16907

Candyland -6yr- Old Fashioned Colorful Lollipops

November 2007

Sonya in St. Francis, MN  USA

Runner Up

My daughter loves her Candyland game.  More than actually PLAYING the game by the rules, her and her sister love pretending that they are going to the different places in the game.  So, we decided to do a Candyland Party for her 6th birthday. 

Invitations:  We made invitations on cardstock with three photos of swirled lollypops across the front.  I got this clip art free from Microsoft office online's clip art.  On the front it saidCome to a Sweet Birthday Adventure in Candyland . . . On the inside . . . to celebrate Sage's 6th Birthday!  The inside had another lollypop and small clip art of King Kandy, Princess Lolly, & Queen Frostine, copied and pasted from the Candyland website.  And then we listed the details.  Our party was for 2 ½ hours, and included lunch.  

Decorations: We went to the dollar store for dark purple plates, cups and streamers.  My daughter made a poster on white tagboard to hang outside that said, Welcome to Candyland with her rendition of the Candy Castle on it, and candy glued to it.  She was part of all the decorating, which made the anticipation even greater for her.   We put different squares of construction paper in plastic protectors and laid them on the sidewalk outside, leading to the front door and upstairs leading into our living room.  I had ordered 12 jumbo old-fashioned, colorful swirled lollypops from Oriental Trading Company for party favors.  We put these in tall, plastic glasses filled with hard candy we had leftover from a parade.  The hard candy helped the lollypops stand up straight.  We put the lollypop vases on ledges upstairs and downstairs for decorations.  We also propped the candyland game up on a buffet I have behind our kitchen table.  All of our other decorations were for games.  In one room we had Plumpy's Gingerbread Tree, which turned out to be pretty large and impressive, although it only took about a half hour to make.  

We broke down a large cardboard box and shaped a simple tree, cutting out the mouth, eyes, and nose with an exacto knife.  The trunk was left the cardboard brown, and we quickly slapped some green poster paint on the leafy part.  My daughter then decided to make leaves to tape over the paint.  So, I made a pattern of 6 leaves on several sheets of paper and let her color, cut out, & tape on.  We also cut out some leaves from green construction paper.  We made purple plums and taped them on the tree, enough for each guest (details later).  To keep the Gingerbread Tree upright, the top flap of the box (unpainted) was folded over a high wooden cabinet I have, and weighted down.  In another area of this room, we made about 5 simple candy cane patterns, colored them, cut them out, and taped them to the wall.  In another area of the house, we made Lollypop Woods. 

We turned our couch around and taped butcher paper on it.  Butcher or printing paper is on huge rolls and is usually available for free or cheap.  Otherwise, the back side of cheap wrapping paper could be used.  It was just a white background.  We drew green grass on the bottom, and then taped lollypops on that we had made.  We also made another lane for lollypops directly across from this with the butcher paper, but we purposefully did not put any lollypops on it (details later).  We did spend a fun afternoon making about 15 different lollypops for the lollypop woods.  We traced an upside-down 6 bowl for a pattern and made several colorful circles.  Then we glued different patterns on the inside.  To make a swirl: cut a circle, cut it into a spiral, and then trim the spiral in half and glue on.  We just used cardboard for the stick.  The finished lollypops were taped in the grass in Lollypop Woods. 

Favor Bags:  For favor bags, we simply taped two small lollypops to paper lunch bags and put each child's name on it with an electronic label maker.  We also labeled everyone's cups with the label maker, which turned out great.  The favor bags started out with a candy necklace (dollar store in bulk) and a small self-stamping stamp (Oriental).  The other items were gathered throughout the party.   

The Cake:  The cake turned out amazing.  We baked two 9X13 cakes, cut the second in half, and cemented (with frosting) the half to the other 9X13 and placed together on a large square board wrapped in freezer paper.  We used cake mixes to shortcut, and made our own frosting.  We frosted the cake in white.  We wanted to do a simplified version of the game board.  It helped to first lightly draw the trail on the cake with a toothpick.  We started on the bottom left side, using colored starbursts for the trail.  In the lower right corner we put gumdrops and made the gumdrop pass going across, lined with gumdrops and filled in with green sprinkles.  Then we had the trail go back to the left once, back to the right, and to the middle at the top.  Down the left side we frosted Sage's name vertically with purple frosting and made #6.  The candles went down alongside her name.  We stuck 6 small lollypops in on the top right.  And then the trail ended with the candy castle in the middle at the top.  We made this with 2 ice cream cones stuck in the cake side by side.  They were filled with frosting and topped with sprinkles.  We broke a third cone and put a piece of it in the middle between the two cones, held there with frosting.  On top of this we stuck a lifesaver. We also used the colorful gingerbread men Candyland game pieces and stuck them in the cake behind the trail.  We piped around the base of the cake in reddish pink frosting.  It turned out very cute, and fun to make. 

