Alright, this one's for anyone who has to plan a party in the next couple of months but feels a little brain dead from all the creativity required during the holidays. Let me just throw one out there for you to go along with wintertime. How about a Narnia party? This one is specifically portrayed
At some point over the past year, my son fell in love with Chronicles of Narnia. One day he’ll claim to be Peter Pevensie, the next he begs to officially change his name to Caspian. I am forever c…
This is a story of a boy who turned 10. Turns out he is a demi-god. So we threw a party. Gandalf loves to read. Like most boys his age he loves the Percy Jackson series. We thought that would be a great theme for his next party. So I ended up...Read More »
Egyptian Party Ideas to explore for a kid birthday party with games and activities, decorations and resources.
I could not be more excited to share Disney Dinners: Indiana Jones with you! Indy is one of my brother’s favorite series of all time and he helped me plan this one. Just do me a favor and play the sweeping John Williams score while you read this. Here’s everything you need to know to …
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Fortune and glory abound in this Indiana Jones Birthday Party by Party Magic, out of Manila, Philippines! Filled with adventure and loads of mysterious fun, this 1st birthday celebration is a glorious one! So enter, if you dare and be sure to track down these incredible details: Indiana Jones Stationery + Signage Snake Entrance Temple of Doom Indiana Jones Themed Cake Awesome Indiana Jones Dessert Table
FREE Pigeon Printable Straw Topper + 16th BIRD-day Milkshake | Celebrate Mo Willems birthday with easy freakshake recipe themed party idea
Party tips, party photos, and inspiration for throwing an Indiana Jones Birthday Party! Find resources, ideas from real parties, and more!
I love throwing birthday parties for kids. I love to find a theme and throw myself into it with reckless abandon. When my son decided he wanted a Mad
Our church hosted a "Kingdom Chronicles" VBS this year so I needed to come up with some simple and inexpensive medieval decorations. Here's what I made... Poster board torches (Yield 10) 3 sheets of each red, orange, and yellow tissue paper 2 sheets of black poster board (you can get 5 cones from each sheet) staples hot glue gun 11" quarter circle made using a measuring tape and pencil like a compass sticky tack or pushpins to hand the torches with Roll your quarter circle into a cone Add one staple at the outside upper corner Take one sheet of each color tissue paper (red, orange, and yellow) Lay them on top of each other and cut into quarters Bunch the centers together and staple Hot glue the stapled tip of the tissue paper to the inside of the poster board cone Toilet paper roll chandelier (Yields 2) 1 sheet of each red, orange, and yellow tissue paper, each cut into 16 rectangles 1 sheet of black poster board 12 toilet paper tubes 4 large cardboard circles (14"-16" diameter) like the ones pictured below staples hot glue gun 1. Glue 2 circles together (for strength) 2. Makes 1/2" cuts around the bottom of every toilet paper tube 3. Open up the slits and hot glue the tubes evenly around the outer edge of your circles 4. Spray paint your chandeliers from top to bottom with black spray paint 5. Make "flame" tufts out of your tissue paper and staple them at the bottom (like the torches above) 6. Stuff tissue paper "flames" into each toilet paper tube 7. Cut poster board into 1" x 6 1/4" strips (you should be able to get at least 90 strips of paper) 8. Make 6 separate paper chains of 13-15 links each (depending on how long you want them) 9. Glue 3 paper chains to each chandelier 10. Connect your three chains together with one final link. 11. Hang your chandeliers using fishing line and ceiling hooks. Dollar store tablecloth banners 2 different color dollar store tablecloths for each banner 16"-20" piece of ribbon to tie each banner fishing line or yarn to tie the two tablecloths together at the top corners duct tape or ceiling hooks to hang the banners from the ceiling The finished product - teaching section up front, craft and coloring station at the back. Display area for our week's verses
Plan a Greek mythology-themed birthday party for your little one if he is into Greek mythology or enjoys the stories of the gods.
