Mermaid/Fairy Dry Party

[mermaids-and-anchors]

So this little girl wants to have a mermaid/fairy party and I didn't really know what to do at dry events and I didn't really find anything in the threads so hopefully this might be helpful to others?
So I'm making starfish wands. I bought a pack of little starfish at the Christmas Tree shop, a LOT cheaper than at AC Moore's. I also bought a pack of 40 wood dowels, which are just long thin sticks, the 40 pack was I think about $2. I also about a pack of 4 small E6000 glues, I STRONGLY suggest asking the adults to help their kids out with this project. The glue is extremely strong and dries very fast and it can be very sticky.
I also bought some pirate coins and shells that I'm going to put in a small treasure chest to hand out to the kids, which is a great opportunity to take pictures with the kids which takes up some time. I have sand dollars and bigger shells for the kids to touch and listen to the ocean in the shells, which you can say are "shell phones"!
My friend is just helping me out and since my client said her daughter likes fairies, my friend said she'll dress up like a fairy. She doesn't have any fairy wings so I RIPPED A BUTTERFLIES WINGS OFF!!! I'M A SAVAGE!!!! ROAR!!! No, that didn't really happen, I like seeing people's reaction to that, though. Haha!xD >_> Anyways... I bought a plastic butterfly at AC Moore's for $2 or so. I cut the wings off it and I'm going to say that the little wings were her baby wings. Fairies are thought of as small and my friend is human size so I'm going to say fairies wings shed off as they grow, like a snake's skin, and the reason she doesn't have any wings now is because she shed them. I also bought a green jar for a nature look, and I bought some yellow gitter and mixed the glitter with sand in the jar. It looks more like fairy dust than normal glitter. So when the kids go to pick up the "fairy dust" it looks more realistic. She is also going to buy a big fairy book that fairy pop outs. I also has a little ocean book that has marine animal facts.
So between pictures, arts and crafts, books, touching the shells and fairy dust, and play time, that kills about an hour or more. Even if you don't have a fairy, you can still do these things, saying "I met a fairy! Mermaids had no idea fairies were real and she let me borrow her wing to prove to the other mermaids that fairies are real!" and the fairy dust jar, you can say where you live this is where the sand looks like.
So hopefully this helps give other people ideas on what to do at parties! :)

[MermaidAine]

Very cute ideas!

[Winged Mermaid]

Cute ideas! What's the age group your looking at? You could print out a mermaid graphic on a piece of paper, cut her out then cut her tail off, and glue her body on a piece of poster board or construction paper, then keep the tail separate and play "pin/tape the tail on the mermaid". You could make another one with a lady and some fairy wings too and do one with a fairy :)

I also put acrylic jewels and/or glitter on party goers (with eyelash glue and/or pixie epoxy, or get the self adhesive gems). I have an add-on package for that, but it's cheap. Just a smidge over cost of materials. That can take a bit of time, especially becuase most kids want to stop and talk with me when I apply them. Honestly lots of the party time is kids just wanting to ask you a bazillion questions about being a mermaid, and hear about any mermaid life stories you have to tell :P

However, I hate to be a bummer but I don't think kids working with E6000 is a good idea at all. It actually takes a long time to dry.. several hours at least. Unless it's another kind of e6000 I haven't used (they have several kinds). The ones I have seen are messy and goopy, and hazardous..

Have you read the warnings on the packaging and the tube (there's different stuff on those), and msds (http://eclecticproducts.com/downloads/sds-e6000-clear-english.pdf)? Yikes! All kinds of not good when it's uncured. Definitely not safe for kids. Even I wear gloves when I use that stuff- you're not supposed to let it touch your skin- and apply it with popsicle sticks cause it's so messy. And cover my work area of course. Even if I'm using gloves I'll wash my hands before I eat too, and kids won't think about being careful with glue cause they're use to using non toxic stuff. I'd honestly advise trying to use another kind of glue. Hot glue would work but could be a hazard due to the heat. Maybe test and see if Elmer's glue or another kid friendly glue would work for that project :)

[mermaids-and-anchors]

Thanks for the tip, Iona! I'm going to make the starfish wands myself and then get Elmer's glue and kid safe scissors and the children can decorate the wands themselves. Glitter, paints, etc.