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Tom & Jerry Party -5yr- Hot Cheese Game

March 2014

Julie in Frankfort, KY, USA

Special Mention

My daughter’s birthday fell at a time when we were in the chaos of homebuilding, so I promised her we would have a party in the new house.  So it ended up being her 5 ½ birthday party.  She and her sisters were mad about Tom and Jerry and how fun of a theme is that for some preschoolers?    

INVITATIONS : I found some invites I liked online that resembled movie tickets and recreated them in a word file by highlighting fields of color in the primary scheme of yellow, red and blue, and copying and pasting a Tom and Jerry image and some Happy Birthday balloons.  All Access Pass was at the top and I copies and pasted a bar code at the bottom with the date under it so it looked official.  I printed them on laminate paper for little cost.  

DECORATIONS : Tom and Jerry are pretty basic characters so I drew images of them chasing each other, eating birthday cake, and pointing the way to the party (which I posted on the mailbox) and painted them on cardstock and foamboard to set up around with streamers and balloons in primary colors.  To label the bathroom, I copied and pasted an image of Tom looking in the window at Jerry in the bathtub, who is screaming in protest.  Muwaha.  This was all done with Dollar Tree or cheaper material for little cost and had a great impact on transforming the space.   

ACTIVITIES/GAMES : Striving to keep it simple because of the ages of the party attendees and the quantity of them (there were 12 guests around 5 years of age plus my own 4 kiddos) I wanted to keep it simple.  We played Hot Cheese which was like Hot Potato with a yellow foam dice I found at the Dollar Tree that resembled cheese. 

The second game was Bomb Tom which was created with a Dollar Tree bucket with an image of Tom looking concerned taped to it and a rubber ball (also from the Dollar Tree) with a piece of thick yarn hot glued to it to resemble a bomb. 

The third game (which was arguably the favorite) was an obstacle course which was created mostly out of pool noodles, hula hoops, balloons and duct tape and cost less than $10 to create.  There were cones (on loan from the gym teacher) which the kids weaved around, several hula hoops taped together to hop through, then a table set up with balloons hanging under it they had to slide under without touching the balloons, a ring toss (pool noodle/duct tape rings and another cone,) a cheese golf putt putt (pool noodle/duct tape golf club and another yellow foam dice) then two jumps over pool noodle/cone obstacles and done.  I’m pretty sure the kids would still be going through this course if we didn’t guide them to the rest of the party. 

The final game was Mouse Hunt, which I used plastic Easter eggs with little mice drawn on them with permanent marker and a Starburst inside.  I hid these in the playroom invited the kids to help rid it of the infestation of mice.  It was fast and fun and then we herded down for cake and treats.   

PARTY SNACKS : We had Tom’s Lucky Cat Food which was made from chocolate Lucky Charms, melted white chocolate and Swedish fish and looked awesome.  (People complained because they couldn’t stop eating it.)  Also licorice Dynamite which I fasted a black strip of paper around a few strands and pasted an image of cartoon dynamite on.  Jerry’s Cheesecake Bites were little cheesecake nibbles in bonbon wrappers, dyed yellow and poked with holes to resemble cheese.  Fishbowl Punch was blue juice in a glass pitcher with Swedish fish floating in it.  Also a cheese and crackers platter.  

CAKE: The cake was yellow and had Tom on top in fondant, tied up with a Happy Birthday banner with a candle on his head looking concerned.  Jerry was giggling beside him, holding a candle.  The party colors of red and blue and yellow were piped on the cake, and I used star-shaped rings with Tom and Jerry faces on them as a border on the side of the cake, which doubled as favors. 

FAVORS: Using transparent red and blue party bags, I put a dynamite licorice, a Tom or Jerry figure (ordered online at a reasonable price from the amazing Tom and Jerry Online Store,) a coloring sheet I had printed out with a funny scene from the cartoon and a small pack of crayons.  The ring liberated from the cake bound the bag together at the top.  The kids seemed thrilled with the favors. The party was certainly memorable and simple enough to create out of inexpensive, easy to find objects for maximum impact.  Using the primary color scheme to tie the decorations together and just a few punches of Tom and Jerry here and there, it made for a lovely party.

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