Party Ideas -- Rapunzel Tower Photo Booth

Create a unique photo booth for your upcoming Rapunzel themed party using nothing but a few large cardboard boxes, tape, paint, a couple of plastic cups, and a little time. Your party guests will love posing for pictures with their friends in this fantastic tower, and it's so easy to make, your little Princess can even help! Make just the front as a photo booth, or go all out and make a full tower, and after the party it turns in to a mini tower playhouse for your little one. :)

What you'll need:

• A few large cardboard boxes 
• Paints (spray paint in light purple, dark blue, and brown tones for the castle walls, and acrylic greens for the vines)
• Faux flowers (for decorating)
• Hot glue gun
• A sturdy chair or stool for your models 

Here are a few examples of towers people have made to get you started, and here's a great step-by- step guide from Melissa Williams Design Blog. 

Party Craft Ideas - Princess Braids!

More great party craft and goodie bag ideas from What's Up Moms!

These Princess braids are perfect for any party, but especially fun for Rapunzel themed parties. If you make the braids themselves beforehand, you can even have your guests decorate them during the party to keep them occupied and having fun until your very own Rapunzel arrives. :)

What you'll need: 

• Yarn: about 1 skein for each guest. Choose yellow for Rapunzel hair, white for Elsa hair, red for the Little Mermaid, etc.
• Decorations: flowers for Rapunzel, snowflakes for Elsa, etc. Check your local dollar store for great deals!
• Hair ties (2 per braid)
• Ribbon to secure the ends of the braid and hide the hair ties, or get some extra so you can weave it through the braid itself. 

Here are a couple of examples of Rapunzel hair:

Or give them a Frozen twist with white yarn and snowflake decorations: 

And here's the full tutorial (including some other great party craft ideas):

New Princess Photos featuring Lanie

Last night I was up late doing a glamorous photo shoot with Princess Lanie.  Lanie's been with Fire Pixie since 2008 and has done over 300 shows for us in that time.  She's been getting so much amazing feedback from clients lately, and has updated some of her gorgeous costumes to make them even fancier.. so we spent all evening dressing up, videotaping, and photo shooting.  We didn't finish until midnight!  But the results are stunning...

I'm having a lot of fun this morning photo shopping her into my favorite Princess Fantasy locations.  It's a joy to work with such a gorgeous model and end up with such beautiful results!

 Here she is as Princess Belle, lookin' fancy.. Lanie says Belle is her favorite Princess to play.

Here she is as Sleeping Beauty.  We got some video of her singing too, and it's just delightful.

Here she is as Rapunzel.  I love the mischievous look on her face in this photo!

We also took updated Elf and Fairy pictures, since her new fairy dress is so much fancier than her old one and since Christmas is on its way.  (Did you know we're having a Holiday Special?  Coupon code is "ELF ME" for $10 off any Christmas character!)

The last thing we did was shoot some video of Lanie's puppet show, which was delightful to watch (although we did rather get the giggles, considering it was almost midnight!)  I haven't had a chance to go through the video yet, but here's a snapshot of her new Puppet Theater!

Glowing Rapunzel Hair Night

Once upon a time, three Princesses journeyed through the rainy, windy night to the Fire Pixie Castle, where they spent the evening laughing, braiding each other's hair, and kindling healing magic and glowing lights... 

That's right.. we now have 3 Rapunzels with magical glowing hair, and one more who will soon join us in the glowing Rapunzel sisterhood.  :)

We contacted our favorite local fairy magic supply store, Cool Neon, and the elves there sent us the spell ingredients with amazing dispatch (I think the supplies somehow arrived *before* we ordered them!)  

We invited our local electroluminescent wire Wizard to help with the spells.  He uses a special branch of magic called "science."   We don't know how he does it, but we are eternally grateful and have granted him as many Princess wishes as he can use!

The result:  Beautiful, long, flowery and flowing Rapunzel hair that glows softly whenever Rapunzel sings her magic healing incantation.

Tangled! Romance and memories and delight.

Today I went and saw Tangled, and it was delightful.  It had one of the prettiest princess-romance scenes EVER.  Rapunzel and her man are floating on a still lake while fire lanterns float above and reflect below them.. it's really delightful.  Made more so, because I experienced the real thing at the Loi Krathong festival in Thailand, when I was on my honeymoon.  It was magical and delightful then, and this movie just brought it all back.  We went to Chiang Mai, where Loi Krathong is celebrated the most, and had only the vaguest inkling that this festival was about to happen.. imagine our delight, when for 3 full days the night sky was filled with THOUSANDS of fire lanterns, and the river was transformed into a firey serpent of light with the floating lanterns.   


Since I have sort of an affinity for fire, I got just as excited as Rapunzel does in the movie.  My newlywed hubby and I set off our own fire lantern, and made a wish as we sent it off into the night .. and the next morning, our wish had come true.  Prove-ably and undeniably true.  Fire lanterns are magic. 


I spent half the movie being miss weepy-eyes (I have a tendency to lose it whenever cartoons sing) and the other half analyzing Rapunzel's dress for reproduction in my costume shop.  I think I really identified with Rapunzel.. right after I got out of the movie, I was slightly surprised that my reflection in the mirror did not have incredibly long hair.