Brave Party: Getting In Character

This begins my series on planning and throwing my daughter's Brave themed birthday party. I will preface each post by reminding readers that the day of the party was SO hectic (we arrived to the party location late due to a mix-up with the balloons and had a cranky teething 5 month old that only wanted mommy or daddy) that many photos were missed. I will describe any additional details that I don't specifically have photos of.

To set the stage, the party was hosted at my parent's house. They are currently in Florida so I was able to use their house completely at my whim - taking down pictures, putting up decorations days in advance, etc. I set up their living room as a general play area with kid-sized tables for eating, the dining room and kitchen as food stations, my sister's old bedroom as a dress-up room, my old bedroom as a craft room, and my parent's bedroom as my storage room.

Starting at top left and going counterclockwise: Baby bear in her crocheted bear hat, Me in my Brave tapestry shirt, Birthday Girl in her Merida dress, Merida ribbon headbands, and Bear ear headbands.

One of the things I really wanted to set the mood for the party were costumes and accessories to help the guests really feel like they were part of the movie.

• This started with finding a Merida costume for the birthday girl. I had my sister check the official stores in Downtown Disney for the highest quality dress possible, but they were not yet selling a Merida dress. I settled for one from the Disney Store online. It is not nearly as nice as the Cinderella one we purchased in the Magic Kingdom, but is far better than the cheap ones they sell at the toy stores.
• Bug's favorite part of Brave is when the little brothers turn into bears. I knew I had to find a way to turn her little sister into a bear too. A quick search on pinterest brought up a very cute Brave inspired knit hat. I forwarded the photo to a friend whose cousin crochets and within days she produced the adorable hat you see above. 
• During one of my many virtual shopping experiences online at the Disney Store I stumbled across a woman's shirt depicting the family tapestry (on sale of course!) and had to buy it for myself so I could be in character as well.

To allow the guests to get into the spirit of the movie I set up my sister's old bedroom as "Queen Elinor's Closet" and filled it with accessories... 

• Keeping with the bear theme, I created a bunch of headbands with bear ears for guests to wear at the party. I purchased the purple headbands (how lucky that the only color available fit my color scheme perfectly!) for less than fifty cents apiece at Party City and made the ears out of black and gray felt. I loosely based them on this tutorial I used last year to make Mickey ears.
• The Merida headbands were a project I couldn't help making after I found this tutorial on pinterest. I used her ideas, but decided to make Merida's fancy dress instead of the casual dress featured in her directions. If I ever get around to it, I will post my own tutorial.
• Not pictured: I set up my sister's old desk with piles of Brave temporary tattoos and water/washcloths to apply them. I used my sister's old dresser to lay out all of the headbands I made. I also put out various beaded necklaces and plastic rings with a few handheld mirrors for the kids to dress up and check themselves out.