My Party File - blog

Archive for the ‘party games & activities’ Category

Here’s a fab idea for a craft/arrival activity for a beach or mermaid party. You will find a great tutorial on how to make these sea shell balls at Keen Inspirations.  For a mermaid party, you could use coloured sea shells, or embellish them with small coloured star fish, or add some glitter!

Here’s an eggscellent idea for adding a little fun at a slumber party breakfast.  Draw silly faces on some eggs with a fine permanent marker.  The kids will get a real giggle when you open up the egg carton and ask them to choose their egg(s) for brekky.  Or let the kids draw on the eggs themselves before you fry them up or boil them (the eggs, that is - not the kids!).

Alternative:

Send kids home from your farm party with a funny faced egg.

Linking to:

Making the World Cuter

The Persimmon Perch

It’s so Very Cheri

The Girl Creative

Blue Cricket Design

The kids will enjoy making an “ocean in a bottle” at your Under the Sea, Mermaid or Pirate party.

To make an “ocean in a bottle”, you will need:

• 350 ml (12 ounce) plastic bottles with screw on caps (1 per child)  - clean and label free
• 175 mls (6 ounces) of cooking oil per child
• 175 mls (6 ounces) of vinegar per child
• Blue Food colouring
• Tiny Shells, plastic seawood, glitter, plastic confetti, tiny plastic toys, sea themed beads
• A funnel
• Rubber cement or strong glue

Instructions
Use the funnel to pour the cooking oil into each child’s bottle, followed by the vinegar. The oil will go to the top and the vinegar to the bottom. Allow the kids to watch this, before pouring several drops of blue food colouring into the bottles. Again, let the kids watch the fluids interacting.

Close the caps tightly and let the kids shake the bottles to make waves. Let them then put some shells, glitter, confetti and toys into the bottle so that they can float in the “ocean”. Seal the caps shut with rubber cement or glue to prevent it leaking.

Although the ingredients are non-toxic, warn the kids that they shouldn’t drink the liquid in the bottle.

TIP:  I used small cosmetic bottles that you buy for travelling.

Linking to:

The Girl Creative

Its So Very Cheri

Delicious Ambiguity

Blue Cricket Design

Fireflies and Jellybeans

My lovely rellie, Gill, just held a Rubber Ducky party for her son Oliver - and I wish I could have been there to see the “Pluck a Duck”  game she organised.  She filled a large container with water that she had tinted with blue food colouring.  She bought a rubber duck for each guest and then wrote numbers on the bottom of each duck with a permanent marker, and then sat them in the water.  She also bought a variety of prizes and popped each one into a paper bag, and wrote a number on each bag that corresponded to each duck.  Each guest had to pluck a duck from the water, and were then awarded a paper bag with the number that matched (and got to keep their duck).  Whilst the little kids could use their hands to grab a duck, the bigger kids had to use their teeth!!!  You could also add another level of difficulty by blindfolding the kids.

This game would be a good lead into the “Rub-a-Ducky” game.  Get the kids to place their duckies somewhere, and whilst they are distracted (with a different game, or food), smother the duckies in honey, vegemite, icing or whatever you have in the pantry, and then exclaim “Oh No!  What have these little duckies been up to?  We need to clean them before you take them home!”  Give the kids some soapy, bubbly water and a face washer - you’ll be surprised how much fun the kids have cleaning their ducks!

This is a simple idea for a craft at a sleepover party, and it can double as a party favour.  The raw wooden words are available at craft stores (I got these from Spotlight), and come in a variety of words, including “dream”, “princess” and “diva”. Simply paint in a desired colour with acrylic craft paint. When dry, paint a coat of clear glitter paint on top.

My girls actually painted these themselves to give as birthday presents. We attached a tag that said “Handpainted by (name)”.

Most boys love popping balloons - in fact, don’t they love making noise in general!

I placed Lego bricks inside of these balloons before I blew them up.  I filled the whole loungeroom with brightly coloured (Lego colours) balloons and set the boys free!  The aim of the game was to collect as many Lego pieces as they could so that they could make a racing car.

You can also attempt to keep this game a little fairer - we all know that some kids can get a little upset with the competition…  Use enough balloon colours for each child to have their own colour.  They can only pop their colour balloons.  As well as avoiding tears, it means that you can put specific pieces in the balloons (e.g. wheels) that you know that they will need to make their Lego creation.

I made these plaster shells for the guests to paint at Bella’s mermaid party.  It was a great activity to start the kids off with as they waited for other guests to arrive.  We glued magnets on the back after so that they could take them home and put them on the fridge.

Plaster mix and moulds can be found at most craft stores - this was, in fact, a chocolate mould!  You could also make these as party favours for the guests to take home and paint.

I thought I’d try out a Martha Stewart project - and I’m pretty sure I picked out the easiest!  These sponge balls are good clean fun and are a great alternative to water balloons - easy to fill, no broken pieces to pick up, they are reusable, and softer and splashier than balloons!

Fill a few large buckets of water and let the kids splat each other, and afterwards they can take home a fun party favour!   These are also good for a pool party, and make a good bath toy (a great party favour for a rubber ducky theme - keep them in the theme colours of blue and yellow).

To make sponge balls you will need:

• Sponges (4 sponges will make 3 sponge balls)
• Scissors
• Dental Floss

Step 1: Cut each sponge into six equal strips.

Step 2: Grab eight strips and stack them into two layers of four sponge strips (as shown), into any pattern you like. Place a length of dental floss under the pile.

Step 3:  Tie dental floss around the middle of the sponges and pull tightly,  drawing strips together into a pom-pom shape. Knot the dental floss and trim.  Fluff and twist the sponges to get the desired shape.

Tips:

• You can use zip/cable ties instead of the dental floss.
• These are machine washable - just let them air dry.

This goodie “bag” was made from a round cardboard craft box (they come in a variety of sizes), and simply painted red.  Then I used a black marker to draw a line down the middle and to add the head  - and the spots, of course!  I actually used a correction fluid pen for the whites of the eyes, before drawing in the pupil with the black marker pen.   Coat with a sealer, if desired.  You can write each child’s name on the base or side of the box, or tie a ribbon around the base with a small tag attached.

Alternative:  Paint the boxes prior to the party, and then have the kids decorate them as an arrival activity (have a completed box as an example).  Provide them with black marker pens, black dot stickers, googly eyes,  glitter pens, black pipe cleaners and glue.

Small bottles of bubbles make great party favours, or are great to have on hand for an activity at your Easter party.  Simply print the appropriate bunny bubble mixture label, cut out, wrap around small bottles of bubble mixture, then glue the ends of the label together. I was lucky enough to find bubble mixture containers that matched the colour scheme of my party, but if you can’t, don’t worry - the labels still look fantastic on an array of coloured containers!

For smaller bottles of bubble mixture, use our Bunny Bubble Mixture Label - small (label height is 2.2 cm), or for larger bottles, use our Bunny Bubble Mixture Label - large (label height is 4.5cm).  These are set to print out on A4 paper, but should fit on Letter sized paper - let us know if it doesn’t!