Pokémon Birthday Party

This Pokémon Birthday Party features a Pikachu cake and some SUPER fun Pokémon party games!

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My eight year old really wanted a Pokémon party this year to celebrate his 8th birthday. Of all the parties we’ve thrown, Pokémon is probably the one I have known the least about going into it. So I wanted to keep it pretty basic and not delve into too many characters. So we focused mainly on Pokéballs and Pikachu!

The centerpiece of our food table was a simple white tri-fold backboard, like kids use at science fairs. They are SO inexpensive and so much can be done with them! I covered the top half with red paper (Target Dollar Spot!) then ran a length of black Duck Tape along the seam. The “eye” of the Pokéball is black and white cardstock. It took about 10 minutes to put together.

I found the LEGO Pikachu and Squirtle characters here, and we analyzed the patterns to copy them. I Duck Taped them to the backboard to be sure they wouldn’t come off and break.

I also added the Pokémon trading card birthday invitation to the backboard.

This Pikachu cake was one of my easiest! I used my favorite chocolate pound cake and buttercream recipes to make it. I colored the buttercream yellow and iced the entire cake. The ears and tail are made with cardstock and attached with bamboo skewers. The eyes are black Sixlets, the cheeks are from a red sugar sheet, and the nose and mouth were drawn with an edible marker.

Birthday cakes are always a surprise for my boys. They get to pick the flavors but have no idea what it will look like. Only that it will have something to do with the theme of the party. My 8 year old LOVED Pikachu!

I kept our party food very simple this year. Just fruit, veggies, chips & dip, and cupcakes. To keep with the party theme, I served the fruit and chips & dip in the shape of Pokéballs! The Pokéballs on the cupcakes were handmade with melting chocolates and a candy mold. I was able to make these in advance of the party, saving a lot of time.

I used my cute cart to hold the lemonade. We also had coolers full of ice cold water and juice boxes.

On the 2nd level of the cart were 3 gift bags for the games we were going to play that day with all the kids. These were plain yellow gift bags that I decorated with cardstock and a marker to look like Pikachu. More on the games and the jar full of Pokéballs to come!

I had a gift table set up adjacent to the food table. The Pokéballs on the tablecloth were made from foam sheets that I cut up and pieced together.

The Pokémon art on the wall were some that I found on GroopDealz over the summer.

I found these Pokémon and Pikachu balloons as a set at Party City. The cost included the helium to blow them up. They were a bit pricey but TOTALLY worth it. Especially driving around in my car with a giant Pikachu waving at people out of my window!!

I also made some Pokéball lanterns to use in the party decor. They were made by wrapping Painter’s Tape and newspaper around the center and bottom half of the lanterns and painting the exposed area with red spray paint. The rest is made with just black and white cardstock.

We hung some of the lanterns over the food and gift tables. The rest we hung from trees in the front yard.

This was our biggest birthday party to date! We invited my son’s Cub Scout Pack as well as our usual assortment of cousins and honorary cousins (children of family friends). I think in total we had about 17 kids ranging from age from 1 1/2 – 9. For the last few years we have rented a bounce house for the weekend and it is always a HUGE hit with the kids. Plus it typically does not get picked up until Monday so all the cousins get to come back over the next day and bounce some more! We definitely get our money’s worth out of it.

I spray painted a ton of ping pong balls to turn them into Pokéballs. I wrapped them with black Duck Tape and used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out circles of black cardstock and white adhesive vinyl for the “eye.”

The kids loved getting to keep some of the Pokéballs as souvenirs, and I also used them for a quick and easy party game. I simply filled a jar full of them and had the kids write down their names and a guess of how many balls they thought there were. The closest guess would win one of the Pikachu gift bags!

With so many people, we also wanted to keep everyone entertained outdoors since we could not realistically entertain inside. So while the bounce house was a must, we also needed something else to keep the kids entertained. I made up our own version of Pokémon GO for the kids to play which turned out to be a HUGE hit!

I found a set of 72 Pokémon characters that are ~2-3 cm large. The reviews varied, but all of the characters I received look great! I hid 70 of them in our front yard, and we basically had a huge Easter egg hunt with them. The child that found the most would win a Pikachu gift bag. The child who found Pikachu would also win a Pikachu gift bag. This game kept the kids busy for a good 20-30 minutes. I let them keep what they found, and they LOVED that!

By the way, each Pikachu gift bag contained a new pack of Pokémon cards.

All of the kids were invited to bring their own Pokémon cards to the party to trade and battle. I think they had a lot of fun doing that, too!

And my little guy, as you can see, had an absolute blast! Which is really all a mama can really ask for.

 
Linking up to Flamingo Toes, Today’s Creative Blog, Tidymom, My Repurposed Life,
Tatertots & Jello, and other great parties found on my party page.