DOLLAR STORE MINECRAFT PARTYYY!
- Amy V
- Sep 24, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 26, 2018
SWELL L is finally into the DOUBLE DIGITS! What better way to celebrate than a sleepover MINECRAFT Birthday Party!
Swell L came early into this world, in the middle of September of 2008. Having a fall birthday has its advantages, but financially, it has some drawbacks as well. We just had to shell out a ton of money during the summer for summer clothes and baby D's birthday, not to mention the yearly Back-To-School shopping trip which has left us financially tapped. But Swell L is turning the big 1- 0! We have to celebrate it in a big way and what better way than to throw a traditional sleepover (with a minecraft twist). Despite our Big dreams, we had to stick to a pretty restrictive budget in order to pull off everything on L's want list.
So what do I do when I have to put something big together on a budget? I hit the dollar store BIG time.
Invitations
I did not want to waste a penny of the budget on a piece of paper that will get thrown away anyway. You can find a TON of printable minecraft invitation templates online. I found a simple template and printed them out at my local library (printer is on the fritz). It cost me nothing and introduced the theme.
cost: $0 plus one trip to the library with a cranky 2 year old.
Party Games
I was so happy to see that a bunch of ten year old girls can still have a blast with a few homemade party games.
We started the evening with some creeper toss. I used an old box and some cheap paint from the dollar store to give me a true creeper effect. For the bean bags I found a great pattern at draadje's blog and used beans I already had in my cupboard, it's a pretty easy pattern to follow and even a beginner crocheter could follow along (I should know!), you can find the pattern here. Don't crochet? I found some neat ideas on how to create easy, no-sew bean bags here. This game was basically free to put together, as I already had the craft paint on hand from previous projects. All it cost me was the time to crochet the bags, and they made a great extra little take home gift for the party guests at the end of the night!
Cost: 6 hours of my time :)
To keep things simple, (and costs down) a few of our other games centered around a bag of small marshmallows. We had fun with a few minute to win it challenges and a building competition.
Marshmallow Engineer Challenge:
Break into pairs and make a unique structure with as much height as possible! The girls had a great time with this one and I was surprised with what they came up with. I thought it fit the "building" minecraft theme of the party well and cost next to nothing to put together. A bag of small marshmallows, a package of toothpicks from the dollar store and you've got yourself a party game!
Cost: $3.50
Decorations:
The Dollar store is a great resource for all things party these days, and you can bet that it was my first stop for basically all of my party necessities. Balloons, streamers and some bristol boards really took up the lion share of our party decor.
We made a Nether Portal that led into the party room, using a piece of bristol board and some streamers. The kids got an instant kick out of this and my toddler spent the evening shimmying from room to room, it was great AND cheap.
I used different colored electrical tape to decorate the balloons and cups. The plates and napkins are from my local Dollarama.
Cost: $10
Grab Bags and Prizes:
At my party everyone gets a grab bag and everyone gets a prize (yeah I know, I'm that kind of mom). We bought an entire bag of red paper bags from the dollar store for $1.25 (notice a theme here?), and put a piece of masking tape across the front of each one. I used a black magic marker to make the TNT symbol and voila, minecraft grab bags for all! Inside we stuffed them with candy and hair bands, all of which came from, you guessed it...the Dollarama.
At the end of all the games, each party guest got to choose a prize balloon to pop. I stuffed those puppies full of pom poms, hair bands, small candies and the like. The total cost for all of the prizes and grab bags was minimal and did not exceed $20, but no one walked away unhappy or empty handed!
The Food:
This one is always important at any party. My daughter wanted Minecraft themed snacks, so away to pintrest I went. Our snack table had healthy and sweet options and we did not go overboard with the choices.
I made some simple snack cards but you can get some beautiful free printable templates here. To keep things simple we just used some carrots and strawberries from the market, some licorice and pretzels from our local DOLLAR STORE and some blue jello for our "water". The kids loved it and there wasn't a snack left in sight.
Le Piece de Resistance was the cake. I'm particularly proud of this cake, but in truth it was one of the easiest cakes I have ever made. Pintrest and Google are packed FULL of DIY minecraft cakes that look relatively easy to make. Don't shy away from making your own themed cakes, even a novice decorator is capable of more than what they think they are, and everyone will appreciate the effort you went to make the party extra special.
I made the minecraft characters out of my marshmallow fondant recipe a few days in advance and put the whole cake together in about 2 hours. I used marshmallow squares as my "sand blocks" and extra firm blue jello for my "water blocks".
I will be doing a later post on how I put this cake together, including a fondant character turtorial so check back on the blog in the coming weeks!
Cost: including snacks and cake supplies $20.
What we lacked in funds this year we made up for in crafty-ness and the result was a simple, fun and INEXPENSIVE Minecraft party. Swell L and her friends had a great time and were still talking about it on Monday morning, I'd say this mission was a success!
What crafty, money saving party tips have you tried? Comment Below!
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