Sierra's 8th Minecraft Birthday

Sierra turned 8 on Friday the13th! She has been dreaming about her Minecraft party for months now. I must say this was the most challenging party I have ever prepared for. There was so much prep work...like sanding 19 pick axes which my husband cut out for us. I forgot how much I HATE... dislike sanding!

 There were so many ideas I wanted to do but we ran out of time to get them all done. A lot of the inspiration for the party came from HERE.

The whole party focused around a scavenger hunt. The hunt led the kids to find cubes which they used to craft items which we then made, or they received items Sierra and I made for them as prizes.

For the hunt I dyed little wooden cubes (blue for diamond, green for emeralds, drew on a stick for sticks etc). These were used to make the items you use while playing the Minecraft video game. Below the cubes are being used to make a diamond pick axe. In exchange for crafting the pick axe on the cardboard crafting table they were all given a wooden pick axe to paint as their first activity.

 Everyone is busy below painting their pick axes.

Next we listened to another clue in the scavenger hunt and the kids all raced off to find the three trunk tree (little did I know we had three on the property). Here they found emerald cubes and they had to craft emerald armour for protection.

 We couldn't make full armour so after crafting their armour on the crafting table they were given a bag of beads and we created protective bracelets each adorn with their name.

Next up their clue led them to find sand and gun powder blocks to make TNT (which was wrapped up licorice...see two pictures down of the TNT and bead bag for the name bracelets).

Their next clue didn't make them find any cubes it was just for fun...their clue led them to the strawberry patch where they found green powdered strawberries hidden among the unripe green berries growing. The strawberries are so late this year.

 Some of the other clues led them to cubes and they had to create a torch and received a glow stick, or they found cubes to make a fishing rod and then fished for a Minecraft magnet Sierra made. They also created a bow and arrow with string and stick cubes. They were then given a slingshot (instead of a bow and arrow) and had to knock down the pop can Endermen.

Another clue led them to the pin the mouth on the middle head of the wither and everyone won a Minecraft pin.

I didn't get pictures of every clue but the kids all had a lot of fun racing around looking for the cubes to craft their items.

For one of the clues they won Minecraft necklaces that Sierra and I made. The pins and the necklaces were created using THESE and THESE graphics. Here's a picture of a couple of the prizes with the take home treat cups that I made by drawing a creeper face on green cups from the dollar store and filling them with green candies.

Next up was snack time. I planned on creating little tags for all the foods as they corresponded with items in the game but I ran out of time. We had marshmallow mushrooms (these were super cute), pretzel torches, watermelon slices, carrots, grapes for slime balls, blue Gatorade for the blue water drink, chocolate chip cookies, square sour cube candies and pudding 'dirt' cups. I really wanted to make red Jello for lava and rice krispie sand, dirt and grass squares but we ended up with so much food since only 8 of the 19 kids that were supposed to be here showed up due to illness so I am thankful we ran out of time to get it all made.

Next was the cake which Meadow made for us. I am so lucky she likes to bake!

After cake time was presents.

Then it was piñata time (Meadow made this too). Thanks so much Meadow you really made Sierra's day :)

All in all everyone had a great time. There was a lot of prep ahead of time but it was all worth it in the end but I am thankful to have this one behind us!