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 My daughters (teens)would like to have a going away party for a girlfriend/teammate (also a teen) who is moving away in 4-6 weeks. These girls, plus the group of ~25 girls who would be invited, are on a competitive sports team made up of girls from 6 to 16 years old. We have a swimming pool and usually host several pool parties for the team kids every summer, so my girls would prefer something different. However, we are at a loss as to what would entertain so many different ages, except for a pool party. We're not totally against the idea of having a pool party if we can make it something special for the guest of honor. I would prefer not to have a party inside our house as it is not very big and the thought of ~30 girls running around inside makes me shudder.
Besides ideas for what we should do/where to have it, I need suggestions for food, decorations, and a special gift for the girl who is leaving? Do I need party favors for the guests? I've read about the "Desserting Us" buffet (we usually do pizza at our pool parties so this would be something different if we end up doing a pool party) - if we do this, would it be appropriate to ask people to bring their favorite dessert along with a recipe card to give the girl who is leaving?
As far as a special gift for the girl who is leaving, I've read about the address book ideas, T-shirt/sweatshirt with names, photo album with pictures, and the "I will miss so and so because..." card and video, but none of those ideas really struck a chord with us. But we can't think of anything else, either!
If you want, you can throw out different ideas and thoughts and we can pick and choose what we want to use. I guess what's really got me stumped is finding something that will keep all the different ages happy and not bored.
Thanks for your help.
Answer Hi, Cindy
First, let me apologize for not having a lot of time to devote to you this weekend; it is a very busy weekend personally and professionally. :) But we'll come up with some ideas....
Since you have the pool, and since all of the multi-aged guests are competent swimmers, you should defiitely make use of it for this going-away party. Of course I do understand the desire of your daughters to have something a bit different, and make it special. I'm hoping you can do that simply by tweaking the traditional pool party a bit, perhaps with the addition of a special theme. Younger girls in particular love a themed party; and in my experience the well done themes never lose their appeal for older girls.
Two water-based themes immediately come to mind. One is a mermaid theme and one is a luau theme. Here are a couple of quick thoguhts about each; please read through and see if either strikes your fancy. If so, we'll brainstorm a bit more along those lines.
The key to having a successful mermaid-themed party for a group of girls of different ages is to avoid the whole Disney/Ariel thing and focus simply on the enticing myths of the sea creature -- which ought to work very well for this group of water-confident young women. In your case, it might be appropriate to call it something like a Blue Lagoon party, with an invitation worded along the lines of being blue with thoughts of missing you. We'll do a better job with the wording if this idea actually appeals to you; I'm sorry,but I don't want to waste the time if you hate this idea!:)
I would go with blue decorations, to fit the Blue Lagoon theme, and jazz things up with some fun tabletop aquarium decorations. These are often availabe at clearance prices at pet stores and even Wal-mart. Create a fun undersea centerpiece using colorful coral or sunken ships and mermaid figurines from the aquarium decoration aisle. Want to see what I'm talking about? Here's a link to an article on my blog, with pictures: http://www.askthepartyfairy.wordpress.com/mermaid-party-coral-reef-centerpiece
Mermaid Makeovers are a hit with any age, even teens. You can go as far as you'd like with this one....If you want to buy spray glitter, bobby pins, and hair ornaments such as starfish to create funny "mermaid hair" and make a silly picture of each guest, the girls will probably laugh and laugh and have a great time. Or you could be a bit more serious and just do mermaid manicures or pedicures.
Activities should also include some fun mermaid crafts such as making Sea Salt Scrub....This is very easy to do, even for the little girls, and girls of all ages just love it. You simply mix Epsom Salt and a drop of mineral oil. Add just a splash of food coloring to give it a pretty hue. Mix it all up in a small plastic container with a lid. It's safe, and works great in a warm bath on the rough knees, elbows and ankles of girls of all ages, making them satiny smooth.
Have the girls make some fun shell jewelry, such as friendship bracelets featuring shells. Does anyone in your group know how to tie hemp? The younger girls will adore learning how to do this from the older girls. But if no one is particularly talented in the jewelry-making arena, don't worry. Just pick up some packages of pretty shells and some beads at Michaels, Ben Franklin, or the craft aisle at Wal-mart and let girls string them into pretty patterns.
You might also have each girl paint a shell, and use their creations to hot glue onto a picture frame ready to hold a group picture for the friend who is moving. Or decorate a keepsake box for her, hot-glueing a decorated shell from each friend on top. Then fill the box with a card or letter from each friend, newspaper clippings about competitions, photos and other special keepsakes from your time together.
A poolside mermaid menu is very easy... Not quite as easy as pizza, of course! If you want to serve "squid," simply take hot dog weiners and slice each one into two sections from halfway down the weiner. Take those two sections and slice them in half. Then slice each one of those sections. Now you have eight strips hanging halfway down the weiner. Drop it into a bot of boiling water, and watch those strips curl right up! It's hilarious. The finished result does look like some sort of silly little sea creature. Serve "Squid and Eels" by adding a bed of green or blue linguini noodles (food coloring) beneath the squid. Most girls will eat buttered pasta, so you can make a large buffet of colored shells by turning shell-shaped pasta pink, green, lavendar and other fun colors with food coloring.
Not liking the mermaid idea? Let's switch focus for a moment and think about a luau....
Can you put up a volleyball net across your pool? This might introduce a new activity other than the usual swimming. A little music and a poolside limbo pole goes a long way toward fun, too! For extra fun, set it up so that after going beneath the limbo pole, the partygoer has nowhere to go but into the pool. :)
Other quick thoughts --
What about a Treasure theme?
Since your guests are all strong swimmers, it would be a lot of fun to create a Treasure Hunt in the pool. Girls would have to dive to retrieve the treasure from the bottom of the pool. If you scatter flat marbles (jewels) across the floor of the pool, could you conduct the treasure hunt just like an Easter Egg hunt and let girls compete to dive in and collect the most jewels from the bottom? I don't know whether gold coins or necklaces would float or sink to the bottom of the pool, but it would be fun to have a ton of them waiting on the bottom of the pool for the girls to collect. Maybe they could use the treasure they discover to glue onto picture frames to hold a group photo from the party? Or, they could decorate treasure chests with the jewels they found at the bottom of the pool. To make it a little more fun, give each girl an index card with the name of every other girl, and ask them to describe the other girl with one word and then put it in her "treasure" box. It's a lot of fun to open up your treasure box and see what other girls think about you! (Of course, you'll have to set some rules about what can and can't be said, and trust that these girls are good enough friends not to get catty.)
You could base the treasure theme on the premise that one of life's greatest treasures is friendship, and that's what these girls have discovered during their time together on the team. :)
If any of these ideas appeal, let me know, and I'll see if I can help you flesh it out a bit. :)