It’s fascinating how children’s parties are evolving, I mean it’s not only focused on the basics. With amazingly themed parties left and right, the details they use parties after parties are pure awesomeness. What better way to prove my point than this party… Welcome to Rossopoly! I’m sure most of you played this famous board …
Awesome DIY spy party games and secret agent themed activities that you can use to make your child's spy party a blast!
My husband has a man crush on Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. So when said husband turned 40, I threw him a pirate costumed dinner party. He dressed up as Captain Sparrow and guests were invited to dress as any other pirate (generic or cosplay.) For simplicity, all my inspiration and details came from only the first movie in the series. Here are some ideas on how you can can throw an epic pirate themed costume dinner party like ours that's perfect for adults or can easily be tweaked for kids! The Invitations It always adds a bit of je ne sais quoi to build up anticipation for a party and put forth a task or problem to be solved. For this pirate themed birthday party, send out invitations to yer mateys under the premise that Captain Jack Sparrow is looking for a new crew and there will be a chance to show their mettle at a specified time and date. Be sure to outline the dress code and tell them to come prepared! (See wording example in the image below. Illustration was purchased here.) Our invitations were coffee stained, edge burnt, rolled up, tagged and tied with a piece of leather. Then they were hand delivered to each person’s mailbox whom we wanted to invite. (See how to age paper with coffee and salt here.) The Decorations Before guests arrive, post another bit of paraphernalia outside your door to build more anticipation for what might be awaiting them inside. Did you notice? The wording on the posting shown below comes from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie! (Illustration purchased here.) Upon entering the house, guests can be greeted with a large pirate flag (which becomes a perfect spot for photos), and ragged black sails undulating from the ceiling above (black plastic tablecloths with slashes in them. A very cheap trick with major impact.) This pirate flag was handmade by projecting the skull image onto a black king size sheet, traced with chalk and then painted with inexpensive acrylic craft paint. Cover any large space, like a bar, with netting and empty liqueur bottles stopped with candles and corks. (I had spent a few weeks ahead of time collecting the bottles from friends and neighbors.) The fish netting I found here. Another wall could hold a pirate map (found here), or any other pirate information you think is interesting or humorous. Since this party was for adults, I thought it might be of interest to post bits of information about real pirates in history. And since pirates often had nicknames, I made up this chart (which you can download and print on your own cool paper here) and posted it among the historical pirate information. It was a hit! If you don’t have skeletons, I recommend borrowing a couple from a friend if you can. They'll fill up any empty spaces you have and infuse humor into the room. The fellow shown below, I positioned holding chocolate gold coins, one in his mouth and a couple in his hand. Halfway through the evening I noticed someone had eaten the chocolate offering from the skeleton’s hand—something I thought was both funny and totally appropriate! And lastly don’t forget the mantle. Place more bottles, books, candles and whatever else you might have laying around that feels pirate, ocean, or ship themed. On mine, I made sure to include portrait skulls of the pirate brethren, Morgan and Bartholomew. The Centerpieces and Place Settings Since we’d set up three, 6 foot tables end to end, I created two different centerpieces and set them out in an alternating fashion down the row of tables. First, you can’t go wrong with skulls and drippy candles for a pirate theme. The black skulls seemed to disappear on the black table, so using a dry brush technique I painted gold on areas that needed highlighting. The little skulls needed to look less like white plastic and more like bone. So those got covered in wood stain, then I wiped it off in places where I wanted it to be lighter. Both techniques worked well. Here’s a link to a helpful video with instructions. Second, platters of apples MUST be included too. This is the only food we see Captain Jack Sparrow eat in the first movie, and captain Barbosa would literally kill to eat one, so it makes for a very fitting table decoration idea. And as for the place settings, I suggest you put the first activity (a questionnaire) folded upon the plate with a feather pen. (These are cheap to make if you buy a box of pens and a package of feathers at your local craft store and make them yourself.) It gives guests something to do while waiting for the party to get started...this activity will be explained shortly. ALSO on the plate, under the questionnaire, place a small score card for keeping points. Here’s a link to print the score card. Four Pirate Party Activities Since the pirate guests are essentially “trying out” to become Jack Sparrow’s new mates, each person will be earning points throughout the evening. Those with the most points at the end will be the new crew! 1. SCROLLS FOR EXTRA POINTS First, DO NOT let the birthday boy or girl know what is written on the scrolls. In fact, don’t tell them about this activity at all. As guests begin arriving, welcome them and ask them to draw one scroll each. The scrolls contain a small task that can be performed at any time during the evening and will award them an extra 5 points. (The guest may choose not to do it as well.) The guest can trade scrolls but can only do one scroll that evening. Some examples of tasks include: • Raise yer glass and give a toast, end it with “Drink up me hearties yo, ho!” • Bend the knee and kiss a ring on Captain Jack Sparrow’s hand and say, “Captain Sir, ye have me loyalty.” These ended up being hillarious! Our Captain Sparrow was happily caught off guard, as were the guests, when most of these tasks were performed. Here is a link to the tasks you could consider including in your evening. 