Minecraft Birthday Party Challenge

With less than two weeks into his birthday on January, my son and I were having a conversation to finalise his birthday plans. We had previously agreed to a laser skirmish game with his closest friends which I still hadn't book at the time. Honestly after the  Christmas and New Year's celebration, my brain just wanted to go on a temporary shutdown. Enough planning, enough wrapping presents, enough cooking, that is; until he changed my mind : "OR, HOW ABOUT we  have a Minecraft party instead?"

Against  all rationality I said, "YES, I think that would be a great theme..............................................."

So with my creative and ambitious cap on, I embark on a challenge to host and carry out a Minecraft- themed party in under two weeks.

I immediately began research into my son's favourite pixelated game. I was very thrilled to find so many ideas online about Minecraft-related birthday parties. Below are my favourites:

http://www.frugalfamilytimes.com/2013/08/minecraft-birthday-party-printables.html
http://momof6.com/at-home-birthday-parties/great-ideas-minecraft-birthday-party/
http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com/how-to-throw-a-simple-minecraft-birthday-party
http://www.rookno17.com/2013/12/10-ideas-for-ultimate-minecraft.html

I was relieved to learn that there are so many relevant Minecraft ideas out there. Now the real challenge lies on selecting and putting these ideas together to make it personal and within our budget.

Another consideration was the party food, which I really strive to try to be on the healthier side of. After some thinking, I have come up with Jian's  list of party food which I am happy to serve to his guests:

• Redstone- Strawberries                                 
• Golden apple- Fresh apricots
• Watermelon-Watermelon                              
• Gold- Chicken nuggets
• Bread-Bread                                                  
• Coal- Blueberries
• Carrot- Carrot sticks                                      
• Cookies- Mini choc-chip cookies                
•  Potion of Healing- Freshly made lemonade

Extra: Popcorn

The favourite among the party food! Golden chicken nuggets :)

Party food in green platters with Minecraft food cards

Ice-cold lemonade

Sweet blueberries

For the party favours, we have made and included the following:

Loot bags from brown paper with Creeper face stuck on them

The party favour table covered in brown to look like a crafting box,
includes:
sticks-bread sticks
TNT- mini liquorice
chocolate bars with Minecraft label
diamonds- Easter egg white choco with metallic blue wrapper
hand-made bookmarks

 Minecraft bookmarks that we made with laminated A4 board,  printed message and glued-on Minecraft characters/items with green and brown ribbons

How adorable are these mini- TNT's?
 Just stack the mini liquorice 2x2, wrap it in clingy plastic and put a label! cuteness!

The children were also able to take home some fun Minecraft  paper craft like below; from this helpful site:

http://pixelpapercraft.com/tags/official/character

Steve with diamond armour and sword which we also used as a cake topper;
a slime box we used to hide objects in for our scavenger hunt;
sword and pickaxe we used to decorate our house with;
hours of paper craft fun!  :)

For Jian's cake (yes, don't forget the cake as no party would be complete without it, especially this one ^_^); I have to say from experience that this was my biggest challenge. I do bake occasionally but never have I decorated a cake or cupcake with FONDANT!! I really wanted to make a cake that is "Minecrafty" so I had to start from scratch and do some more research on the best moist chocolate cake recipe (Jian's request) and fondant recipe. With only nine days remaining til his party I could feel my stress levels rising!

Luckily,  I have found these recipes on the web which I have tried and tested;

Moist chocolate cake:
http://www.cadburykitchen.com.au/recipes/view/moist-chocolate-cake/
Rolled buttercream fondant:
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/6219/rolled-buttercream-icing.aspx
note: I used 2 kg of icing sugar for this fondant

One happy boy :)

I am one happy mum from getting positive feedbacks about the decoration and the taste of the cake :)

Before I decorated the cake, I had printed out some visuals and put them up on the kitchen wall so I have a guide. It made the task less stressful as I now have an idea of the design I am aiming for. There are so many available online Minecraft cake images that you could print out for personal use to create that Minecraft cake design you want. For an amateur like me, I couldn't be happier with how the cake turned out.

Now, enough with the challenging bit, lets talk about the easier element  of this party- the decorations!

As I am trying to be thrifty in every way I can, the internet has become my greatest source of free party decorations. I have found this very helpful and generous blog where you can download and print their files for FREE, yes for FREE!; including Minecraft party banners, food cards and lots of other freebies. Below is the link:

http://catchmyparty.com/blog/free-minecraft-party-printables-from-printabelle

All set for a Mine-tastic birthday celebration :)

The birthday banner from printabelle-
I have a mum-friend come over to help me with the cutting and other crafty stuff for decorations :)

I used these images to make the bookmarks;
thank you printabelle :)

For the enjoyment and entertainment portion of the party, I had Jian to choose  a playlist of his favourite Minecraft Parody songs. Below are his top picks which we played at his party:

Together- A parody by Bruno Mars

New World- A parody of Coldplay's Paradise

Super Natural Mobs-A parody of Katy Perry's California Girls

Minecraft Man- a Parody of PSY's Gentleman

I had chosen three games for the children. All were played indoors, as the forecast for that day wasn't very promising, and is actually the first birthday he had minus the scorching Australian summer heat.

The first game was a modified hunting game, where the children had to shoot balloons containing food vouchers. Each was given one round of ammunition which equals to 6 chances of hitting a balloon. They could redeem the vouchers for later on, and or trade-in with their peers- Minecraft villager style.

The boys enjoyed aiming and shooting at the balloons. I wanted to draw a creeper face on each balloon but didn't have the time :)

The  next game was a Minecraft-inspired scavenger hunt which I originally thought of. The boys had to look for four slime boxes hidden around the house. These boxes contained two diamond egg chocolates and a bread stick, which represent the materials they needed to craft a diamond sword in Minecraft. They have to solve several riddles to find the location of the boxes and get hold of the next clue. The ultimate prize for this game was a diamond necklace.

I have found this really awesome blog about writing scavenger hunt clues. If you are stumped on how to write clues or riddles for your next scavenger hunt like I was, then click the link below:

http://klwightman.com/2013/01/14/writing-scavenger-hunt-clues/

The boys received a diamond sword necklace each for solving all the clues :)
I have pre ordered these cute tokens on eBay and luckily they arrived two days before Jian's party :)

The final game was called FEED THE CREEPER, where the boys had one-minute each to land as many paper balls into the mouth and eyes of a made-up creeper head. It's a game from another blog that inspired me because the materials were all readily-available at home. Recycling equals more savings for me.

For the creeper head, I recycled a box and glued on pieces of green squares of different shades then drew the outline of the Creeper's features and used a sharp blade to cut around the outline. Scrunched-up paper from old newspapers and magazines were tossed into the eyes and mouth of the creeper head.

What I liked best about the party was not the decoration nor the cake; it's the fact that it was spent with Jian's closest mates from both his previous and current school. All boys knew how to play Minecraft and each has a special bond with Jian.

The party ended really well, with everyone saying they had a great time. It's music to my ears but what's more heartwarming is the embrace and "thank you for an awesome party mum" from my nine year old that night.

Minecraft birthday party challenge triumphed!