Posts Tagged ‘party ideas’

Cops and Robbers Themed Party

Thursday, March 23rd, 2023

cops-robbers-themed-party

Out of all the themed birthday parties we did over the years, one of the most original and interesting was a Cops and Robbers themed party! We had so much fun gathering costumes from thrift shops and yard sales. One of the costumes was a gangster outfit. Another was a policeman costume. We also had a prison outfit. We made a jail out of a large cardboard box painted black, with bars across a window.

We also created cardboard cars for the car chase. We used computer paper boxes, and we painted one of them green. The other one we wrapped in black butcher paper that I had left over from another project. The top was cut off completely, and the bottom had a circle hole for the kids to fit over their bodies. we hot glued a makeshift steering wheel by placing a Pringles can first against the box, and then attaching a Wii steering wheel to the Pringles can that was hot glued to the front of the box car.

cops-and-robbers-party

We decorated the dining room with silver and black helium balloons, which we tied to the back of each chair, along with a Happy Birthday sign.

cops-robbers-decorations

We made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with sprinkles. Then we created a white frosting star in the middle of the festive cake, adding small marshmallows to the ends of each of the points of the star. Finally, we added a sherrif badge to the middle. We got a package of sheriff badges from a local party store.

cop-cake

We placed a black sheet over the table and sprinkled silver stars over the cloth, along with the remaining sheriff badges. We also had various other snacks.

cop-party-decorations

After cake and presents, the kids went downstairs to play cops and robbers with their costumes, cardboard cars, cardboard jail, and secret hideout in a closet under the stairs. The kids chased each other for hours and had a great time.

arrest-cops-robbers-party

We attached a piece of cardboard painted with chalkboard paint against the wall of the secret hideout under the stairs, to write with chalk all the secret plans. I was inspired with this unique idea from the Wile E Coyote cartoons that I watched when I was a child.

robber-hideout

The kids had a hilarious time with this Cops and Robbers themed party!

For more themed birthday ideas we’ve done over the years, check out our 31 Days of Themed Cakes.

Fairy Tale Party

Monday, February 7th, 2022

fairy-tale-party

I came across some photos the other day of my daughter’s first birthday party. The photos made me smile as I reminisced. We chose a fairy tale theme, and we had so much fun playing games based on nursery rhymes and fairy tales. We made a centerpiece for the table that included pricess slippers, a crown and princess hats, a Mother Goose book, confetti, and the cake topper from my wedding cake that I saved all these years. I used a clean black bed sheet as the table cloth, making a good backdrop for the scene.

Rachel-first-birthday

We made a simple rectangular cake with a princess figure standing on the top, with a #1 candle beside it. You can also make a castle cake. (If you want to see the spectacular castle cake I made for a medieval party, you can find it in the Treasure Vault. It’s called “Castle Cake,” next to the “Life-Sized Cardboard Castle” under the Middle Ages period of the history section.)

three-little-pigs-game

The first game we played was to construct houses made of straw, wood, and bricks. We used pine needles for the straw, popsycle sticks for the wood, and large red Lego bricks for the bricks. The materials were in separate baskets, and we had an indoor sandbox to help the houses to stand up in the sand. You can do this activity outside if you don’t have an indoor sandbox, or you can get some sand in a large bin. When you stab popsycle sticks or pine needles into the sand, they stay upright. Then you can blow on it really hard, and see if the three little pigs’ houses fall over.

london-bridge-is-falling-down-game

Next we played nursery rhyme games like “Ring Around the Rosie” and “London Bridge is Falling Down.” The kids really enjoyed when my husband and I made a bridge with our arms and interlocked hands, as you can see in the picture.

fairy-tale-newspaper

We had a wonderful time with this theme, as we read many famous works of literature (short stories), leading up to the themed party.

If you are homeschooling older kids, you can assign a writing project of a fairy tale newspaper. These were immensely popular when I taught in the classrooms before I had kids. I read to you many articles and funny ads to give examples of ideas for kids to write in their fairy tale newspapers in the audio So Your Son Hates to Write. (The writing assignments work well for girls, too!)