2. HOW WELL DO YE KNOW THE CAPTAIN AND THE PIRATE WAY OF LIVIN'? Remember the pamphlet I had at each place setting? Here’s a better look at the front. Each one had a different quote from the movie printed on the back. The instructions inside tell the players to “Try to to make yer answers match those of [the birthday person’s name].” They get points NOT necessarily for answering the questions correctly...but if their answers MATCH those of the party’s captain. Now there’s a twist! Give guests time to work on this as you are waiting for others to arrive, they can also work on it during dinner and you can give them time a little after. Then go around the room, and have each pirate say aloud their answer to each question in turn, the captain answers last. In our group, some answers were funny, silly, and even revealing! I can’t give you the link to the front or back of the pamphlet because I paid to use the stock illustrations. But I’ll share the link to the image on the front so you can purchase and create the pamphlet yourself. Link to skull ring image (front.) 3. FINDING GOLD First you'll need a gold piece to show everyone. This could be a chocolate gold coin, or a piece of Aztec gold emulating the one from the movie, whatever you want as long as it’s gold. Just don’t make it any smaller than a quarter. Explain to your pirate guests that Captain Sparrow needs a crew that is good at finding gold—obviously. If you are the MC for the evening, you'll be hiding the gold coin first. Send the pirates out of the room while you hide the coin. Bring them all back and play starts. Rules: The coin must be hidden in plain sight. Make it easy. Players shouldn't have to touch, move, open, or stand on anything to see it. The coin will be hidden within a certain boundary (our boundaries were the living room and the dining room.) Don’t try to be too tricky in finding a hiding place, else you run the chance of game play taking too long. After some searching has gone on hints can be given. The first person to find said coin will leave it in place, and shall quietly sit down without revealing where they saw the coin. The second player to see it does the same. If you have a small number of guests, play can go until everyone has found the coin. We had 12 people in our group, so play ended at 6 people finding the coin otherwise it would have gone on too long. Assign points accordingly. (In our game, the first person received 3 points, the next 2 people got two points, and the next 3 people won one point each.) The next person to hide the coin can either be the looser of the game or the pirate with the most points so far that evening—not fair but—pirate! 4. PIN THE X ON THE MAP You can’t have a party theme that inherently includes eye patches and a map and not play “pin the X on the map!” (Map found here.) But this game gets a little tweaking. Explain that if the pirates want to be part of the crew they need to know how to read a map so good they can do it with their eyes closed AND guess where the Captain might want to go next. Pass out the Xs and have the players write their name on them. Then, tell the birthday person pick out a place on the map without revealing it to anyone. Now the players must guess where that place might be and put their X in that spot while being blinded—or rather, while wearing TWO eye patches (patches purchased here.) AND they must get to the map while walking a plank! Each time they step off the plank, they loose a point. Guests may shout out “ to the left” or “right a little more” to help their mateys. The plank can be outlined by masking tape on the floor. I recommend the plank be about 10 inches wide and around 5 adult steps long. (Ours was bit too long and way too narrow. We ended up guiding the players by hand so they wouldn’t tip over. Though, it was a little funny—we all looked a bit drunk wobbling down the path but there wasn’t a drop of alcohol being served that night.) After all Xs have been placed, the Captain goes last, blind like all the rest, and tries to place his X on the location he picked out earlier. All the players with the closest Xs to the Captain’s gets points. Remember, no feeling around on the map. The first touch is where the X gets placed. But DO warn the player when they’ve reached the wall. And don’t forget to spin them before setting them free. A link for a print out of Xs you can cut out is here. WINNING AND ENDING THE EVENING WITH PHOTOS OPS Have yer mateys add up their points. Those with the highest scores get a place on Captain Jack Sparrow’s new crew. You can give prizes or not, and I’m sure you can think of all kinds of ideas for that. The map and the flag double as a great place for your new crew-mate photos. Do this toward the end, maybe while cake is being served, and don’t be shy—play a little for the camera!
