Pine Hollow Homestead: Matt's 13th Birthday Party (warning, picture heavy)

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Matt's 13th Birthday Party (warning, picture heavy)

My youngest turned 13 last week, but his party was today. Like a lot of kids around his age, he loves this (stupid) computer game called Minecraft. If you have never seen ir or heard of it, it is a game that is all in squares. Honestly the graphics are horrid, but that is one of the lures to the game. In the game you can build your own world, fight the bad guys (creepers, zombies, spiders, etc.), and even fight other players. It is an online game, but can also be played off line.

So, to plan a party for him, I do what most people do nowadays and I hit Pinterest. I found many ideas for decorations, goody bag treats and games to play. The links for some of the things I did cane be found at the end of this post.

For the goody bags I made a sword and pickaxe out of Pearler beads. There were no instructions on how to make these, just a picture. It was just easy to count the beads because you can see them so easily. Ironing them to melt the beads was annoying. The iron setting that the beads called for was not high enough.

I also made a creeper key chain out of Pearler beads. Again, no instructions, just a picture, but again seriously easy to make.

Next thing I made was a simple TNT candy packet. I found a free Minecraft font online and used it in my Open Office word program to make the labels.

There was also a water bottle. I just bought the bottles at the dollar store and found a creeper face online, shrunk it down, printed it out and used double sided tape to put it on the bottle.

I also printed out some paper crafts for the kids to make their own blocks, creeper and a pig.

The final thing I made for the goody bags was a creeper shirt. The party was just with my family, my sisters family and my mom. Small so I was able to spend a little more on the treats.

The outside of the bag was easy. I just printed out a face of the Steve character and taped it to a black bag. Easy peasy.

For the decorations, I went simple. We had square plats in black for the Enderman and pink for a pig. Green napkins for the creepers and light blue forks for the diamond swords. Our table was made to look like a grass block. Brown table cloth on the bottom and green on top. I also printed up a banner I found online and added it to the front of the table.

For some games we had a grass block pinata ( in the center of the table), a creeper toss, guess how much candy is in the jar (was square starburst and nerd boxes) and a pin the tail on the pig. The block you could make the bottom multi colored like the blocks in game are, but I was lazy and didn't want to put a lot of work into something that was going to get beat to death.

We did not get fancy with the food like some other people did, we just did burgers, dogs, chips, fruit and veggies. I did make a cake to look like the cake in the game. We also were enjoying seeing our family, that we honestly forgot to have the cake. Oh well, the kids were so high on sugar, they didn't need anymore.

The kids had fun with the games. Here they are pinning the tail on the pig. Matt cheated by feeling for the edge of the pig on the board. My niece put hers on the nose on purpose. hehe

The pinata was a big hit as always. Inside there, I put in some Halloween candy (cheaper to buy this time of year) and also some blue diamonds. In the game there are diamond blocks and the diamonds are used to make weapons, armor and other things. It is also hard to find.