AboutGeorgia Blair Expertise Are you planning a child's birthday party at home? Want to make it more exciting than exhausting? A little expert advice can help make it a more memorable event. The Party Fairy's strategies for successful parties can help parents turn down the chaos level and turn up the fun. We specialize in fantasy tea parties - but whether you're planning a sweet and nostalgic tea party or a rough-and-rowdy treasure hunt for boisterous little pirates, we have plenty of tips, tools and techniques to share. Need an idea for a centerpiece? A party game? Wondering whether the activities you have selected are age-appropriate for your guests? Not sure what to do with the two little boy cousins invited to a very girlie-girlie tea party? We can answer a variety of questions on many topics. Chances are good that we've heard your question before - but if not, we've created an entire business from the ability to create and imagine workable programs for children!
Experience As the owner of The Party Fairy, I have personally conducted more than 600 birthday parties for children on a paid basis - and did this free of charge for years before I decided to trun it into a business. All told, I have probably conducted more than 750 parties.
Organizations None are relevant.:) And don't worry; nothing odd. Just church and school organizations.
Publications New York Times regional newspapers chain (I was an employee for several years and worked at various newspapers during my 20-year journalism career) I also worked at many smaller newspapers throughout Alabama
Education/Credentials I was a journalism major many, many years ago - shortly after the world was created. :) Although a journalistic background is not particularly relevant to the business of children's party planning, a communications background could prove useful in answering questions from the public.
Awards and Honors Hmmm....
The only ones possibly relevant here are several Associated Press newswriting awards
Past/Present Clients No one of national note or significance (yet!) because my clients are all pretty much under 9 years old! But to their parents, of course, my little clients are all shining stars! :)
Question QUESTION: My son is turning 9 and my daughter 6 one week apart. We always do the parties together to save but I feel like I have run out of ideas. Please help!!
ANSWER: Here's a very easy solution for you, and with summer fast approaching, this one happens to be a great backyard party idea, too.
Turn your back yard into a tropical island with mermaids and pirates, and stage an elaborate treasure hunt as the main activity at your party. Although the 9-year-old boys are the perfect age for a more involved treasure hunt, with fun clues and maps, this would not be an age-appropriate activity for your daughter and her friends. Your best bet would be to visit your local party supply store and pick up several bags of gold coins. Hide these just like Easter eggs in your back yard and let the children hunt them. Have prizes available for the one who finds the most coins. To make the treasure hunt more fun (and to give the little girls more of a chance against the older boys) use colored markers to make dots or an X on some of the coins. Award prizes to those who find the coins with the purple dot, the green dot, etc., and to children who find the most coins with a purple X, etc.
Here's another hilarious Mermaid and Pirate game idea. Divide the pirates and mermaids into two teams. Give each team a couple of rolls of plastic wrap -- the same wrap you use in the kitchen. It is often able to find it in blue or green, which makes this game even more fun. The two teams compete to see which team can turn all of its girls into mermaids first. To turn a girl into a mermaid, simply wind and wrap those long plastic sheets around her legs, binding them with the sheeting. She will be unable to walk well and will know just what it feels like to be a mermaid!
Next, have a Mermaid and Pirate Race. Pair each mermaid with a pirate. Give the pirate a "peg leg" by making him hop on one foot, attempting to help the mermaid beside him wobble along toward a finish line. This is hilarious to watch.
That's really all the activities you will need, and these are not expensive. Your costs really are only for the gold coins (generally priced around $5 for 144) and the plastic wrap.
To create party favors, however, you might consider having children decorate treasure chests.
Party stores are filled with luau supplies right now, and almost any of these will work very well for your Tropical Island Adventure party.:)
Other fun ideas include inviting children to wear their own pirate or mermaid attire to the party. It's very easy to create pirate outfits by shredding sleeves of old clothes. A rope belt, a bandanna on the head, a few gold necklaces, and you're a pirate!
If you'd like to serve a meal, be sure to check out the Mermaid menu suggestions on my blog at www.askthepartyfairy.com. Kids generally love it when hot dog weiners are cut and boiled to curl up into "squid." It's very easy to do -- and can be served with spaghetti noodles colored with food coloring to create "Squid and Eels."
Hope these ideas help you!
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: I would love to do that one again but we did it a couple of years ago. Both of the kids love the ocean and the animals in it. I was trying to do something on that line. I would like to make this one none of the kids coming would forget. We usually have about 30 kids at the party along with close to 30 or 40 adults.
Answer Oh, rats! That one is my stock answer to moms who want to have a party for siblings of different ages and different genders! LOL
Seriously, it is a bit tricky to do what you're attempting, especially at this age, when 9-year-olds are so eager to establish themselves as miles beyond the 6-year-old stage. :) But don't worry. We'll come up with a plan.
