Knights and Dragons Birthday Party

Last year, it was Angry Birds. This year, for his 5th birthday, Cooper wanted Knights and Dragons for his theme, and what a fun party that made!

We made the invitations together. I made them in Ribbet because of all the fun fonts you choose, and then printed on normal paper. Cooper and I cut them out, and pasted them onto card-stock, stained them with tea, and burned the edges with a candle together (a trick I learned in 5th grade while making replicas of the Magna Carta).

When the kids came, they could make their own homemade pizzas and decorate their own shields while waiting for the others to arrive.

I made the shields from cake plates vs cutting out cardboard (thanks for the idea from Chicken Babies) , spray painted them silver,  and free handed some various crests onto each for them to color in with glitter markers. We used duct tape for handles on the back.

I also made tunics for each of the kids, with crests that matched the shields using felt I picked up at the craft store. For the crests I cut out, I used "heat n bond" to iron them on to each felt tunic.

Once all the kids arrived and made their pizzas, I had them put on their tunics, grab their shields, and get ready for a knight tournament (used game ideas from pinterest and chicken babies) Each kid had to jump over a moat (a blue sheet), that I made bigger and bigger until none of them could make the jump.
We then threw fire bombs (soft kid balls) at the kids as they ran from one side of the room to the other, and they had to block them with their shields.
After that, I made them each balloon swords, and they had to storm the castle (run up our stairs) and attack dragons (balloons) that were hanging from the walls. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the last two events since I was throwing balls and making swords.

After the tournament games, we ate pizza, fruit, and then it was time for the cake. I found the cake idea on  spoonful and use a simple white cake recipe vs the elaborate yellow cake recipe I used for his real birthday out of Joy of Cooking. I wanted to use swords for the fruit, but couldn't find them here in Germany, so I used skewers instead.

After cake, it was time to destroy the evil dragon that was attacking the castle (pinata). I gave each of the kids a real plastic sword (instead of the balloon swords from earlier) that they could hit the pinata with. Each kid must have taken 15 turns and that pinata would not break! We had to bust out a wooden stick and let Frank bash it open.

 Cooper then opened his presents and gave each of the kids their goodie bags. In each bag we put bubbles and a big bath bomb (dragon's egg) they can use in their bath that we made using our Lush Bath Bomb Tutorial. Plus, they had their new shield, sword, and tunic to bring home as well as some candy from the pinata.

I think this knight was pretty darn happy.