For my daughter's 4th birthday we had a Princess Dress Up Party. I received a lot of great ideas for the party from www.BirthdayPartyIdeas.com
I made my own invitations, using clip art from www.disneyclipart.com. Then I rolled them into a scroll and tied a little ring onto each one. Then I went around the neighborhood and Mary delivered the scrolls. That alone was a lot of fun for my daughter. I had been fortunate enough to find on a closeout site, princess dress up clothing. (Next time-I will keep my eyes open for other dress up ideas the day AFTER Halloween) Each box contained three dresses (Bell, Rose, and Cinderella imitation), rings, bracelets, and necklaces. At first I bought the dresses thinking I would keep them, then I figured out my costs, and since it was SOOOO much less expensive to have the party at home, that I decided the dresses were the favor. There were not enough tiaras in the box so I found a site that listed them for $11.95 for a dozen. After I bought them I found a website which gave directions on how to make your own. For the decorations I copied the banners used in the beginning of Sleeping Beauty. VERY simple to cut out on construction paper. The best was to cut one piece of colored paper in half length-wise and glue on to either side of a different color paper. (my colors were blue, pink and yellow) Then you cut the bottom in a V shape so it looked kind of looked like a crest. We got more creative, but I found the simplest looked the best. Again my daughter loved this activity. Then I also printed out the family crest for each one of the girls. Most of them are on the web ie. McGrath, but for those I could not find I just made my own and then printed them all on colored paper. Then I hung these banners from the ceiling, from doorways, across the windows etc. When the girls arrived they had a ball getting dressed, to make things easier, I labeled each dress for the girls before they arrived, and said Princess Mary Ana's Fairy godmother hand picked a dress for each girl. There was NO fighting from girls saying, "I want that one". I left out make up and nail polish and a big mirror so they could see themselves. We had pizza for lunch; I served juice in plastic wine glasses and then a homemade cake in the shape of a castle. For activities I took pictures of each girl in front of a pop up play castle my friend had. I did this on my digital camera and I printed those as thank-you notes. We played pin the kiss on the frog, and made jewelry boxes. The last game was a treasure hunt. I said Maleficent had stolen Mary Ana's treasure. Since the girls were young I printed pictures from Disney movies for clues, and rolled them into scrolls. The first was Sleeping Beauty lying down; this sent them to Mary's bedroom. The second was Mrs. Pots which led them to the kitchen. The third was the fish from Piccnocio that led to Mary's real fish; The fourth was the picture of the rose from Beauty & The Beast. I had given roses to Mary at the beginning of the day and had left them in the dressing area. The last was Cinderella's castle, which led to the castle where they had their picture taken. In the treasure chest was more jewelry and candy, which I got on sale after Easter (Worked great for my color scheme). The day was great; Mary had a wonderful time, and after all was said and done the party cost under $175. The Web is a GREAT source for information -Thank you!!