The Little Mermaid Theme

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Up first in movie themes is The Little Mermaid.



Place Settings

Cups- Buy a sea blue or green cups. Draw or print out Flounders for them. Cut them out and gluestick them on. Add little bubble detail with a white paint or glitter pen. You can also cut out stars or shells, cut slits in them, and attatch onto straws.



Plates- You can glue to the underside of each plate a fin on the top, tailfin on one side, and fish lips on the otherside.



Silverware - Attatching paper tags that say dinglehopper onto your forks is a must!

Napkins- Wrap your dinglehoppers and/or spoons in napkins and slip into shell and starfish napkin rings. For more detailed info on making your own napkin rings click here.



For Little Mermaid themed products click the photo below



Centerpiece

A purchased treasure chest or just a cardboard box painted like one filled with goody bags, shells, beads, and jewels would make a great centerpiece.

Another idea is to make Ursula. I thought a photo tutorial would help with this one so I made a quick example. It doesn't look the best but it should give you a good idea.


Put an vase or other tall container in the middle of the table.


Drape a black trash bag (or black fabric) over it.


Then cut legs from the part of the bag that hangs down onto the table. Twist them and tie a small knot at the end to help them hold shape.


Then draw or print out a large picture of the top portion of Ursula.


Cut it out and tape to the top of the vase pushing a bit of it down into the vase opening. If you don't have too many party guests you could even make enough legs so that you could put a prize at the end of each one.



Food

Starfish and Fish sandwiches - Cut bread with shaped cookie cutters before adding sandwich fillings.

Ursula and Seaweed - Cut midway up each hot dog 8 times. When you boil them the cut part will curl up making nice Ursula legs. You can serve atop a bed of green tinted macaroni and cheese aka seaweed.


One of my boys is allergic to milk so we also had rice seaweed

Gadgets and Gizmos aplenty Popcorn - There is a song in The Little Mermaid with the line "I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty..." I made popcorn and added in pretzels, dried cranberries, sprinkles, and peanuts. You could have a popcorn bar to let each child add thier choice of extras. Label each bowl of addins with "Gadgets", "Gizmos", "Thingamabobs" etc.

Sea Water - This was just Crystal Light lemonade with blue food coloring added in.


Games

These games were all made based on Basic Games. To read more on Basic Games click here.

Find the Fish - I cut several fish from printer paper and added squiggly lines of different colors on them. Then I drew one of each color of fish on a piece of paper and assigned point values. I made sure to assign lower point values to the colors that I had made the most of. I also had one fish that was a prize fish. All of the fish were hidden while the movie was being watched. After they found all the fish we added up the points. One prize was given for the most points and another for the the prize fish. Instead of just a colored prize fish you could make one Flounder fish to find.



Pearl Match - I folded printer paper in half and cut a rough circular shape starting at the folded edges to make oysters. I then drew decorative lines on the outside of them as well as a pink line inside to represent the clam. Then I made two of each color of pearls inside them. I lined these all up around the dining room table and the boys took turns trying to find matches. Whoever ended up with the most matches was the winner.



Musical Shells - I cut out one shell for each child. I then added decorative lines with a marker. We played this two ways. The first time just like musical chairs. For the second time I drew shapes onto the back of each shell (you could use numbers for older children). When the music stopped I called out a shape and whoever was standing on that shape won a prize.




Pin the Fin on the Mermaid - Just like Pin the tail on the donkey but with Ariel and
tailfins.




Other games could include -

Father May I or King Neptune May I played like Mother May I

Sebastian Says played like Simon Says

Scuttle's Scavenger Hunt - Scuttle is the bird that tells Ariel what all the human treasures that she finds are called. Hide various objects including dinglehoppers (forks).

Scuttle's Little Helper - What if Scuttle was too busy to tell Ariel what all her treasures were? Pass out various random objects and have a contest to see who can come up with the most outlandish name and purpose for each object.

Seashell Shh - Draw shells like that which Ursula captures Ariel's voice in. Either glue them onto clothespins or poke a hole and attatch them to necklaces. Pass one out to each guest as they arrive. Have a list of words that are not allowed to be said (mermaid, party, present, any word that will likely get used a lot). Whenever someone catches someone saying one of the words the person that said it must hand over thier shell. Whichever child ends up with the most shells at the end of the party wins a prize. This would be best for older children or would also be a great way to get the grownups involved.

Pick a Duck with Mermaid rubber duckies which can be found here


Cake - A great cake for this theme would be the doll in the dome cake (for more info on that click here) or for lots of mermaid cake ideas click here.

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