Poppin Party Ideas from the Past...

Ok, so out of my 7 kids my two oldest are recently married and my "baby" will be turning 12 this March. Which means I haven't done a kid birthday party in a while but I know that sometimes it's hard to figure out "themes" for older kids and party guests so, I'd like to share my party ideas that I've done relatively recently in my next several posts. I'll try to dig out the pics as I go and post as many as I have!

Mafia Party

A Few of our guests AKA "The Family"

We had just moved from Jersey to somewhat of a southern state. My son was turning 20 and I wanted to throw him a big bash with his new friends. I thought it'd be hilarious to host a Mafia theme birthday (especially since my husband is Italian and my son can pull off a great mafia persona!) So here's how it went down....

The Invites

This was a little hard since the party was a surprise so I had to pull a picture from my son's past that would sorta fit in this theme. So here is what I came up with...

We passed these out to his friends and asked that they dress according to the theme. They parked down the street and came in through the back door! Each guest was then greeted and given a choice of a "Name tag" for the evening..."Scar Face", "Itchy Fingers", "Machine Gun Louie", "Lips", "Fat Sally", etc...We also had mafia style party hats and sunglasses to hand out to those who wanted them!


The Setting

In order to set the "feel" of the party we put a few things around the house...first I took pics of myself, hubby and the kids and hung them on the wall...(and lets not forget the dawg!) We had music from "The Godfather" soundtrack playing in the background and some strategically placed props such as our police department mug shot height chart (which we used later as part of our thank yous).











Food!

A true Mafia theme party would not be complete without Italian food!! So here's what was on the menu:

• Baked Ziti
• Chicken Marsala
• Italian Bread
• Fresh Mozzarella & Tomato with fresh basil & Balsamic
• Bottles of Sparkling Grape Juice in plastic stemware
• Homemade cannoli (OF COURSE!!!!!)
• Gambling Table Birthday Cake as part of our theme

  

The "Birthday Boy"

 We had an awesome time hanging out and playing games, one of which was the "Mafia" game played with cards.

Before each guest left, we took front and side view pictures of them in front of our police department height chart. Here are some of the front facing pics we took....

After the party we used these to make Thank You post cards to mail to each guest.



Post Card Thank You



Post Card Back



Favors

OK. The final touch to theme birthday parties is the party favor. What will you send home with your guest that will carry the feel and the fun of your party home with them? That's the question to answer when deciding on a party favor. In this case, I chose to make tee-shirts. One for each guest.

The way you know if your guests liked your choice of favor is by how many people take one!!! Well, the kids liked these...I had none left over!! I bought the shirts when they were on sale at AC Moore. Maybe a dollar each??? I simply painted them with acrylic paint! I made my own stencils, put cardboard inside each shirt and painted it on. I won't say it was easy, but it was simplistic!

This party was GREAT FUN and still really exciting to talk about. Everyone loved it and since this was our first party in a new state, sorta set the stage for future parties! So I now have much to live up to!!!!

Here are some more pictures that we took at the party. Enjoy!

The Guys

IDK...Musical prize, I think. See it flying in the air?

My two oldest children!

My two oldest daughters & a friend.

Too much sparkling cider??

My oldest & youngest daughters (center)

The Girls & the "Mob Boss"

It's ok, it's only cider!!

Cigars were only props!!