Angry Birds Party

As you can guess, my inspiration for this party came from the Angry Birds game.  I had it on my iPod, but it was too small to play well.  It wasn't until I played it on my computer on Google Chrome that I really got hooked.  This party was a great excuse to play it too - I was doing research!  That really is true though.  I needed to know what the characters and items did, and the best way to find out was to play.

I do need to add, that my son Evan, who the party was actually for (they are all kind of for me though :) is also a big Angry Birds fan.  It's a favorite for him to play on my husband's iPad.  So it wasn't hard to convince him that it was the perfect theme for his 9th birthday.

My thanks though, goes to Pinterest, where I got all of my ideas for the party.  You thought I came up with this stuff on my own?  No way.  Only when I have to.  I love to find amazing resources and use what they have provided, or re-create it on my own.  But the ultimate goal of this blog, is for you to save time on your parties by using the links I provide to all of these amazing websites full of ideas.

I'm an idea collector, and here's the Angry Birds party blueprint for you to follow!

Invitations:
This free printable from SheryKDesigns was the biggest help to my party.  I was able to make adorable invitations without doing hardly any work!  The kit even comes with the font to make the words look just like the game.

I used this kit for the invitations, banner, and sling-shot toppers.







I just copied the same format they used for the sample invite and re-sized it for a 4x6 photo print.

Decorations:
I wasn't able to find many Angry Birds party supplies in stores.  What I did find was at a local party store called Zurchers, but it was being discontinued.  Apparently the big craze had already come and gone there?  I did get a pig tablecloth and yellow bird napkins there.

1.  The backdrop was a green plastic tablecloth (every single store I went to was out of light blue!), and the little cutouts and Angry Birds words were cut out from the fruit snack boxes we got at Walmart.  The banner was made from the free kit mentioned above.
2.  The cute birds on the door were made by my friend who is a teacher.  She made them for a school bulletin board, and was kind enough to loan the to me.  I love them!
3.  Self-explanatory - the napkins.
4.  The baskets of treats were for the games.  They got to pick one depending on how good they did on the game.  At the bottom you can see the edge of the pig tablecloth.

Games/Activities:
As the kids showed up, we had Angry Birds Bingo set up for them to play.  I got the idea from THIS site.  My son told me that he wanted to play Bingo, and he wanted to do Angry Birds trivia.  I combined the two by reading off trivia questions to which they had to guess which square to cover.  I put a picture on there too so we can play it at our upcoming family reunion with younger kids.

I was pretty tired from party planning when I wrote these clues, so they are quite goofy!

I created the Bingo board and cards in Photoshop Elements using clipart from THIS website (awesome!) and screenshots from the actual Angry Birds game on Google Chrome.  I'm still working on finding the link for the cute graphic at the top, so I'll post it later.  I made 12 sets of Bingo cards, so every one of them is slightly different.  This was time-consuming, but not hard once I had them created.  You could also make these in a program like Microsoft Publisher.

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I got the idea for the can toss from THIS website.  We used a ball that I purchased at Walmart.  I didn't paint this one.  My daughter wants me to make sure to give credit to her and her friends for painting the cans.  Amazing job girls - thanks!  The kids got three tries to knock all of the cans down.

The pig bowling game came from THIS site.  We changed it up a bit by knocking down pigs instead of pigs knocking down colored bowling pins.  I spray painted them first, then added the faces with acrylic craft paints.  They had two tries to knock the pins down.

Both games were pretty easy and really just there to give them something else to do while they waited for their turn at the main activity.  The real Angry Birds game!

We had seen some other life-sized games on these sites HERE and HERE, but we really weren't excited about building the slingshots.  Then we saw a segment on a local talk show where they had played Angry Birds using a water balloon launcher and told where to find them.  I got this one at Big5 sporting goods for $20.  It takes three people to use it - two to hold and one to launch.  That's a big bonus for me since my two youngest boys can't do much damage with it without a helper!

I used the guidelines for painting plastic balls from the sites above.  But I had Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 primer/sealer and it worked amazingly well.  I painted the outline base coat with several layers of the white primer, then let it dry well.  The other colors were acrylic paint over the primer.  I didn't bother tracing the faces on, I just free-handed them, so they aren't perfect, but turned out pretty darn cute!  And I didn't use a sealer like the other sites suggested - and they didn't need it!  Those birds took a LOT of abuse and not a single one looks different from when I painted it.  Do make sure you have them inflated to the size you want them before painting though.  I'm pretty sure that doing it after would crack the paint.

