darkSpyro

We threw my son a Skylanders party for his 11th birthday today. Previously I had posted about gathering info and ideas about other Skylanders parties, cakes, etc. We came up with some new ideas, used some found elsewhere, and didn't have time to do nearly as much as we wanted to do. Here's what we pulled off, and what we didn't have time to get to.

INVITATIONS
I designed and printed these 8.5" x 5.5" double-sided invitations to mail or hand-deliver. I used a vector version of the S:SA logo I had sourced a while ago, unbent the "Spyro's Adventure" text, built the missing letters I needed, then rebent the text to fit. The background is from a PDF of the S:SA Wii manual. The characters and islands are PNGs pulled from the Giants web site (I enhanced their resolution and fixed the ragged masking). The magic symbol is vector art I sourced early on.




BANNER
I used the same graphic assets to make this 60" x 24" banner. It's printed on glossy paper.



CUPCAKES
I printed character bio pictures onto card stock and cut them out with a scrapbooking circle cutter. I printed the rock texture from PNGs off of the Frito-Lay promo sites, and added portal logos from a PDF of the Wii quick start guide. These were printed on card stock and taped into rings to fit the cupcakes. The grass is paper fill left over from Easter, and the rocks are jelly bean rocks.



WEAPONS
For Trigger Happy, I disassembled a Nerf Maverick blaster and painted it in outdoor durable gold spray paint (except for moving parts). After reassembly it still works perfectly. I would have painted two, but I ran out of time. For Flameslinger, I painted a toy bow and arrows in the same gold. We also purchased the Chop Chop sword and shield. These became props on the cake table, but served another purpose too (see below).



GAME
I used some of the promo screen grabs posted online to build this target game. I added targets and point values to the images. Each 60" x 42" panel is printed on glossy paper stock. Using the suction cup darts and arrows from the weapons above, players shoot to hit the targets. The suction cups stick to the glossy printed surface. Each panel is worth 100 points, with the Whirlwind panel having two skill shots worth an additional 100 (for a game total of 500). Closest player to 500 was the winner.



We also had a S:SA 1-on-1 arena tournament.

GOODIES
We gave away our multitude of extra Boomer and Wrecking Ball figures from the Frito-Lay promo as goodie bag fillers (this is what we intended to do when winning these figures). I also had to get some extra figures to have enough for everyone (bought 6 extras at Best Buy last week on the buy-1-get-1 deal).

I printed copies of the papercraft activities from the Spyro's Universe site (portal, tower, lair, ballista; forgot the balloon) and gave them to the kids. I also printed the Giants collectors poster on cardstock and gave those away as well.

Some Prism Break rock candy lollipops and handfuls of bagged candy rounded out the bags.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
I had planned to build some much more complex games, but was too busy to get to them. The target game was originally going to be a wood panel with rotating circles featuring a chompie on one side and a gold coin on the other. The Trigger Happy blasters were to be used to shoot the chompies and make the circles flip over to the coin side to register a point. We were also going to have a Gill Grunt game with a Super Soaker blaster used to shoot through tissue paper targets. A Stump Smash whack-a-cyclops game would have been fun too, with wearable stump hands (like Hulk hands). Oh well.

I was going to make a Kaos piñata, with a head full of candy and black crepe paper streamers hanging off the bottom for his robes. Ran out of time, and couldn't find a piñata of the right size and color to modify into his head.

I was going to build a kid-size half-portal and hang a shiny mylar curtain behind it. The kids would have grabbed a weapon and struck a pose on the portal for a picture. I would have imposed the party logo onto the photo and printed them out for the kids to take home. Again, just ran out of time.

I really wanted to give away bags of chocolate Trigger Happy coins, but they won't be readily available until closer to Hanukkah.

WRAP-UP
A good time was had, games were played, and Zach got enough money to cover his pre-order portal owners pack and a bunch of Giants figures. Feel free to use any of our ideas for your Skylanders party.

I wish I had that party as a kid.
awesome job!

This is the cutest thing ever! What a lucky kid.

Great job with that birthday party. Where did you get all those large target posters on the fence printed?

ShaneG.

AWESOME

I want a sidekick cupcake

It was lacking a Sp--- *shot*
Naw, seriously man, nice job. That stuff is all awesome. I especially like how the cupcakes are shaped like Portals with the Skylanders on top like they're being summoned.