18920

Webkinz Party -7yr- Carnival Arcade

November 2008

Leslie in Westerville, Ohio, USA

Special Mention

Webkinz Party-7 yr  My daughter wanted a Webkinz party for her 7th birthday. Of course I started by coming to this website for some ideas and then just took it from there! I throw crazy parties for my kids and in return they forgo presents and we collect goods/money for a charity. This year my daughter chose a local animal shelter.

INVITATION: I used coloured cardstock and envelopes (Michael's) and found some Webkinz clipart (the login screen page) to put on the front of the invite. It has a picture of several of the Webkinz animals, as well as the login button and Webkinz: come in and play on it. It is also very colourful. For the inside I made a Wheel of WOW. I cut out large circles and divided them up like a pie chart. I coloured each pie a different colour and cut out one pie piece. I then attached it to the inside of the invite with a brad so that you could turn the Wheel. Above each Wheel were instructions to Spin the Wheel of WOW. Each turn of the Wheel revealed a piece of information e.g. You're Invited! (Child's Name) Webkinz Party, Date and Time, (Child's name) clubhouse our address and Bring your favourite Webkinz or stuffed animal.

PREPARATIONS: After visiting the Webkinz website, I decided to recreate part of it I took several of the arcade games and brought them to life by making our basement into a carnival/arcade area. These are the games I made: Operation Gumball, Lily Padz, Wheel of WOW, Quizzy's corner, Where's Wacky, Magical Charm Forest and Candy Bash. The aim of the games, other than the entertainment value of course was to provide the kids with Kinzcash so they could purchase goodies from the W Store later on. It took a while to cut it all out, but it was well worth it! In addition, I made Arte's Curio Shop, the W Shop and recreated Dr. Quack's office. I also made big signs announcing each game  this served as decor too.

Operation Gumball was simply guessing how many gumballs were in a gumball machine (which we borrowed for the day). The child who was the closest won 10 Kinzcash and a small gumball machine which I picked up at a local Dollar Store. The rest all got some gumballs and 1 Kinzcash for playing. Lily Padz was also fairly simple  the aim of the game was to get your frogs to land on the lily pads. I cut out different size lily pads from green poster board, purchased plastic frogs from the Dollar Store and also found Lotus flowers (they were bath confetti in the shape of lotus blossoms Joanns). I put all of the flowers and lily pads on a blue table cloth to give the illusion of a pond. The different size Lily pads were each worth a different amount of Kinzcash (smallest won them more cash, largest won them less). What's a Webkinz party without a Wheel of WOW?

My husband constructed a wooden stand for me and I fashioned the wheel out of poster board. After I painted it, I adhered it to foam core to give it stability and rigidity. The kids simply spun the wheel and won whatever prize the pointer landed on (different amounts of Kinzcash, candy or small prizes I picked up at the Dollar store). Quizzy's Corner involved the kids answering age-appropriate trivia questions (I got all the questions from the Webkinz website and copied them onto note cards) Kids won Kinzcash for each correct answer. Where's Wacky is essentially a memory/matching game. I made a deck of cards by drawing Webkinz characters onto white poster board. After cutting them to size, I put a solid colour cardstock on the back side. Kids won Kinzcash for playing. For the Magical Charm

Forest game, I created a board game. I used foam core and drew out a series of squares moving around the board with start and finish squares (you roll a dice to move forward). On some of the squares were fairies, on others, wands, but the majority were blank. If you land on a fairy you get to pick up 1 card (from the deck I made, consisting of instructions like: You discovered a pixie pod, move forward 2 squares, You found the bad fairy, move back 1 square, as well as charm cards with Kinzcash amounts) If you land on a wand, you get to pick up 2 cards. I illustrated the board so that it looked like the Magical Charm Forest on the Webkinz website. The game pieces were fairies I picked up at the Dollar Store. Candy bash was a pinata I made from paper mache  made to look like Wacky! The kids loved it!

