8704

Detective Party - Government Issued Outfits

May 2004

Tonya in Minden, WV  USA

Special Mention

For my stepsister's birthday party, I threw her a detective party sleepover.  My stepmom and I went around town earlier that day and set up a travelling treasure hunt for her.  

Invitations: Official looking memos with the fbi logo on them instructing new cadets to report for fbi training and had all the information in paragraph form in the body of the memo  

Opening activity: When cadets arrived they were finger printed and given government issued hats and sunglasses (both were neon colored accessories from Oriental Trading) They had their official photograph taken and put in their file with their fingerprints. They were then given their briefcases (made from construction paper folded in half and a handle stapled on) these contained magnifying glasses, decoder watches (made from a piece of cardstock folded up matchbook style with a secret code written inside and stapled to a piece of thick ribbon that velcroed around their wrists) red film (like the kind used to decode the blue ink that has red scribbles over it. Btw, you can make those clues on the computer) mini flashlight and a color changing marker)

The girls were issued a training sheet that had one of each type of clue: a riddle containing one important word written in invisible ink and underlined (they scribbled over the underline with the color changing marker to reveal the answer to the riddle) a red scribble (when they layed the film over it, it revealed a clue) a clue written in tiny tiny letters they had to read with the magnifying glass and a clue written in code that they had to use the decoder watches to solve (hint: keep this clue short, the girls lost interest in decoding the longer ones). They were then sent back to the b-day girl's room to figure out their training sheet.  

Treasure hunt: While they were in the back, we laid their next memorandum out on the table stating that the Birthday Bandit had struck again. All the presents had been stolen. This was an extremely dangerous mission, the first fbi team had vanished and all that was found was the folder of clues they had collected. We put on the pink panther theme and called the girls back out (they loved strutting down the hall to the theme music)

Their first set of clues lead them to block buster video where the guy behind the counter gave them a manilla envelope with the fbi logo on front and told them that the first team had left this behind inside was a gift certificate for movies and candy and the next clues that they decifered right in the store (the employees and customers loved it, thought it was the cutest idea) These clues led them to the cologne counter at wal-mart where they were given another envelope and bubble bath and pouf. These clues led them to McDonalds in Wal-mart where they were given another envelope and gift certificates. They solved these clues while eating dinner in McD's these clues led them to the jewelry counter where they were given a heavy envelope and all four girls received ankle bracelets.

Inside this last envelope was a pair of handcuffs,a rhyme that said your almost there the thief can't be far, when you catch em, cuff em and take em to the car! A color changing invisible note with my step mom's initials and a computer print set up like a magazine cover that said Birthday Bandit Busted and had a picture of my step mom. She knew nothing about this last set of clues so as the girls closed in around her to cuff her, the look of shock on her face was priceless!!! The girls marched her handcuffed out of wal-mart shouting we caught the thief, we caught the thief! The girls and the staff had a hilarious time with that one. My step mom was a good sport  

One last treasure hunt: back at the house there was another memo stating that the queen's jewels had been stolen and the clumsy thief had dropped them all over the back yard. Our cadets had to go outside with their flashlights and find all the jewels (beads) in the dark. To make it a little easier we hid them inside easter eggs. Once back inside they were given elastic string and made bracelets and necklaces for themselves.   Then they had brownies and watched the video of last years sleep over. When I left, her guests were trying to commission me to come do their birthday parties, so I guess that means it was a success!

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