Hamilton birthday party. Our 6 year old wanted a Hamilton the Musical themed birthday party. Hamilton Food, characters, cupcakes, a water pistol duel, ...
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Lord of the Rings Party Ideas Lord of the Rings Party - The Return of Halloween My first party when we moved into our new home in Columbia, Missouri was a Lord of the Rings party on Halloween night. Unlike previous parties at our old house, this time I really went all out on decorations, food, a ...
Last but not certainly not least, we celebrated cute Nora's birthday. She had picked Pegasus as the theme she wanted for her birthday. hmmmm Pegasus, how do you throw a Pegasus themed party ....? well scroll through the pictures and we will show you! We went in a Greek plus mount Olympus plus clouds plus mythology sort of direction, and combined all those elements to make one amazing party. This theme was right up my ally, I LOVE Greek mythology! We also included lots of feathers since Pegasus' wings are an important part of what sets him apart from unicorns and just regular old horses... As usual bethy brought fun and unique balloons. Balloons really make any party super festive. This time some of the balloons had big gold confetti in it .... They kind of look like Greek coins to me And she had them put feathers in others, how cool is that! Nora's Greek birthday girl throne Grammy let Nora open one present early.... A super awesome stuffed representation of the horse himself! Gold star confetti On one of my numerous visits to the craft store I found some edible gold spray paint. Can you say amazing!! I snatched up a bottle when I found it and have been waiting for any excuse to use it. Bethy thought it would be cool to spray paint bunches of grapes to make edible center pieces ... How neat are they?! This is the product itself, it is so fun to use! I found it at Michael's craft store. Bethy made these cute little favors to put at everyone's place at the table. So if you look at my blog often you know that Jens makes the most amazing birthday cakes for all of her kids' parties. Here is the cake she made for this party ... I was obsessed with it. I thought it was GORGEOUS! and just so awesome in every way, so I took a bazillion pictures of it. Look how cool that ombre is! The buffet was all Greek inspired food, SO GOOD! Jens even found ground lamb for the gyros, she really goes the extra mile to make her parties amazing for her kiddos. It was like being right back in the center of Athens I had a little spy teasing me while I ate ... After dinner it was time for presents!! I love how the siblings get just as {or maybe even a little bit more} excited when the presents are revealed! Sam would steal a little sit on the throne whenever he could. Some of the presents had gold tinsel inside, and boy the little kids LOVED it! Tinsel EVERYWHERE!!! Nora got right to work on one of her presents. These scratch art things were one of my favorite crafts as a child. I had the hardest time not taking it away from Nora and completing it myself haha After presents it was time to dive into that delectable cake! Nora's birthday in on May 31st and Marolynn's birthday is on June 1st. So Jens made a special batch of chocolate GF cupcakes for Marolynn. Politely and patiently waiting for her cake ... Nora had requested for her cake to be cherry flavored, so that is what her sweet mom made for her. Then it was time for our Grecian photo booth. We got some really fun pictures! "We are the muses. Goddesses of the arts and proclaimers of Heroes ...." Random candid photo that I thought was funny Jenny had prepared a little fun short quiz for that last activity of the night. The questions were all about Greek mythology and Greek art and architecture. She had visuals from the Disney movie Hercules for every question. Since we were at a kids approved birthday party, Jens asked for the Disney answer rather then the real myth answer on some questions since we all know those myths could get a little risque ..... haha She did a really great job on it, it was so fun! We were all divided into teams and were awarded medals according to where we placed. Beth, Reece and Evie got the gold Mike, Marilyn and I got the silver Mom, Dad and Nora got the bronze. All the Griffin parties have been so great this year! Birthday season at their house is always a fun time of year! Thanks Griffin family for being so awesome!
