Mermaid party - any ideas?!

[wishingchair]

My soon to be 5 yr old DD would like a mermaid party. It'll be at a local village hall but need some cheap but effective decorating ideas and also some games etc?

Mostly girls but some boys.

They're only little so don't need anything sophisticated but would like to make a bit of an effort beyond a mermaid shaped cake!

Flap a fish in teams.

Musical rocks (that mermaids sit on) - pieces of card instead of chairs.

Stick the tail/crown on the mermaid (as long as not too many guests).

Treasure hunt for gold coins.

craft - make a jellyfish from half a paper plate and some paper streamers.

Colouring sheets from Little Mermaid.

I never bother much with decorating but you could do a seaweedy door drape and lots of blue and green balloons?

blue twisted crepe on ceiling to emphasise that under hte sea feel.

starfish forfeit? so make a starfish and buy a split pin from whsmiths and wherever the designated leg of starfish lands you have to do forfeit - hop n one leg ...do an impression of a dog....tell a joke....

ermmmm.....

pass the treasure chest? get a box and decorate as treasure chest.

do pass the parcel as per usual and put inside treasure chest

when music stops open chest - THEN take of a layer and replace

errrrrmm.... can you get hold of the music from little mermaid for musical statues or bumps?

Feed them on nori (actually my DD likes it)

DD once had a (bought) treasure chest birthday cake. it was made out of slabs of sponge and filled with smarties (chocolate coins would have been better) with fondant starfish etc on the outside.

DD had a mermaid party last year .

I made a mermaid cake by baking a pudding bowl sponge and then covering it with chocolate cornflakes for rocks. I popped a barbie mermaid on top covered in icing (took me hours to do the scales ) with chocolate fishies around the base of the cake.

I did decorations from the Usborne book of mermaids - lots of tissue paper in greens/blues, hanging fish, seaweed etc.

A friend made DD a mermaid outfit which was gorgeous.

So many great ideas here. Asked my friend who's starting a cake making business to do the cake ... much to DH's consternation ... "why? it'll cost loads and you can easily do it" (coming from a man who's never even made a cake let alone tried to decorate one).

Found a company that do song/dance/stories etc with a mermaid theme but they cost £150 and whilst you can rack up a fair price with bouncy castles etc, but that seems quite expensive to me. Just am I brave enough to do a party without throwing money at an entertainer?!

How many kids WC?
If they are mostly 5 they will play games well.

Suggest colouring table with sparkly pens and stickers as well for those who don't want to play. Games for about 15 kids is budget party that is totally doable. £150 masses for an entertainer unless in SE.

Just remember to have a spare game or two up yr sleeve. Kids will play duck duck goose (substitute mer-words) for ages IME

give boys eye patch for pirate look, which perfectly compliments the mermaids

bundle - yes in SE . They did at least look good though ... have seen some dodgy ones that still cost £80. Though tbh the children didn't seem to mind!!

It's DD's first term at school so not got confirmed numbers but could end up being around 30 ... old and new friends.

Good idea about glitter/painting table ...

And what on earth is duck duck goose??

Oh ok, duck duck goose

Sit kids in a circle. One kids goes rond the circle patting each child on the head saying duck, duck, duck duck....goose! when they say goose, the goose has to get up and race round the circle after the patter, seeing who gets back to the space first. The looser continues. But of course you can play mermaid, mermaid, mermaid, mermaid Ariel! or whatever.

Most kids will have played it in the playground. There are no winners but you can give everyone a sweetie for playing so nicely when they get fed up.

30 whew that's a lot. I did DD's party for 30 last year with games etc and it was a bit of a headache tbh but that was cause there were a couple of hoodlums (girls funnily enough).

Make sure you have some help with the games, and consider two parcels for pass the parcel, forfeits instead of sweeties (or have to do 30 layers .