2012 Baking Fifth Birthday Party

For my daughter's fifth birthday party we went with a baking theme.  The invitations were in the format of a recipe card tucked into the pocket of a paper apron.  Each had a mini handmade wire whisk hung from the apron string.

 

Invitation

Upon arrival, each child was given a chef had and letter stickers to add his orher name.  (The girl hats were adorned with flowers that had been hot glued on, the boy hats had stars.)

Chef Hats

 

I also strung together a banner made of aprons that were similar to the invitations.

 

 

 

The kids each got a cloth apron to decorate with fabric markers.  I had sewn a strip of ribbon across the top of each white apron, too.

 

Decor

I painted a giant pizza on a piece of cardboard and wrote "Today's Special" in chalk.

Pizza Painting - Today's Special



Kids were given decorated skewers to make their own rainbow fruit kabobs.  I lined up strawberries, canteloupe, pineapple, kiwis, blueberries and grapes.

 

 

I also had bread sticks for them to munch.

I covered our tablecloths with parchment paper (I purchased a large roll from Costco.) Each child was given a child size rolling pin and a chunk of pizza and some flour to make their own crust. 

We passed out pie tins that we labeled with permanent markers to serve as their pizza pans.  They added their choice of tomato sauce from a squeezable container or spooned on pesto sauce.  Their was a lot of shredded mozzarella cheese and an assortment of toppings.  (We kept it simple offering only fresh tomatoes, pepperoni, and olives.)  Fortunately, I had a lot of help in the kitchen cooking and cutting the pizzas.

 

Individual Pan Pizzas

 

The kids loved eating their own creations.

 

We set out all the baking ingredients for the kids to make their own jar mixes. I used a nut free version of this recipe http://www.bakerella.com/mix-things-up/ I substituted Rice Krispies cereal for the pecans.  The kids loved these and parents later reported back how much fun they had baking them at home. 

I also provided cookie samples for everyone to enjoy. 

 

Ingredients

 

 I used wide mouth mason jars and made paper funnels to help ensure everything made it into the jar. We set up an assembly line outside with clear instructions of how many scoops of each ingredient to add.  It was helpful to have extra adult oversee this activity.

Paper funnels

Assembly Line

 

The mason jars were prelabeled with each guest's name the recipe information.  The kids could decorate the top of their jars with flowers that matched their chef hats, too.

Completed Jar

 

 

 

 The kids were given cupcakes to frost.  I had bags of frosting with numerous pastry decorating tips.  We did not have a lot of time for this activity but most of the tips were difficult for the kids to create with.  I also had a large assortment of sprinkles for them.

 

Cupcake decorating

 

 

 I painted the chef and had lips and mustaches on wooden sticks for the kids to get photographed.  (I found free printables online.)

Chef Face in Hole

 

 

 

I had a lot of fun making a cupcake shaped pinata a week before the party.  The wrapper is a folded piece of brown paper over the cardboard base.  I turned a large bowl upside down and covered it with plastic wrap to apply paper mache to make the cupcake top.  I covered a tennis ball in red tissue paper to make the cherry on top. The sprinkles are rolls of paper. 

 

Cupcake Pinata

Instead of filling it with loose candy and toys, I prefer to insert individual goody bags so that all party guests go home with the same amount. I am sure some kids like the rush of scavenging as much as they can, but I've seen too many tearful and disappointed kids after pinata parties.  It sometimes feels like kids are rewarded for aggressive behavior.  Also, using bags mean I don't have any loose or crushed candy and toy mess to clean up. 

2012 Skylanders Seventh Birthday Party!

My son had been asking for a Skylanders themed birthday party for months.  I scoured the web searching for help and found very little that would work for his party.  I did find great portal of power cake photos and many House Party links.  I knew the kids weren't going to play any video games during the party so a video game tournament wasn't an option.  I did end up using an idea from a post that suggested having an activity based around each of the 8 elements.  (found here http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/04/birthday-week-conquer-kaos-with-a-skylanders-birthday-party/)

Passport: We had a "Welcome to Skylands" pennant banner hanging in the backyard.  Each child was handed a "Passport" when they arrived.   We provided pens and a table for the kids to fill in their name and character name. On the back of the passport was a list of all the character names but kids were also encouraged to make up their own.

Passport Front
The children were encouraged to select a Skylanders character name or choose their own.