This kit transforms your house into a kid's escape room for a party. But are your kids smart enough to beat it?
You will love these Olympic-themed party ideas, from food to backyard games and lots of kid-friendly crafts! Who else is super excited about the Olympics starting? We cannot wait! Especially since it's now been 3 years since the last Olympic games. As a family, we decided that we're going to have an Olympic-themed party for the opening ceremonies, and my kids are already brainstorming ideas. There are so many fun ideas that we found, we just had to share with you guys. Which one of these ideas is sticking out to you? I want to make them all! This isn't
There is nothing like a freshly baked egg tart. The best ones I've had are from Omashu (don't tell Monk Gyatso!), with a crust made from lychee nuts and a spectacularly smooth and silky custard inside. I heard from Bumi's palace cooks that they learned the ways of the egg tart from Earth Nation merchants after returning home from exploring the world. Maybe one day I can take all of Team Avatar to the land of egg tarts... now that would be a dream! --Aang
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This party is both one of my most memorable and one of my most challenging. The recreation of a medieval banquet while appeasing modern taste required a lot of recipe research. This dinner party was hosted in full theme with rich medieval characters, we decorated in a medieval st
Step into the Shire for a Lord of The Rings Party! Inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, this party themes is perfect for birthdays & graduations!
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I could not be more excited to share Disney Dinners: Indiana Jones with you! Indy is one of my brother’s favorite series of all time and he helped me plan this one. Just do me a favor and play the sweeping John Williams score while you read this. Here’s everything you need to know to …
I just finished helping with my church’s annual Halloween Party. It is such a big undertaking – but so much fun!!!! The theme was “Frightfully Fancy”. Here…
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Looking for a fun and inexpensive game for kids' birthday parties? Try making a treasure hunt! Kids love them and they're easy! Here are some sample clues!
It's Friday, and you know what, today I feel like a little tongue-in-cheek wedding humour. Not at the expense of any brides I hasten to add. Ooooh no.
After spending the year tripping over Rick Riordan books in every room of the house and being treated to extensive dissertations on all things Percy Jackson and Greek mythology, choosing the perfect theme for our eleven-year-old's birthday was a no-brainer! With my trusty Camp Half-Blood expert (and birthday boy) on h
Tobin is a party planner after my own heart. Shortly after last year's Space party, he'd already decided that for his next birthday he wanted a "Knights and Dragons" party. It was an easy party to put together. We got back from Texas on Sunday 3/18 and I realized that the following Sunday was really our best/only option for his party. I didn't get much else done last week other than mountains of post-vacation laundry, cleaning the house, and getting things together for the party. But a party you can get ready for in one week? AWESOME. This was Tobin's first friend party - we've always just had family in the past. And this child takes friends SERIOUSLY. We managed to limit the guest list to 12 kids - we ended up with 10, including our own 2 littles and 2 cousins. But he wanted to invite every friend we saw, and each new friend he's met since the party. Sunday we met a family with an Ethiopian born daughter, and he played with them for about 30 minutes before Luke's soccer game, while I talked adoption with the mom. And Tobin said, "Can we invite Grace & Zelly to my birthday party?" Um, honey, we don't really know them, and your birthday party was last week.... When Tobin was a baby, I had a dragon costume for him and a knight costume for Luke for Halloween. Tobin wore Luke's old costume for the party. I had a super cute knight costume I got on clearance a few years back, thinking Tobin could wear it and our next baby could be the dragon. And then we didn't ever have another baby. That knight costume is now the perfect size for Micah, but he wasn't having any of that! We used toys and things we already had for decoration (like our awesome pop up tent thingy, which was the best purchase we made