Legend of Zelda Party 2016

I can't believe my baby just turned 11. Next year he'll be in middle school and I don't know how many more parties he'll want me to plan then.  This may be the last. So here it is:

ZELDA

For once I knew the characters and the setting because I have played the Twilight Princess version on the Wii. It reminds me of King's Quest and I loved King's Quest. As usual, I have to thank Pinterest users for their great boards.

About a month before the party I ordered character plates, black placemats, themed tattoos/stickers, and Zelda napkins online from Birthday Express and Hylian shield mint tins from retrobit games.  But then we all got really busy and before we knew it, 2 weeks had past. So, 2 weeks before the party I decided I didn't have time to make invitations and I ordered digital invitations from an Etsy shop.  In 2 days, I had the file and I took it to Office Depot to be printed. We handed them out one week before the party...very last minute.

This is the picture on the Etsy page
for the invitation we ordered.
 Purchased from Smallfrynotables

At office depot, I also had images of Zelda stained glass windows printed onto overhead sheets to make window clings for decorations. The images I used are on my pinterest Zelda party board. It worked out great. Unfortunately the last transparency melted in their printer and they had to call in a repair man. I didn't need that last print but I felt bad about their machine. Apparently when the machine heats up it can melt the overheads. The melted copy looked like a 3D shrinky dink. Hmmm, I wonder if I can turn the window clings into Shrinky Dinks now?

After handing out the invitations, we got to work making favor crayon rupees. First my daughter carved a soap rupee. Then we made three silicone molds by taking casts of the soap rupee. Then we sorted old crayons into colors and melted them at 325 degrees for about 7 minutes.  We added white to the blue and purple sometimes to make them lighter. These turned out great. Every guest got to take five home.  The molds started to tear after a while but they were easily patched. We are planning to make Zelda soap using the molds next. They are also food safe so we thought about making smaller ones and melting jolly ranchers but we ran out of time.

Then we made a Triforce piñata. That was fun. I used a crown royal box because the dimensions looked perfect. Two sides of the box were the exact length and width required and I trimmed the front side down to make the third side of the triangle. Then I used blue tape to make the back of the piñata and hold the triangle shape. I placed typing paper scraps over the tape on the inside of the piñata so the candy wouldn't stick. My husband cut out a triangle from another cardboard box to make the front. After the candy was loaded and the front taped on with packing tape, we used glue sticks to adhere small strips of white and yellow tissue paper onto the triangle. Voila. Triforce piñata.

We had a quest to find swords, boomerangs, pieces of heart, poe souls and fairies. The first clue was, "Buried beneath a pile of rocks beside the abyss, it is dangerous to go alone, take this!" In a gray bag under splat rocks by the pool, the children found swords. They battled briefly with swords but had more fun with the splat rocks. I originally bought these thinking they were sponges we could use with slingshots for target practice but they turned out to be water filled squishy things and they were too sticky and heavy for the slingshots I had.

The next clue was, "In a castle set apart, there you will find a piece of heart." In the Little Tikes castle they found treasure boxes with heart ring pops. The next clue revealed the location of the boomerangs - behind scrap wood in a planter with a ficus tree that has a bemustached trunk. "Concealed within an ancient wood, lies the loyal companion of good, if you dare to seek it out, discreetly approach the Deku sprout."

We made poe souls for the quest. We tried several methods, but never really got them to look as awesome as the examples on the web. We also made fairy jars, but we had such a hard time getting the grass to stay inside the jars because of all the static that we decided this would be a fun challenge game for the teams, "Catch a Fairy in a Jar!"  I will post a followup on these with instructions and pictures.

Hey Listen.  Next we made Navi Pops. The kids absolutely devoured these.  Rosanna Pansino has a youtube channel called Nerdy Nummies where she demonstrates how to make all sorts of geek treats. Here is the link to her Navi Pop demonstration: Nerdy Nummies and below are some pictures of my daughter making ours.

We waited until the morning of the party to make the lemon bars so they were too warm to be sliced really nicely. Instead of the beautiful triangle servings I had pinned to my board we ended up with tiny triangles fitting together to make a big one. Eh.

For the games we had a quest to find objects and shoot targets with z-curve or nerf bow and arrow sets. Target shooting went on much longer than expected. We had cans of various sizes stacked on a bench and the aim was for teams of 2 to knock all of them off in the shortest time. But, they just wanted to keep setting them up and making new targets so this kept going for a long time.

