Treasure Sand - A Princess Mermaid Party Game

This last month has been completely crazy around my house. To start off, I'm pregnant, which makes everything more stressful. Then we are moving later this month which means packing and keeping our house ready for people to view. On top of that my husband has been ill and injured and it is the busiest month of the year for our store. Then add to that all of the orchestra concerts, ballet performances, Christmas parties and other school productions that we are invited to this month. Needless to say, my children have been watching a little bit more TV than normal. Thank goodness for Netflix!

My kids new favorite show is Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and their favorite episodes are the ones with the mermaids or the Princess Pirate. I used new obsession for inspiration for our newest princess party game. This would work particularly well for a Mermaid or Pirate inspired birthday party.

THE GAME:

You will need some sand and a container to hold it in. You could use a small kiddie pool or a plastic sandbox. We like this one from YoYo.com. You could even use a bucket or large tub if that is what you have access to. Sand is relatively inexpensive particularly during the spring and summer. Right now you can purchase this 50 lb bag from Lowes for around $4.

Once you have your sand in the container of your choice take some treasures and hide them in the sand. For a mermaid party we recommend large rings, necklaces and other princess jewels. For a pirate party you may want to mix jewels with pirate trinkets like eye patches, mini telescopes and plastic hooks.

Have your party guests take turns searching for treasure in the sand. You can give them a time limit, like 30 seconds to find as much treasure as they can, or just tell them how many treasure each person can find so that everyone is able to get a treasure. Have a party favor bag or a treasure box for them to put their treasure in.

Here are some of our favorite ideas for treasures from ThePrincessDress.com and OrientalTrading.com.