An Angry Birds birthday party! (And my FREAKING PINATA adventure...)

Sorry to those who've been waiting for this! (Also, remember if you can click on any of the pictures to see them bigger.)

Back in November my son turned 8 and wanted an Angry Birds birthday party. Well I don't know what I was thinking, but for some insane reason I agreed. It all turned out fantastic, but it was quite the undertaking. Anyway, since then I've had quite a few people ask me to post pictures and links and what not, so here goes...

First of all... the FREAKING PINATA. I have two words for you on this subject...

NEVER AGAIN!

So Josh wanted a pinata, right? Well Little Miss NOT CRAFTY Me first tried to buy one. I couldn't find one, even after scouring the internet. Apparently they don't exist for sale. So I looked up how to make one. Newspaper strips dipped in liquid starch, slopped on a balloon, dry, and repeat... Didn't sound too hard, so I said okay. Little Josh was so excited.

Josh decided he wanted it to be one of the pigs because in the game it's the pigs that get beat up, not the birds. Made sense to me, so I thought okay, the pigs are round kind of like a balloon, so it shouldn't be hard. I can do this. So I went to the store to buy a balloon and I stood there thinking that a regular balloon would make a very small pinata, so I asked if they have any large balloons. They did, and the shape of it when blown up was like a tomato. Perfect for the pigs who are also shaped like a tomato. Awesome. So far so good. And then I got home and started putting strips of paper on this giant balloon. HOLY FREAKING FREAK!

Oh, making a pinata is easy all right. It's a very brain-dead process that any moron could do. All the websites say it's easy. They aren't lying. What they don't tell you is how time consuming it is. I spent HOURS upon HOURS upon HOURS paper macheing that FREAKING PIG!

3 WEEKS LATER...

I have created the awesomest FREAKING PINATA that ever existed, and Joshua has the awesomest MOM that ever existed. (And he better remember that for the rest of his life!) Seriously, though, is that cool or what? (Also, my awesome husband helped with the face or it would have looked like crap because I have no artistic talent whatsoever.)

Being my first pinata ever, I was worried that it would be too flimsy, and that the first kid to take a swing at it would destroy it, so I made sure to follow the directions and cover the balloon completely three times, letting it dry out for 24 hours between each layer. But what do they mean when they say layer? If they mean every newspaper in the city of Maricopa wrapped around that giant balloon, then I think I got it right. If not, I may have gone a bit overboard. By the time I was finished, that pinata could have doubled for a bike helmet. I'm not kidding. That beast was solid. We let those kids go at it was a baseball bat.

After every kid had a turn we still had to let the big kids intervene in order to get the stupid thing to break. Which they did... like this...

Which eventually turned into this...

So that was the pinata...

We also did a "Golden Egg" hunt. This was much easier. Plastic Easter eggs hidden in the yard and the kids who found the three yellow ones won prizes. 

And of course, what good is an Angry Birds birthday party if you can't play Angry Birds? I've seen this done lots of different ways on line and we went with homemade sling shot and cardboard blocks with the plush animals. The kids got to build their own levels... 

And then knock them down like so...

This was a huge hit, and I must thank my parents for putting the slingshot together for me.  (Grandma and Grandpa you guys ROCK!) My mom sewed a square of material for the pouch and used medical tubing (available at most pharmacies I think) for the ends. The slingshot worked great for the older kids and we just let the littler ones throw the birds. 

WARNING: SLINGSHOTS TURN ALL ADULT MALES INTO IDIOTIC BOYS AND REQUIRE ADULT FEMALE SUPERVISION AT ALL TIMES.  (I'm just saying...)

So there you have it folks. A very Angry Birthday!

As far as decorations go I didn't do too much (I was so over it all by the time I finished the FREAKING PINATA...) Some simple things I did do was get all the paper products in different solid "Angry Birds" colors. Red Yellow Green Blue..... And the cake I had done by the wonderful people of Wal-Mart. (Why bake myself what I can have someone else bake for me tends to be my motto...)

 

The cute thing I did do was the party hats. I got plain party hats (again in "Angry Bird" colors) and turned them into the actual birds. They turned out great and the kids LOVED them. They were really easy to do and unlike the FREAKING PINATA were fast. I found these great templates online at the Party Animal Blog I just printed off the templates, cut them out and glued them onto the hats. Easy Peasy.  

 

So cute, right? And so easy! On the Party Animal website she has all kinds of ways to use these templates. Balloons, goodie bags... I was going to do the goodies bags too but I just ran out of time. For those I just used regular paper lunch bags in the Angry Birds colors. Good call doing the hats and not the bags because the kids crumpled up their bags when putting their FREAKING PINATA candy in them, and they just had a blast with the hats. If you are planning an Angry Birds party I highly recommend the hats... 

Okay, I really think that about covers it. Happy Birthday Little Josh! Mommy loves you. (Even after the FREAKING PINATA request.)