The main game was musical splat. Some of the children chose to wear a trash bag to protect their clothes but most did not. The children walked around the table and when my daughter's ocarina playing stopped, the children had to lift the lids off of the pie tins (lids were paper plates with duct tape handles) and slap their hands into monster guts, gargoyle pieces, chu jellies, dragon tails, etc. (Really just fig preserves, ice rings, cherry fruit topping, mayonnaise with cheerios,  ketchup/mustard mix, etc.) One tin had a heart ring pop. That player was supposed to be out and the game continue, but everyone wanted to keep playing.  Everyone would point to and laugh at the person who ended up with the fig jelly. It was supposed to represent monster guts but the kids called it poop. Between rounds, the kids would run into the garage bathroom to wash their hands.

After the final wash we went inside for lasagna and spaghetti. After dinner, the kids drank Lon Lon milk and ate cookies and other treats. Then we went outside again for the pinata.

This event was planned and executed in a short time, but the party lasted 4 hours and everyone had a great time. Thanks for stopping by to read my post.

Party Summary

Minimal Decorations:

• Zelda stained glass window clings
• triforce pinata 
• stained glass style party crackers
• themed plates and napkins
• black placemats

The main themed snacks were:

• Lon Lon Milk.
• Triforce lemon bars.
• Jabu Jabu cups - blue Jello jigglers with Swedish fish.
• Green grass snacks - grapes, celery, snap peas, snow peas, cupcakes.
• Costco Macarons in Link's colors - green, yellow, tan and brown.

Themed Favors:

• Rupee crayons
• Hyrulian shield mint tins
• stickers
• tatoos

Quest Items:

• Treasure box with heart piece (heart ring pop)
• Poe soul (bottle with cloth head and food coloring)
• Fairy Jars (mason jar, glow bracelet and iridescent Easter grass)
• Sword under splat rock
• Boomerang

Games:

• Musical splat
• Catch a Fairy
• Z-curve Archery

Pokemon Party

POKEMON PARTY FOR MY 10 YEAR OLD

My son asked for a pokemon party this year. Knowing nothing about pokemon, I saw from pinterest that the pokeball is a very easy theme for the party with abundant images for inspiration. I asked my son about the game and he gave me some ideas for activities at the party. 

Invitation

The invitation was a pokeball made from taping a red semicircle onto a white circle with electrical tape. My daughter cut out the circles from colored paper cake plates.  We added a black circle in the center with a sharpie and colored a white circle on that with a chalk marker or white out. Inside my son glued printouts of the party details.  

Party Craft

The first activity was to create your very own pokemon out of clay. Each station consisted of a construction paper place mat with three containers holding a small amount of colored air dry clay and one container with a large amount of basic white air dry clay. Later, the children would receive large pokeballs to hold their creations. Here are some of the stations with drying creations:

Party Decor

The decorations were simple. My husband spray painted the top half of six white paper lanterns red. Then we attached black electrical tape with a black circle at the white/red interface. We hung the lanterns, black and white crepe paper streamers, paper pennants and spirals. I purchased the Pokemon happy birthday banner from Party City and downloaded the Pokemon printable alphabet banner from halegrafx. I made pikachu shirts as favors from yellow t-shirts from Michaels ($2.50 each) and fabric paint but hung the shirts as decorations until the cake was being served. I also made pokeball candy dishes using black washi tape, black construction paper circles and a white paint marker that were filled with white and red jelly beans (vanilla bean and cherry, and cream soda and red apple).

Pokemon Party Games

After washing their hands the children gathered to play some games. Each child was given a notebook and a pencil and my daughters gave out badges to children throughout the day for exhibiting various feats of courage. The badges were printed on card stock and attached to the notebooks with glue sticks that my daughters carried around all day. Then, my daughters took the children to the park to play the first games. While they were running off the energy stored up during the craft, the parents were handed bags of colored eggs and various sized pokeballs to hide around the yard. Each notebook already had a short list of items to gather from the yard on their pokeball hunt. We had evolution books for each type of pokemon to hand out as prizes. My son's collection of pokeball hunt rewards are on the left.

Game 1. Pokeball Arena Battle: Children were sorted into team Ash, Team Rocket and Pokemon. Pokemon were in the center and the other teams tried to catch them through a game of dodge ball. 

Game 2. Misty's Race: Children were sorted into teams of Sparo, Pikachu and trainers while my daughters were Misty and Ash. Misty rode her bike and Ash walked between the Sparo and Pikachu factions. This was a game of freeze tag. The trainers would get frozen by Sparos but Pikachus could unfreeze them and the teens ran interference. 

Game 3. Pokeo: It was a fairly hot spring day, so the children took a break and tried a round of bingo at the park. The bingo game was from DLTK.

