents we had the piņata which was stuffed with gumballs, jawbreakers, smarties, tootsie rolls, lollipops, sweet tarts and confetti. Everyone had a great time including the adults! We were going to keep the decorations up for the rest of the summer but a friend of mine loved the entire theme so much she asked to borrow everything for her daughters upcoming birthday party!