For Arte's Curio Shop I made paper mache rocks which the kids could just open with their hands (blow up a small balloon, cover with paper mache, crunch the top layer so that the rock has texture and spray paint brown). Inside each rock were several gems that the kids could then glue onto a crown also available at Arte's Shop. Dr Quack's office was quite cute. I made my own posters that were copies of those in Dr Quack's office  right down to his medical degree! I put these on the wall, put out a scale and set up an old changing table that has 3 shelves. The shelves were used for storing the doctor kits (I got a 60 piece lot off of ebay for $10) and the top for examining the Webkinz. I also made Dr. Quack hats (see craft projects on Webkinz site - http://www.webkinz.com/us_en/cc_craft_dr_quack_hat.html ) so that the kids could take turns being the Doctor himself!

THE PARTY: When the kids arrived, they were greeted by a sign saying Welcome to Webkinz World and a schedule of the afternoon's activities. To keep them occupied while the other guests arrived, they went to the employment center where their job was to make a name bracelet for themselves or a collar for their Webkinz . I presorted the alphabet beads for each child's name and put them into organza sachets (Dollar Store) along with stretchy cord. Once they got their name bag they strung pony beads and the alphabet beads onto the cording to complete the job. They could then put the collar onto their Webkinz/ stuffed animal that they brought or keep it in their bags. If they didn't finish, I just loaded up their bags with beads so that they could finish at home. Once all the guests had arrived, I explained that we were going down to the arcade and they could play games to win Kinzcash that they could spend later at the W Store. On the steps down to the basement was a sign pointing them in the direction of the arcade; once they got downstairs they were free to play the games in any order. Beforehand I asked a couple of neighbours to help man the games which turned out to be a really good idea!

The kids had a ton of fun playing all the games and soon it was time for the pinata and cake. We handed out small treat sacks for the candy from the pinata and then played Candy Bash. After the big scramble we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake. The table was set with solid colour plates, cups and napkins with the my kids Webkinz as decoration. I made the cake myself  a sheet cake covered in fondant with pictures of Webkinz characters hand-painted.  After cake and juice we went back downstairs to the W Store. At the W Store each child received a room for their Webkinz (I took Copy Paper boxes and covered the outside in white paper so the kids could decorate it to look like the outside of a house. I cut two seams of the box so that one side flapped down. The remaining 3 inside walls I covered in construction paper and made a carpet from felt.)

The kids could purchase various accessories for their room: windows (window frame made from white paper with a blue paper backing to give the illusion of sky), small picture frame (dollar section  Joanns), bulletin board (actually a cork coaster with a wood backing shaped like a flower-joanns), sleeping bag and pillow for Webkinz (I made these from coloured flannel  very cute!), hairdryer, mirror, brush set  doll size (dollar store) and table (made by my husband and me). At the W Store they could also purchase an outfit (tutu) for their Webkinz (Dollar Store), a princess kit (fabric tiara, wand, shoes combo that I got at the Dollar Store. The boys got a baseball combo), a tote I decorated beforehand for all their goodies and a Webkinz mystery bag (I took brown lunch bags and drew the Webkinz logo and wrote Mystery Bag on the outside. I filled the bags with lip gloss, jewelery, bubbles and a couple of other trinkets. Each item had a fixed price, but I made sure that each child got one of each.

Once they were done shopping and decorating their rooms (I had double sided tape to attach the windows, flower frame and bulletin board) they played until it was time for their parents to fetch them. All in all it was a very successful and enjoyable party. The kids (and parents) were blown away and are still talking about! Most importantly my daughter had a brilliant birthday! Thank yous: Since my daughter decided to forgo gifts and collect goods for the animal shelter, I took a picture of her at the shelter when we delivered the donations. We used this picture for the front of the Thank You note. I took plain white cards and printed Dear_______ Thank you for the ________" inside. She then wrote in the recipients name and thanked them for the appropriate gift. As mentioned we put a picture of her at the animal shelter on the front."

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