When faced with yet another kids birthday party I tried to think a little outside the box this year. Since my daughter has been friends with many of these kids since 3 y/o kinder and she was now turning 7 (that's 4 years of birthday parties x at least 8 kids), lots of the kids had been to most of the traditional party places in the area. I wanted to find something fun, age appropriate, a bit different and somewhere that wasn't going to need a personal loan to pay for. After some serious 'google-ing' and a bit of negotiating we decided on The Mermaids Tale and my daughter had a fantastic party.
The birthday girl/boy gets to choose their theme (horses, elephants, dragons, aliens, fairies etc. etc) and on the day all the kids make their own ceramic sculpture in that theme with help and guidance from Antoinette and her partner. They tailor the sculpting to make it age appropriate, the younger kids make wall tiles, my 7y/o started with a basic cone shape already made for her and then added face, wings, feet, arms, textures and I guess the older kids do the whole lot from scratch on their own.
My daughter chose dragons and we arrived in the studio to find it decked out with personalised 'Happy 7th Birthday' signs and a Birthday Girl throne all set up. Antoinette guided the kids through the basics of working with clay and each child was given individual help when they needed it. They all completed their own unique clay masterpiece in about 90 minutes. Being clay, they had to be left at the gallery to be dried and fired and then picked up later in the week (a small draw back as far as the kids were concerned since they wanted to take their creations home with them). The kids also had the option to do a follow up class (extra cost) where they got to paint and glaze their dragons with ceramic paints or they could take them after the initial firing and then paint them at home. After the sculpting we moved to the outside courtyard where we played party games and then sat down for cake and snacks. All up the party went for about 3.5 hours which was pretty much the right amount of time for 12 excited and noisy 7 y/o's.
The party was a great success and I would absolutely recommend The Mermaids Tale for a kids party. Antoinette is lovely and very easy to deal with and at $120 for the first 6 kids and $17.50 for each guest after that I think it's fairly reasonable when compared with most other party venues in this area. Plus the kids all got to try something new and were very proud when they got the chance to show off their creations a few days later.
Antoinette also runs a holiday program for 2 weeks ($15 per child per session) during all the school breaks which could be a good way to check this out before you book your party if you're not too sure.

Approximate cost: $120 for 6 kids