21804

Candyland Party (8-13yr) Candy Character Costumes

August 2010

Rachel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Special Mention

This is a Candyland birthday idea for children aged 8-13. The activities are fun and suitable for most seasons (some of the activities take place outside). This works better as a sleepover, as the activities will last three to five hours. If that is not an option, you can have the children come to the party at around 1:00 o'clock, and let them stay for dinner.

For costumes, have some family members dress up as the Candyland characters. Here is how we organized the costume duties:  Dad: King Kandy  Mom: Gramma Nutt  Me: Queen Frostine  My younger daughter: Princess Lolly  Some other friends: all the other characters You can find some reasonably priced Candyland costumes on eBay and Amazon (or any other online shopping place). You can also look in your closet; you might realize that what you need is right there in front of you. For the party, we did an activity or game for each character.

For invitations, we made little paper lollipops and wrote the party details on one side. Then we attached a little candy on the middle of the other side. They looked VERY cute.

For the decorations, we put up some rainbow streamers and printed pictures of the Candyland characters to stick on the walls around the house. The rooms turned out looking great.  For King Kandy, we had the girls make their own ice cream sundaes. You can have 2 or 3 flavors (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry) and some chocolate syrup. You can also bring out some assorted candies to go along with the theme. The creations they come up with are amazing! You can get out your camera and take a picture of their masterpiece: they can put it in their peppermint photo frames (see Mr.Mint). For Queen Frostine, the girls split up into two teams and they had to build the best igloo they could with marshmallows and hot glue. Have them build the igloos on a large piece of cardboard. The winners and the losers won small prizes we got from the dollar store.

For Princess Lolly, we did a lollipop scavenger hunt. This is like a normal scavenger hunt except you tie the clues to lollipops that correspond to the colors of the team. This is very easy since it involves no cleaning at all. For Lord Licorice, we had the girls do Licorice Art". They basically use hot glue to stick pieces of licorice to black paper. Give them the whole sticks not the small pieces. This way they can cut the licorice to the size they want. For Mr.Mint we bought inexpensive photo frames from the dollar store as well as some small round peppermints (usually red and green). Use hot glue to stick the peppermints to the frames. They can put in the photo of their King Kandy ice cream sundaes or any other photo. For Gramma Nutt we did a relay race. We scattered peanuts all over the drive way. The kids split up into teams of three. One person holds a bowl while the other two link arms and run around to grab a peanut. They return and put the peanut in the bowl. You might have to tell them to take one peanut at a time.

For Gloppy we filled pie pans with chocolate pudding and added a few gummy worms. In two teams the girls ran to the pans and had to get as many worms as they could without using their hands. Our time limit was 15 seconds. Some girls might not want to do this so if you end up with teams of different numbers you might have to have one kid do it two times. For Jolly we did guess-how-many-gumdrops-in-the-jar. The winner got to keep the jar (gumdrops included!). This works better with the smaller kind of gumdrops since you can only fit in about ten of the big kind. For Plumpy I put the girls in two teams again. I had a to find something with a small opening in the top so I pulled out my two juice pitchers. I covered them with black paper since the kids could easily see through the glass. The goal of the game is to find a small marble within the pitcher filled with prunes. The first team to have all the members find the marble wins.

Like I mentioned before you can have the kids stay for dinner whether they're staying over or leaving after they eat. You can do the classic pizza thing but I went for something more creative. You can make cupcakes for dinner! Not the dessert cupcakes but something else First of all line your cupcake pan with paper liners and prepare your family meatloaf recipe (or find one off the internet). You might have to double the recipe according to the number of guests. Bake your "cupcakes" according to the recipe. Meanwhile prepare some mashed potatoes (instant or from scratch). Add some red food coloring to give it a pink color. This will be spread on the top of the cupcake to give it the frosting effect. We served the cupcakes hot and everyone thought they were real! Their reaction when they found out it was savory not sweet was really funny! They made faces at first but loved the meatloaf and mashed potatoes. This was the highlight of the party! 

Finally for the cake You can frost any size any shaped cake and cover it with a layer of fondant. To make the rainbow path make a curvy line similar to the one on the game board with Star burst candies stuck to the fondant with frosting. The little people on the board are basically sour patch kids candy from Maynard's. Re-frost the sides and stick M&Ms or skittles all around. Make the lollipop woods by laying a small circle shaped green piece of a fruit roll onto one spot of the cake and stick lollipops in that area. For the gumdrop mountains use frosting to stick various sizes of gumdrops in a bunch on another place on the cake (you can check the game board to see where each of the places are located but we put them anywhere on the cake and none of the children really noticed).

For the peppermint forest place many small round peppermints like the ones used for the Mr.Mint craft (above) in a bed of whipped cream sprinkled with shredded coconut (optional). For Gramma Nutt's house lay some marshmallow peanuts (or use real ones) and arrange them in a way you are satisfied with. Lord Licorice's headquarters are just assorted height licorice pieces stuck into a mountain of whipped cream. For Plumpy take a few purple gumballs and cut a small piece of green fruit roll to make a leaf on the plum (gumball). For Gloppy's swamp make a large mountain of whipped cream and drizzle on some melted chocolate melted peanut butter and molasses (or maple syrup) For King Kandy's kingdom it's very simple: take 3 mini waffle cones fill them with whipped cream touch them up with sprinkles and top with a cherry! Push these "ice cream cones" into the cake near the end of the path and push down on them until they are steady enough to stand by themselves without any kind of support. Then stand back look at the cake and admire the masterpiece you've created!  

For the favors simply give them a small bag of candy. They don't need anything major because they already have their prizes from the games and the crafts they made.

I hope you liked the party idea and I wish you a wonderful time with the kids at the party. My daughter still talks about all the fun we had and tells me how her friends still talk about the party.  It may be hard to believe but we planned and held the party all for only 150$. Thank you!  "

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