Game 4. Team Rocket Target Practice: We printed out pictures of team rocket and my daughter taped them to trees at the park where the kids used them for nerf weapon target practice. I was surprised to see many bows and arrows among the weapons of choice. I had pulled out my son's nerf pistols, but he also opted for a bow. This idea came from Jen at a Thousand Words ...

Game 5. Guess the Pokemon: I copied DLTK coloring pages of 12 pokemon and printed them out. Nine fit on a wall hanging in my dining room and the other three were against photo albums on the wall in the living room. My daughter traced them onto black construction paper to make silhouettes of various pokemon for the first part of the game. Each child was timed naming off all of the pokemon. The one who got the most correct in the shortest time, won. For the second part of the game we taped the original coloring page that was used for the silhouette onto the back of each child. Children had to guess the character by asking other children questions. The first one to figure out his character won.

Game 6. Volt Orb Flip: My son told me about this game in pokemon where you multiply numbers sequentially until you get the volt orb. We adapted it for the party. Each child was given a large pokeball and when my daughter yelled flip, the children flipped over the ball to see the number inside. The numbers were 1 through 4. The children wrote their numbers on their pokedex pads. If a child had volt orb, he was out. The pokeballs were mixed up and redistributed and the game was repeated. The next number was multiplied to the first, the next to that product and so on until everyone ultimately got the volt orb. The child with the highest product won. Originally I planned to do this with the vault punch idea and a flap instead of a paper wrap, but my son thought it would be fun to use the balls while the clay was drying for something else. We ended up with a tie for first. The last child remaining didn't even win because his numbers had been mostly ones. We ended up giving out three prizes for that game.

Game 7. Pokeball Hunt: We told the children that the nursery had been robbed so in addition to pokeballs they had to find poke eggs. We had the children each find: two (2) ping pong ball pokeballs that we made with dollar store balls and red and black sharpies; three (3) smaller pokeballs that opened with see-through pokemon and stickers or tatoos inside; and, six eggs of one color determined by picking an egg out of a bag. Each egg had two pokemon inside. I got the pokemon figures on Amazon and the pokeballs at DHGate.

Game 8. Pokemon Rotation Battle: This game was actually played after the dinner and cake were served as part of the sleepover. This is a messy game and children were given the option of wearing a garbage bag or rain poncho. The picnic table was set with 12 aluminum pie tins. Each tin contained something messy: jelly, mustard, ketchup, spaghetti, mayo, etc., except one which contained a treat. The tins were covered with a sturdy paper plate with a duct tape handle. My daughter played pokemon theme music from her ipod while the children walked around the table until she turned off the music. each child was blindfolded and one hand was placed on the handle. They had to lift the lids and slap their other hands into the plate when my daughter yelled, "Catch em all!" This game proceeded until each child had a treat.

Party Menu

This was a fun party menu because the pokeball theme could be easily applied to food. I made pokeball pepperoni pizza bagels, pokeball baby bell cheese, pokeball hard boiled eggs, pokeball caprese salad bites, pokeball fruit trays with bananas, blueberries and strawberries also with bananas, blackberries and raspberries and green salad with pokeball radishes. We also served jasmine rice with seaweed Pikachu, Evee, Froakie silhouettes, cheddar cheese Pikachu on crackers, a veggie platter and Dugtrio hot dogs.

The desserts were especially fun to prepare. We made pokeball red/white candy dipped oreos. We crafted red heart mint tins painted with white out and striped with sharpies to make pokeball hearts. I made a pokeball cake using fondant for my first time. We had black and white sugar cookies in honor of Pokemon Black and White. Various red and white candies in assorted jars set the scene nicely. We made pikachu pops out of peeps (Peepachew Pops) and Blowpop pokeball pops.

Party Favors

The treat sacks were also pokeball themed made from white bags, red and black craft paper and black washi tape. Each sack contained a home-made mint tin, a peep-a-chew pop, a pokeball oreo, some official Pokemon gum, hard candy and stickers, an evolver book, a home-made pokeball bands bracelet that my son and I made without a loom, personalized poke cards my son and I had fun creating at My Poke Card, pokemon pencils and tatoos, pokemon magic erase boards, red, white and pink candied sunflower seeds, and pokemon blowouts. The pinata had pokemon rings as well as candy and silly bands. The guests also took home their pikachu shirts, pokeball hunt treasures, pokedex notepad with badges and clay creations. Guests who spent the night later played Nintendo games on the Wii. This was a really fun party and I enjoyed the preparations as much as the party itself.

Here is a picture of my son with some of his guests getting ready to blow out the candles. A few candles were trick dynamite candles left over from the spy party. That was fun! 