last year)... Kool-aid was made fancy by plastic goblets from the dollar store, and grapes and cheese cubes with little sword toothpicks were a hit. Each kid had a shield with a special knight/lady name. To make the shields, I traced the plastic shield we had (from Dollar Store) onto foam board a bunch of times, cut them out and spray painted them silver. I used duct tape to make handles on the back. I got the idea for the knight names at Family Fun, but rather than playing a game to assign names, I just decided ahead of time (so we wouldn't have to take time in the party to write names on the shields.) I had a bunch of stickers for the kids to decorate their shields - this is what they did as we waited for everyone to arrive. Luke and I also made a ton of balloon swords... Because knights need swords, but I've lived with boys long enough to know that I wasn't handing out anything remotely sword-like in a crowd of kids. I can't even give my kids chopsticks because they use them for a sword fight! I found a couple of places that explained how to make balloon swords, but this one was the best. In case you want to make some yourself - I thought Luke & I could blow up the balloons. For these long balloons, we found an air pump to be totally necessary. Not because we got light headed (which is what I expected), but because we were physically incapable of blowing the balloons up at all by ourselves. After the sword fighting demolished most of the balloons, we headed to the back yard for our Dragon Egg hunt. I spray painted about 24 cheapo easter eggs with the same silver paint I used on the shields, then filled those along with every other egg we had. Luke loved hiding them for me, and we hid a few in easy places on the deck for our youngest knights (the rest were more challenging - Tobin continued to find eggs in the back yard for a week.) After everyone had eggs in their bags, we broke out the cupcakes. I love having cupcakes at a kid party. Luke's first party (that I was in charge of - the year he turned 6) was a pirate party. I was an overachiever back then, and made him the awesome pirate ship cake from the Family Fun site. Then I watched him blow all over it, only to have him announce just as the door shut on the last friend, "My throat hurts." Yep. He blew strep throat all over that cake. Anyway: CUPCAKES! Besides wanting to invite friends, Tobin's only other request for this party was a pinata. I was a little worried about this, since we just had a week to find one. But they had an awesome dragon pinata at the local party store - and this is what set our color scheme for the party. After we were finished with treats, we lined the kids up on the deck and let them go at it (I was happy to have a set up where it seemed like no one would get whacked with the bat...although the successful batter did throw the bat at the end, so watch for that.) We only made it halfway down the line before Mr. Dragon got busted wide open. Thankfully, Tobin DID get a turn at bat. I hadn't even thought about what would happen if the birthday boy didn't get a turn to swing... I did reserve some of the candy - it wouldn't all fit in the dragon anyway - and after the kids finished with the pinata, I dumped more candy in their bags, making sure everyone went home with a good amount. After the candy had all been snatched up, we had "jousting games." I just set up games we already had - a kickball croquet set and some other yard games. I also set up the bubble machine my parents bought for the boys while we were in Texas. I always thought those things were a racket ("back in my day, we just blew bubbles like normal people!"), but with young kids constantly spilling bubble juice everywhere? A bubble machine is a GREAT idea. It was a fun party treat too, the kids loved it. I planned the party for an hour and a half, and the kids had 20ish minutes to play at the end of the time. Easy peasy. And suitable for boy and girl guests, which is good since we have girl cousins and several of T's closest friends are girls. Yay for knights and dragons!! (I took pictures of T with each of his guests as they left...hence no pics with the cousins, since they stayed for dinner.) If you are thinking of throwing a Knight party yourself, check out my pinterest birthday board, I have lots of fun ideas pinned - some of them WAY too elaborate or expensive for me, but still super cute.
Need a Fun and Easy Science Experiment for kids? Elephant Toothpaste is perfect for your little Mad Scientist!