The Party Day: As my daughter's friends arrived, we had them bring their gifts to the Lollypop woods and put them against the wall.  Then, they went up to her bedroom and played and waited for everyone to get there.  When everyone came, we said it was time to visit Plumpy's Gingerbread Tree.  We had them line up for a beanbag toss.  We didn't have beanbags so we used 2 little hackeysacks for the kids to throw through the tree's mouth.  (Would have been fun to say we were feeding the tree gumdrops, but I didn't think of that) Each child stood behind a Candyland square on the ground and kept throwing until they got it in twice.  Then, we went through the line again and stepped way back.  This time they had to get it through once and then got to pick a plum off the tree.  On the back of the plums were pictures we had drawn (window, couch, etc.) where they had to go and look for a prize, which was a candy ring pop.  When they found their ring pop, they put it in their favor bag, and sat on the couch to wait for the rest of the kids to finish. 

This turned out to be a great time for a photo opportunity of all the kids piled on the couch.  We drew the kids attention to the candy canes on the wall (Mr. Mint's Peppermint Forest).  We had them put a peppermint on a spoon and go back and forth, handing it off to a partner.  It worked best to keep the peppermint wrapped in plastic, or it was too sticky and stuck to the spoon.  Rather than doing two separate kids teams, my husband raced against the kids.  He just went back and forth when they did, being silly and of course dropping the peppermint every few feet.  The kids thought this was pretty funny and of course he let the kids team win.  We then went to Queen Frostine's Ice Cream Sea.   On our Candyland game board, the ice cream sea looks like pink bubbles.  We have a smaller guest bedroom in our house that we filled with one layer of pink balloons.  We used our air compressor to blow them up.  The entire floor was covered in balloons.  I think it was about 50 total. 

We told the kids we needed to swim in the sea, so they were swimming on their hands and knees.  We didn't let them stand up because with that many kids it could have gotten crazy and maybe dangerous.  We did let them toss bubbles up in the air.  I got everyone's attention, and said that Queen Frostine had left a gift for the birthday girl and asked if anyone saw it.  On a dresser, there was a birthday crown that said, Princess.  I had taped three lollypops to the points.  So, I had Sage stand on the couch and I said, On behalf of Queen Frostine and all of the characters in Candyland, I crown you the birthday princess! And all the kids cheered.  They hit around the balloons for a bit longer and then we let them sit on them and pop them.  I thought some might be scared but they LOVED this.  Of course, some of them didn't pop easily, and needed a little help. 

We then headed down to the kitchen table to make a craft.  The craft was to make more lollypops for the Lollypop Woods.  All the kids made lollypops as described before and taped them up in the Lollypop Woods.  Sage then took one child's lollypop off the paper.  Whoever made that lollypop was the one whose gift she opened.  She did this until all the gifts were opened, and the kids put their lollypops in their favor bags. 

Then we had lunch'sandwich squares, grapes, & juice.  After everyone had eaten, I pulled out large gingerbread men on plates in plastic bags that we had made the night before.  We used leftover frosting from the cake to frost.  And then the kids decorated them with candy(skittles, spree, gumdrops, candy corn, smarties).  I took a picture of each child with their gingerbread man before they ate them.  Most kids just had a bite, and then brought the rest home in their favor bag.  Then, out came the cake.  We sang happy birthday and ate cake and ice cream.  We had some time left, so my husband took the kids upstairs and danced to music.  I told them they were going up to Gloppy's Molasses Swamp, and needed to dance like they were stuck.  (An idea I had later would be to have each child pretend to get stuck in the swamp and need to be rescued with a jump rope or something.) 

After they did this for awhile, he would turn off the music and they would have to freeze in place.  And then dance again.  We then got all of the kids coats and shoes on to get ready for them to be picked up.  It turned out to be a nice day, so they played outside with a big ball.  (Could have called it, Keep the Gumball in the Air")  When parents came and one of the jumbo swirled lollypops to take home.  It turned out to be a very memorable sweet party.  Because my daughter and I worked together every step of the way many of our memories are of creating the party together before it even happened.     "

• Kids Party Home
• Kids by Category
• Kids by A to Z
• Teen Party Ideas
• Adult Party Ideas
• Holiday Party Ideas
• Nutcracker Ballet