Most of these images are at my pinterest page. All the ideas came from those pins except for the games that my son suggested.  Thanks.

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The Mission Part II

There were gummy bunny teeth inside the outlet safe with the clue shown below:

This clue led them to another laser field that had snaps (small friction sensitive explosives) on the pavement between the lasers. This was funny because the kids thought the field looked really easy and then they would hit a snap and bang, they would all start laughing. Some of the kids had to run back inside for their shoes that they had left at the door. After they all got through the mine field, they had to find the right sprinkler that held the next clue.

After they found it, we paused for dinner. Perfect timing.

The clue in the sprinkler used one of the codes from their training. The clue sent the kids off to find the correct Dr. Pepper can from among a group of cans on the table.  

Several shaken cans and fountains of erupting sodas later, we had the clue. 

We played the "pass the bomb" version of hot potato. We spaced the recruits approximately 15 to 25 feet apart around the yard and set the timer for anywhere from 20 seconds to 4 minutes. When the timer went off, the one holding it was sent to the informant for a secret hint as to the vault combination. 

Dr. Monkey and  Black Monogram are shown breaking into the vault below.  The informant almost always got the first guess wrong.  Oops, instead of a disguise the agent released a flour cloud, but when the second punch was done, the agent found disguise glasses.  These were from target and often broke from vigorous vault punching.

Above to the right are some unicorns wearing their noses upside down.

The second bomb in the clue was the pinata.  This was tough to break and we had to bring out the baseball bat to finish the deed. Inside this pinata were pieces to a puzzle that had the last clue.

At the piano, there were green bowler hats and the following message:

Hooray, the agents defeated the mischievous leprechaun and won their slightly altered disguises.  They ran into the sun room to find the dessert table ready with yummy treats, their evidence to destroy.  The desserts are highlighted on a previous post. 

We had a wonderful time preparing and enjoying this party. Dr. Monkey was completely surprised by the mission. We had disappearing ink and a password station that I forgot to point out before the mission began and we didn't get around to making badges with their code names. Maybe we will send those with the thank you cards. 

Party Snacks

I set up the snack area in the room with the finger printing station. I used the footprint snack cups from the tutorial I pinned to the spy party board on Pinterest from :popcorn-party-cups posted by Koilie K. Thank you Kolie K.  Everyone liked these treat cups.  They were filled with popcorn, freshly popped that morning, Snapea Crisps ( a huge hit), and peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets.   On the other side of the room was an edible arrangement in a white rectangular tin of honey dew melon and green grapes, and glass cups filled with raw green veggies (asparagus, snap peas, snow peas and celery). Some had dip in the bottom; some did not. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this area after I placed out the snacks because the guests started arriving just then. Here are the paper documents for making the snack cups:

The Mission:

To the surprise of the new recruits, the disguises had been stolen by another secret agent. He left a message for his team at the scene of the crime:

Our team soon got to work figuring out the clue and checking all the towels in the kitchen. Then they went to the bathroom and asked if they could go inside behind the caution tape. (Earlier in the day, we said those areas were off limits.)  Inside the bathroom they found several more clues:

First there were tiny footprints on the toilet seat:
Behind the toilet, on a shelf, there was another note from Agent Luck E. And on the towel rack across the room, there was a strange expurgated note with chads cut out. (It is shown here smaller than the actual size to fit on the same line, but the actual one had to match the other precisely because it had to fit perfectly over the other note to reveal the right letters.)

The next clue was: Use to see Wii or a DVD.  That was the T.V. room, and again the kids asked if they could go behind the caution tape. Taped to the wall at the entrance of this room was another clue.  

  

On the T.V. table is a hollowed out copy of gone with the wind that held an outlet tester. On the little chair is a set of colored pencils in rainbow order that held two safe keys. One of the outlets in the room is actually an outlet safe. The black balloons held little pieces of paper that spelled out OUTLET if placed in rainbow order.The new recruits found the keys and outlet tester first. When the recruits started popping the balloons it sounded like fireworks. Very funny. Best activity of the day. Dr. Monkey's Dad came into the act after the rainbow order was discovered to show the agents how to test outlets to see if they were "hot" or not. 

Above is a picture of the room before the agents went in.

This is the hollowed out book:

The book held the outlet tester device,  The recruits thought the key in the rainbow box was to use the pencils to pop the balloons. That worked well, but when they found the wall safe they realized they still needed the real key from the pencil box to open the safe. When the agents opened the outlet safe, they found gummy bunny teeth which they started to eat right away.  There was also another note from Agent Luck E.

To be continued...