Passport Inside (with location for stamps adjacent to element image)

Passport Back (with all characters for reference)

Stamps: I created stamps of the elements by cutting foam and adhering it to wood blocks.   Be sure that you adhere the reverse image so it stamps correctly.  We used these to stamp each "Passport" after the child completed the associated activity. 

Stamps (top)

Stamps (cut foam adhered to wooden blocks)

 

Undead: While we waited for the children to arrive, we had coloring sheets printed out.  These were the "undead" element, as they brought the character to life by coloring them.

Life: We had a table set up with printed out portal of power papers for the children to cut and tape. These were downloaded from here: http://cdn.skylanders.com/web/prod/blog/Portal_Papercraft.pdf
Fortunately, we had an adult assisting at this table.  While the task is about the right level for seven year olds, it was great to have someone helping.  We also had packets of crayola model magic for the kids to make their own character to put on their paper portal or power.  This did not seem to be  a popular activity, though.

Earth: I made a batch of rocks with treasures inside.  I used this recipe: http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/miscstpatricks/a/bltrstone.htm I placed a nickel inside each "rock."  I later drew an element on the bottom of each one so that they were sure what they found was a "magic" rock.  You could easily draw a star or a colored dot, just something to easily identify them.  My husband hid these around the garden in an area marked by flags (so we could limit the area that was trampled.)

Magic: After each kid found a "rock," we explained that they were magic and that they should crack them open to find something special inside.  They seemed pretty happy to find the coin.  They each received the earth stamp for finding the special rock and the magic stamp for finding the coin inside. 

Water: My husband filled a large plastic bin with water and the kids tried to guess whether an object would sink or float.  They passed each object around prior to the birthday boy immersing it.  There were definitely some surprises.

Fire: I thought it would be fun for the kids to have sparklers but we agreed that it was too risky and not great for a midday event.  We ended up having tall sparkler candles on the cake for the fire element.   

Tech: My husband set up a photo "booth."  He secured his camera on a tripod and handed each child the remote so he or she could take a self portrait.  The children had a choice of backgrounds that included different characters that I painted on large pieces of cardboard.  (I picked up the cardboard for free from Costco by the compactor.)  We printed the photo to mail in the envelope with the thank you card.



Air:  We had plastic slingshots (left over from last year's angry birds party) so we set out a bucket of marshmallows and mounted a target for the kids to shoot.

Decorations: The kids were able to pick out a button to pin to their shirt with an image of an element of their choice.  Using a decorative paper punch, I punched out a bunch of elements that I taped on many things including food platters, plastic cups and party hats.  We also had a portal of power large enough for one or two kids to stand on.  I used a heavy duty cardboard watermelon container (also free from Costco) and painted it.  I placed a table under it so it would be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the kids.

  
I placed large printouts of the elements around the yard near the station where the activity would occur.

I had many painted posters of different characters.

Stealth Elf Painting

Sunburn Painting

 


Wrecking Ball Painting

Camo Painting

Cynder Painting

 I also painted one character and cut the face out for the kids (and adults) to put their own face in.

Stump Smash - Face in Hole

Additional Activities: We had extra time after all the planned activities so we did an impromptu version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with an element and a character.  The kids also happily played tag and two square.

Goody Bag: Each child selected a new playground ball in a color of their choice in lieu of a goody bag.

Invitations:  The invitation was done in photoshop.  It had the skylanders logo at the top with the name changed from Spyro to my son's name.  I also added birthday hats to the characters.  I had an image showing his stats but I changed all the numbers to be "7."   The bottom was a screen shot of the portal of power from the website and I put a photo of my son as if he was standing on it.  I grabbed the scroll, also from the skylanders website and put the pertinent party info on it.

 

 

Food: We had watermelon (my son informed me that one of the characters turns into watermelon,) pizza, fruit salad, and green salad as well as strawberries, chips, veggies, dried mango and craisins to munch on.

Birthday Cake: I purchased a vanilla sheet cake but I also baked a cake so that I could customize the store bought cake with a portal of power on top.  The cake I made was a dense, flourless chocolate cake (my son's favorite.)  I cut around a glass to create a smaller circle of cake.  I covered it with marzipan that I had colored to look like the portal of power.  We set some of his actual characters on the cake, too.  I ended up with a ring shaped chocolate cake that I covered with a chocolate glaze so the remainder of my cake would not go to waste.  The home baked chocolate cake proved much more popular than the heavily frosted store bought cake.