13005

Egyptian Party -8yr- Pyrmid Favor Container

February 2006

Jodi in Lebanon, PA USA

Special Mention

Egyptian party - 8 year.  This was a challenge!  First of all, I always dress up for my parties, so when my daughter announced around Halloween time that she wanted an egyptian birthday party, I immediately got on ebay and found a Cleopatra costume for myself.  I waited until a day or so after Halloween so they were cheaper to get.  

Invitations:  I took a Halloween craft from the Family Fun magazine (also on the website) for "yummy mummys",  made from toilet paper tubes.  Basically, cut the tube in half, close the bottom with a piece of round card stock, wrap the tube up in gauze, glue googly eyes.  The tube allows you to fill with candy for halloween, however I used it to roll up an invitation, which I stuck inside along with some chocolate covered marshmallow mummies that I found at Halloween. 

The actual invitation was done to look like old parchment paper - I crumbled up a piece of printer paper into a ball, flattened it out, then soaked it in cold tea.  Dry it with a hair dryer, then printed out the actual details, along with some egyptian symbols.  Once it was dry and printed, I tore the edges off so that all the sides were uneven.  I took the mummys to school to pass out the the classmates, and those who were invited that weren't from her class, I ran to their houses since they couldn't be mailed.   

DECORATIONS:  We had the party in the basement, which is cinder block walls.  To make it look a little better, for every party in the basement, I use my end roll of paper that I get for free from the local newspaper.  I unroll an 8 foot length, which is the height of the wall.  Then draw pictures on it to go with the theme, and duct tape each sheet to the top of the wall to hang down, sort of like wallpaper.  I do this the entire way around the party area.  For this party,I looked up websites of egyptian symbols, and actually tried to spell some words.  I drew the pictures super huge on the paper, and had my kids help me color them in, then hung these all over the walls.  This pretty much took care of decorations, except for some gold helium balloons that we had here and there.  

CRAFT:  Pharoah Masks: The very first thing we did was work on our main craft, as it needed time to dry before going home.  I bought some plain white masks off of Oriental Trading (Note!!  I was tempted at first to get the regular "Jason" masks at halloween time, but since they don't have the normal "face features" they wouldn't have worked!)  I did a search for masks on OTC's website and found the plain white ones for pretty inexpensive. 

Before the party, I placed a mask on a piece of white posterboard.  Then drew the shape around the mask that would make it look like a pharoah (king tut) head.  Cut the shape out, and masking tape the white mask to the paper.  Then I paper mache'd over top of the entire thing, front and back.  This process takes several days because I used 3 coats of paper mache, and it takes at least a day for each layer to dry!!!  (Familyfun.com has the BEST paper mache paste recipe)  Also, it takes up a lot of room to sit to dry, so depending on how many you're making, you may run out of room, and therefore need to start even earlier to stack up the dry ones. 

Once they were dry, cut out the eye holes and the mouth hole, and slits on either side to put a string so these can become masks. Then they were ready for the party.  The kids each got a mask and tempra paint to paint them up in any way they wanted.  Before painting, we measured out the string to tie each one around the child's head, so we wouldn't have to worry about trying that if the mask was still wet at the end of the party.  Once they were done painting (this took a lot of time!), the masks were left to dry while we did games.  

GAMES: The first game we did was wrap the mummy game.  Basically, had two teams, each team picked a "mummy" and the team had to be the first to wrap their mummy the entire way up with toilet paper.  

HOT SCARAB:  This was just like hot potato, except they pass a plastic.  When teh music stopped ("king tut" off a kids bop halloween cd), the person who is "out" comes to me to get a treat, that way no one is upset to be out of the game.  The last person left, gets their treat and also gets to keep the scarab.   ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG:  I brought in the sandbox from the yard, complete with sand.  Then buried some fake jewels, and some rubber beetles (scarabs).  I had the kids take turns, 3 at a time, using some sand toys to dig for their treasures.  Once they had 4 treasures in their bag, they were to stop and let someone else have a turn. 

PINATA:  I found instructions online to make a pyramid shaped pinata (google search).  I made the pyramid (using the paste recipe from family fun), filled it with candy, and spray painted it with gold spray paint.   

WORD PUZZLE:  I did a twist on a word search by looking up egyptian symbols online and having them all printed at the top of the page, with the corresponding letter/word beneath it.  I had the kids try to figure out the puzzle, by matching the egyptian symbol with the word it stood for. 

MUSICAL CHAIRS:  Twisted this by using pyramids cut out of posterboard, and laid on the floor instead of chairs.  I played "Walk like an egyptian" and "King Tut" off a kids cd, and took away a paper pyramid every time a kid was "out".  FOOD:  For cake, I made a regular, rectangle cake and cut it into a triangle.  I iced it and sprinkled it with crushed up graham crackers to look more "sandy".  I also made pyramid shaped jigglers out of apricot jello.  I found gummy bugs (scarabs) at the candy store in town.  I made gingerbread man cookies, and used white icing in a piping bag, just going back and forth with the icing to make it look like a mummy.  I got chocolate king tut's off of ebay, and served "pharoah punch" (kool-aid). 

TREAT BAGS:  I did a google search for "pyramid template" and found one for a very small pyramid.  I took it to the copy store and had it enlarged until it was big enough to actually hold something.  Then I cut them out and taped them together.  Inside, I put some chocolate coins (the ones covered in the gold paper), and a shirt.  My husband works for an embroidery company, and he got me t-shirts for about $1 a piece, and embroidred a few hieroglyphics on the front.  I folded them up and stuck them inside the pyramid with the coins before taping up the final side.  We have used these shirts before for parties, I've seen the kids wearing them all year long at school, and I found that a lot better than spending a ton of money on little toys that get lost or broken the same day the kids get home.  Each child got to take home their mask, their pyramid with t-shirt, and their bag of pinata candy and treasures from the sand-hunt.

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