The boxes were from kind neighbors and were painted by my teenagers.  Thanks guys!  The kids got four tries, with the four birds, to knock down the pigs and as much of the structure as they could.  They got a level 1,2, or 3 treat depending on how much they destroyed.

The top-left corner photo is of the Grandpa pig pinata (or Pigata as we like to call it).  The inspiration came from HERE.  I made it from a punch-ball I purchased a the dollar store and paper mache.  I found THIS recipe online and have used it several times.  It works really well.  This pinata used only 1/2 a batch.  My daughter did a fabulous job painting it.

Our final activity was for the birthday boy to launch the pinata.  Unfortunately it was so heavy with candy that it only went about two feet before landing on the ground with a thud.  My oldest son tried, then my husband.  It was just too heavy.  So they did the next best thing and launched it by hand about 20 feet into the air.  It took only two good landings before the kids tore into it and filled up their hands (and shirts) with candy.

Music:
Simple really.  We started the Angry Birds game on my husband's computer and put the speakers in the window.  It set the mood and made everyone want to dance along - for a while.  There's not a lot of variety to the theme song, so after a while we were just sick of it. :)  But it was fun music.

Food:
With past experience of scorching hot summer birthday parties, we found that the kids don't have much of an appetite, so we just did cupcakes, drinks and ice cream cups.  Since it was about 93 degrees outside, we also had cups and a cooler of ice water in the shade so they could stay hydrated.

Cake:

Evan told me he wanted a 'fancy' cake for his birthday and proceeded to show me some very elaborate ones made of fondant sculptures that I had pinned on my Celebrations board on Pinterest.  I have yet to attempt fondant, and knew I didn't have an extra 20 hours to spend on a cake.  I did find THIS cake though, and used it as inspiration for the cake and cupcakes that I made.

It was super easy to make.  I just made a round cake (I have a tall round pan I bought in Japan that fits a whole cake mix so I don't have to deal with layers), then froze it for about an hour in the freezer.  This makes it easy to put on the crumb coat of frosting.  It's just a thin layer of icing to coat the crumbs!  Then I traced the face into the icing and outlined it with a round tip and dark chocolate icing.  I don't like to add a ton of food coloring to get black, so I always just use dark chocolate for black.  Then, using a star tip, you just fill in the design with the desired colors.  It's as easy as coloring!

The red food coloring is from AmeriColor and it is good stuff.  I have tried other brands, and will always use this brand from now on.  I bought it at Hobby Lobby.  Duncan Heinz cream cheese frosting is my favorite for taste when I don't want to take the time to make homemade icing.  It works pretty well if it doesn't get too warm while decorating.  (That's why I won't show the sides!)

The cupcakes were made in a similar way, I just skipped the outlining.  The candy eyes (love them) are from Wilton, and the beaks were made with banana Laffy Taffy.  Roll it flatter with a rolling pin, then cut with a knife.  The eyebrows are the same chocolate frosting with a large round tip.  Adorable!

Favors:

I saw the idea for the bags HERE, but the download for the faces came from HERE.  I ordered the slingshots and balls from Oriental Trading Company.  They were a little pricey, but not too bad for a dozen slingshots and enough balls to give 5 each.  We put Chiclets gum, Dots, Crunch bars and Air Heads candies in with them.  Then the kids got to load up on other candies, Angry Birds fruit snacks, popsicles, and pinata candy throughout the activities and games.  Their bags were nearly overflowing by the time they left the party, and they ate a ton of it while still here!  They were pretty excited about it all though, especially the sling shots.  Hopefully I don't have any parents too angry with me over that - I did put a warning on the labels!  The labels were from the kit at the top of the post.  I modified them in Photoshop to fit my warning on them.

It was such a fun party and I thank my Mom and my family for all their help, and the wonderful ladies in the blogs mentioned in the links for their inspiration.  I hope you will do your own Angry Birds party.  If you do, you may earn the title I earned from my kids as the "Coolest Mom ever"!  Thanks guys!  You're worth it.