Couple of quick thoughts:
A woman in my area who used to be a marine biologist at an aquarium now has a business taking sea creatures out to birthday parties....Kids get to touch them...It's cute. Anything like that in your area? You might call the nearest aquarium and ask...Never hurts to call!
She came to my daughter's birthday party the year she turned 6, when we did an undersea theme. I'll tell you what we did for my daughter's party, which was great fun for the kids, but it might not work so well for you just because of the age difference in the kids. Reading skills and different education levels would make a big difference. But, with some work, you might be able to pull it off....
We did an undersea game show, with teams competing in a game show style format. We decorated the room to look like an undersea game show, with huge murals, and created opposing playing sessions by decorating two banquet tables facing each other about 12 feet apart. The moderator stood at a podium in front of a huge mural in between the two tables. We had categories like "Sharks," and "Undersea Myths and Legends," and the moderator would ask the question. Here are a couple of examples of questions from "Myths and Legends: "What is the name of the legendary king of the sea?" or "When mermaids sing a siren song, who are they singing to?" Members would have 60-seconds to talk it over, then guess the correct answer. But most of these children had just finished an undersea unit of study, so all this was on their minds.... Then the second half of the party was the visit from the marine biologist, with the sea creatures the kids got to touch. :)
If you do something like this, keep in mind that it needs to move very fast to engage the children and keep it fun, and the moderator must be lively and good at this kind of thing.
In your case, you might be better off to stage something a little bit less elaborate, but still lots of fun, and still using the undersea theme.
Here are a couple of other ideas just off the top of my head this morning:
UNDERSEA BALL:
This is probably the easiest undersea event to stage, and can also be set up in your backyard. Decorate a banquet table to serve as the dee-jay's table, and set up the music system.
Create a fun "dance floor" by inserting four poles in the ground to create a square, and suspend fishing line or clothes line from pole to pole. Stringing blue strands of Christmas lights from pole to pole creates a great effect, but may not be practical in your case as easy access to electrical outlets would be required. But you can also hang paper fish, starfish, jellyfish, seahorses, etc. from the line to create an exciting undersea dance area. Or sheets of blue and green crepe paper, which will wave in the slightest breeze and create a really fun undeersea effect! Cut them to lengths of about 2 feet and hang them in vertical strips from the line to create an entire square of moving blue and green strips. What fun! Intersperse them with paper fish, jellyfish, etc....hanging a little bit lower. Plastic pipes sold at home improvement stores are great for serving as your "poles" and don't cost too, too much.
A great dee-jay is the key to this one; your dee-jay will need to keep the games coming and keep kids engaged in the music. You can hire one, but you'll pay several hundred dollars for it. Is there someone in your family who could do this? An uncle or a cousin who has a knack for this sort of thing? If not, call around to your local skating rinks and see if there are any teen deejays there who want to earn $50 for running the party for you.
You'll want to do the limbo, of course, because it's so much fun for kids of all ages. The Freeze Dance is easy to do; you just play the song until the music stops and then freeze in place until the music starts again. A good dee-jay will play off these sorts of games, saying things like, "And do you know what the favorite dance in the Artic Ocean is? The Freeze Dance, of course!" and "Down in the Carribbean, there's only one dance the sea creatures do; it's the limbo. How loooowwww can you goooooo?" The dee-jay can also make use of hula hoops (available at dollar stores), having the kids attempt to use them in the regular way AND place them on the ground and jump from hoop to hoop in a dance game.
You can order foam undersea hats for the kids from Oriental Trader for the kids to wear...and your invitations could say something like: Come one, come all to the Undersea Ball; where the sea creatures are gathering, large and small; we're feasting and dancing and playing fun games, and YOUR name's at the top of all the guests' names! Please say you'll join us...etc. etc...
UNDERSEA RODEO
This is just a fun name for old-fashioned back yard games. You could use the same square dance floor decoration described in the undersea ball suggestions....but for this one, I might use the poles and strings and crepe paper to create a long racetrack instead of a square. Just two lines of poles -- maybe three poles on each side, with clothes line suspended from pole to pole? It really only needs to be about 15 or 20 feet long.
Remember the mermaid and pirate race we talked about before? Trot it out again for this party. Conduct the races in the area between the two lines of poles.
You can also do octopus races, which will be hilarious. Put two children of roughly the same size side by side on all fours, and tie them together at the waist with a sash. Watch them scuttle on 8 legs (4 legs plus 4 arms) toward the finish line! Hilarious.
Children can race individually in crab races. Have them sit on their bottoms, then lift themselves up, supported by hands and feet, and scuttle along.
The limbo will work well for the rodeo, too.
For jellyfish races, visit your dollar store and pick up some inexpensive new mops. Put kids sidesaddle two at a time on a mop and let them race. The mop strings will create the jellyfish tentacles.;)
To create an amazing undersea-themed tabletop for very little, please check out the ideas on my blog at www.askthepartyfairy.com.
I hope some of these ideas help you come up with a great party! :)
