Ahhhhh....
Sweetheart G's kid birthday party is over, and it went well.
This year I decided not to buy any plastic toys or crap, and not to do party napkins, cups, or hats. It was all gonna be about things I could make to go with the theme, baby.
Sweetheart G came to me a couple of weeks ago and said, "Mom I'd like a knight party."
"You mean like a knights and ladies type of party?" I asked, just so I was sure I had the right '(k)night'.
"Ya... except without the ladies. Just knights. Doing, you know, knight things."
Cool.
Cool beans kiddo. I can totally do this.
I made clothes... okay, I made tabards which are really only simplified ponchos, and my mom helped me with the "pattern". But I figure if you put it on your body, it's clothes, and given my fear of making clothing... this has got to count. Sweet G went to the fabric store with me and choose all of the fabric and accents. I used some metallic gold fabric paint to personalize each one with the child's first initial. Each partygoer went home with a tabard, a belt, and a belt pouch.
To start the party out on a quiet note, they colored really cool heraldic shields stained glass window sheets. (Another cool find in Bellingham!)
Then each shield was cut out and taped onto a shield blank I'd made earlier. The shields are cardboard with aluminum foil on one side, and craft foil paper (recovered from my mom's basement) on the other. There are grommets in each one for hanging. The idea was that they could be hung up at home (and not used to bash each other at the party).
Every year we have a treasure hunt.
When the girls were little the hunts were photographs from around the house, then they were written clues. This year, with the knight theme, the hunt was a Knight's Quest filled with heroic deeds they needed to complete.
The clues started with headings like, "Test of Loyalty" or "Test of Agility". At the start, each of them was given a chocolate coin which they could use to buy hints or clues if they needed help. The first one, the one they are working on in the photo, was the "Test of Brains" which was to solve this code: "moorelprupehtnierittaylthginkruoydnif". Which is a phrase written backward without spaces between the words.
They did a really good job figuring it out. After they'd gone up to the purple room, per the clue, they got their tabards and play gear. I had a lot of fun coming up with all of the tasks, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. My favorite set of clues were based on a childhood game of mine and my favorite Brady Bunch episode.
First the seven kids were given a stack of 8 rectangles which were magic stepping stones with which they were to explore the Mire. The rules were that they had to stay within arms length of each other, they had to stay on the stepping stones, and they needed to find and collect the magic links scattered around the Mire. Each link had a child's name on it, only that Knight could pick up the ring. As they moved from stone to stone the last child handed the empty stone behind them up the chain of children to the one in front. They had so much fun, and worked together really, really well.
Once they had collected all of the links, they were set a task of grabbing a scroll which had been set on the step about 7 feet away, but they couldn't set foot into the entry (see the photo above). They could use any of the things they had collected on their tasks. The links were put together, but they were too short, so they used their belts to make a longer rope... just like in that Brady Bunch episode where the family gets locked in that jail cell in the Wild West town.. (Umm.. wanna talk sugar now?)
Sweet G said she didn't want cake for this party, so I made cutout cookies in a shield shape and smaller cookies they use for emblems on their shields.
The party went really well. By the end of the party they were all into the theme, even the kids who weren't sure about being Knights at the beginning. And did you notice? No swords. No bashing of each other. No brawls. And little e did start to cry about how unfair it is that her birthday is months away until almost everyone had gone home! And not a stupid plastic toy in sight! (Big kudos and thanks to Auntie O who came and spent the day helping me with the last minute prep for the party!)
