Whether you're an adult or a child; the latest craze seems to be Pokemon Go. So, of course for Chase's birthday this year, he requested a Pokemon party.
Pokemon Party Plates
Some of the basics were pretty easy, like the paper plates and napkins. I purchased all of mine at our local party store along with yellow forks and spoons. However, the Pokemon specific plates and napkins can also be purchased from Amazon. | |
| Pikachu Birthday Party Centerpiece |
For the tablecloth, I saw many posts for poke ball tablecloths, but since our table is usually covered with food, I chose to go with a simple yellow table cloth. Also, I chose plain red cups since the character themed cups are usually pretty small in size. I also made a Pikachu centerpiece. Our printer is on the fritz so I ended up doing this somewhat free hand.
I printed out a picture of Pikachu so that I could trace the outline of his body onto card stock. I did make this with two separate pieces. A front side of Pikachu and a backside. After I cut out the front and back, I drew in all the remaining details of his body (face, arms, back, stripes). Once my pieces were complete, I put some glue on the backside of one of the pieces. Afterward, I stuck my skewer about half way up trough the middle, before sticking the two Pikachu pieces together, In addition, I added a couple of pokeballs and a number 6. I did these the same way, making a front and a back so that I could easily hide a skewer up the centers. I then took a simple plastic cup, I found at the dollar store and placed a chunk of Styrofoam down inside it. I placed all my skewers into the Styrofoam and finished it off with some crinkle paper shreds.
Pokemon Paper Lanterns
Another decoration I made was some Pokemon paper lanterns. I used a yellow lantern for Pikachu, a blue lantern for Squirtle, and pink lantern for Jigglypuff, and a purple lantern for Gengar. I found the best price on these through Amazon.
Amazon Assortment Pack
The lanterns were pretty easy to make, but a little time consuming as well. I simply followed some pictures of the Pokemon to create their faces onto the lanterns. I used card stock for my cutouts and modge podge to glue the pieces on. Afterward, we used fishing line to secure them onto the ceiling. Attaching one piece of line to the top of the lantern and then to the ceiling didn't quite work as well as I hoped. The lanterns tended to spin so that the faces were facing the wall. So, I took another piece of fishing line and attached it to the bottom of the lantern and then connected that piece to the wall. This made the lanterns slightly tilted downward, but it kept them from spinning backwards. They were a big hit with out kids, in fact they ended up hanging them up in their room once the party was over.
Pin The Tail On The Pikachu
Every time we have a birthday party, we usually have about 13-14 kids, so they usually do pretty good keeping themselves entertained. However, for this party, I opted to make a couple of games. One of these games, was a pin the tail on Pikachu. I made this game somewhat last minute so I had to work with what I had.
I took about 4 sheets of yellow card stock and taped them together at the seams on the backside. Then, I did drew the outline of Pikachu and the details of his body. Afterward, I cut the image out and taped it up on the wall. I had to use separate card stock to cut out a few tails to pin on for the game. This game was fun to watch where all the tails went. Some of them were close and some were way up on the wall.
Pokeball Pinata
Another game we had was a Pokeball pinata. This pinata cost me very little, I used an old beach ball, newspaper, glue, and some crepe paper. I started by inflating the beach ball.
I then used strips of newspaper dipped in a mixture of glue and water (you'll want to make sure you have plenty of glue, I used about 4 or 5 bottles for this) to paper mache the ball. I did leave an area around the valve open so that I could later remove the ball and fill the pinata. I let the ball dry between coats and I did about 5 coats of paper mache. Once all 5 coats were done, I deflated the ball and pulled it out through the area I left open. I then filled it with some candy and small trinkets. To close the ball up, I used some masking tape to tape over the opening. Afterward, I paper mached the taped area with about 4 coats.
After, all the areas of paper mache were dry, I began decorating the pinata with crepe paper. I started at the top with red crepe paper. I cut a large strand of red crepe paper and then folded it several times. I cut all the loops out of the ends so that each strip was only about 3-4" long. I also made little snips along the bottom edge of the paper to give it a frayed look. I then took each strip and began gluing it onto the ball. Once, I got about half way down, I started using black crepe paper to make the black stripe that goes along the middle of the Poke ball. The black stripe only requires about 2-3 rows down of crepe paper. I then moved on to white crepe paper for the bottom of the ball. Once, I was all done, I cut out a circle out of plain white printer paper and glued it to the center.
This pinata was tedious but fun to make and the kids had a ball destroying it. We hung it up outside and it actually made it through all 13 kids before it broke open. They loved scooping up all the goodies (of course there were some tears though because one kid had more than another).
Pokemon GO Scavenger Hunt
To bring the fun of Pokemon GO to our party, we created our own Pokemon Go Scavenger Hunt. This was free and only cost us the paper and print supplies.
First, we found pics of the kids favorites Pokemon from Google Images and saved the pictures to our computer. We then printed all of them on full pieces of paper and laminated them. We cut them out and strung them up with fishing line so they could be hung from objects in the back yard. We later will hide them through the back yard.
With those same pics, we created our own list of all the Pokemon they could find. We used Paint.net to create this custom document. You could also embed these in a Word document to do the same thing. We planned a custom message on this document (Ours was
Chase Man Is Six), and planned these letters on the back of each Pokemon. With these letters, the kids had to not only Catch All the Pokemon but use their minds to unscramble the hidden message.
They had fun and teamed up to problem solve this Pokemon Adventure.
Pokemon Party Favors
Now, I always make sure to have goodie bags. I'm not sure why but I guess it's just something I enjoy putting together. I had a bit of a hard time fining reasonably price Pokemon items. I did find some Pokemon goodie bags at the party store; however they can also be found on Amazon.
I filled the bags with some small (they are actually quite small) Pokemon figures I found on Amazon,
as well as some Pokemon bracelets (these were a big hit) and some Pokemon tattoos.
In addition, I found a Pokemon candy mold on ebay. So, I simply melted some chocolates and made some fun Pokemon candies on a stick. These came out really well, in fact they were my favorite item in the goodie bags.
All in all, this party was super fun......loud but fun. I'm always stressed right before any party because I usually have a hundred things to do, but we always pull it off. The kids had good time and we were able to create a fun atmosphere for them to enjoy.
I then used strips of newspaper dipped in a mixture of glue and water (you'll want to make sure you have plenty of glue, I used about 4 or 5 bottles for this) to paper mache the ball. I did leave an area around the valve open so that I could later remove the ball and fill the pinata. I let the ball dry between coats and I did about 5 coats of paper mache. Once all 5 coats were done, I deflated the ball and pulled it out through the area I left open. I then filled it with some candy and small trinkets. To close the ball up, I used some masking tape to tape over the opening. Afterward, I paper mached the taped area with about 4 coats.
After, all the areas of paper mache were dry, I began decorating the pinata with crepe paper. I started at the top with red crepe paper. I cut a large strand of red crepe paper and then folded it several times. I cut all the loops out of the ends so that each strip was only about 3-4" long. I also made little snips along the bottom edge of the paper to give it a frayed look. I then took each strip and began gluing it onto the ball. Once, I got about half way down, I started using black crepe paper to make the black stripe that goes along the middle of the Poke ball. The black stripe only requires about 2-3 rows down of crepe paper. I then moved on to white crepe paper for the bottom of the ball. Once, I was all done, I cut out a circle out of plain white printer paper and glued it to the center.