And if you have younger kids, they may enjoy our Mother Goose Unit Study!

How to Make an Ice-Cream Cone Cake

Monday, June 4th, 2018

ice-cream-cone-cake

My daughter wanted an ice-cream cone cake for her picnic-themed birthday party. To make an ice-cream cone cake is quite simple. First you bake two cakes. The first one will be divided into two circle tins. These will be the ice-cream scoops. The other cake will be baked in a rectangular tin. You will cut that second cake into a triangle the shape of an ice-cream cone.

Make sure that after you bake the cakes, you cover them with plastic wrap and put them in your refrigerator. It’s much easier to cut and shape cold cake. Grab a piece of cardboard and cover it in foil. You may need to tape together (with packing tape or duct tape) two pieces of cardboard to make it long enough for the ice-cream cone.

After placing the cakes on the foil, make sure that the scoops look like the picture above. You will have to carve an arc in the top circle before placing it on the foil, and cut a straight section off the bottom scoop.

Frost the “cone” part of the cake with chocolate frosting. Divide a bucket of vanilla frosting into two bowls. Tint one of them pink for the top ice-cream scoop. The bottom one will be vanilla, so leave it white. Shake sprinkles over top of the ice-cream scoops.

ice-cream-cone-pinata

If you have an ice-cream themed birthday, you can buy a piñata in the shape of an ice-cream cone. My daughter was overjoyed to find this at a party supply store. Hobby Lobby and Walmart also have piñatas, if you don’t have a party store in your town.

picnic-themed-tea-party

My daughter wanted a craft for her picnic-themed birthday party, so we decorated straw hats by hot gluing silk flowers to them. We set out a tea party in the backyard, and the girls enjoyed their scones and other treats after their craft and piñata.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial on how to make an ice cream cone cake for a picnic-themed birthday party!

MC Escher Party

Friday, October 7th, 2016

MC-Escher-Party

My 16-year-old son has always loved MC Escher, so this year we decided to throw him an MC Escher party for his birthday. MC Escher is a modern artist who depicts surreal scenes like stairs impossibly going up and down, or water flowing up and down at the same time. He uses a lot of salamanders and fish in his designs, and he makes tesselations (rotating shapes), which you will see below in our art projects.

MC Escher Party Invitation

First we printed this coloring page, and we pasted the colored fish (we used colored pencils) onto light blue card stock paper. We outlined the fish to make them stand out, and we wrote the party information inside the card.

MC-Escher-invitation

MC Escher 3D Shapes

I found {aff} this book with perforated MC Escher 3D shapes. The pages are colorful and thick, and you fold each shape according to the instructions, gluing or taping the shapes together. The patterns on the shapes are from the artist’s famous paintings.

MC-Escher-shapes

We used these 3D shapes to decorate the center of the table. I used little fish crackers as confetti. I also gathered the art supplies that we needed for our tesselations.

MC-Escher-3D-shapes

MC Escher Cake

I had to think long and hard about the cake, because the thought of making stairs go up and down on a cake seemed impossible. I toyed with many other ideas until I settled on this one. I found gummy fish at the store, and at that moment I knew what I wanted to do.

cake-waves

First I baked a rectangular chocolate cake, and I tinted the frosting blue. I used a fork to make waves. Then I placed the fish coming and going, as they would in an MC Escher painting. It came out great!

MC-Escher-cake

MC Escher Art Project

Here is a fun art project you can do with tessellation, where a shape is repeated over and over again, covering the entire paper:

We made modified shapes based on an equilateral triangle. We rotated the shape, using it as a stencil over and over on our paper.

tesselation-drawing

Here are some of the finished tesselations:

MC-Escher-tesselation

drawing-a-tesselation

MC-Escher-tesselations

Didn’t they come out great? My son thoroughly enjoyed his party!