Minecraft inspired Birthday party

My kids love Minecraft the video game.  They play it together and separately and sometimes with me.  I'm secretly a Minecraft junky too (shh, don't tell).  When they aren't playing it they like to pretend they are in the game and our house turns into a mining/ building/ construction zone.  This is why I wasn't the least bit surprised when Myles and Marina both asked for a Minecraft birthday party.  I actually got a little bit excited because this is something I'm pretty familiar with and I knew we could make it really fun.  

If you're not familiar with the game, the most important thing to know is that everything is in blocks.  The buildings, the ground the monsters are all very blocky and square.  The idea behind the game is that you have to mine materials to build your house, town or city to protect yourself against the monsters that come out at night.  I wanted to incorporate blocks and the organic, rustic feel of the game into their party. 

The Decorations

It all started with these little paper printable Minecraft characters and blocks I found at PaperMinecraft.com and Minecraft Papercraft.com .  I printed them out months in advance just to let my kids play with them.  I was surprised they survived all the way to the party.  They were the perfect paper accent to our dessert table and a wonderful party favor to take home. 

To make the windows look like the Minecraft pixelated glass I outlined them in masking tape.  I saw this on Pinterest of course and can't seem to find the source now, but it worked wonderfully. There are quite a few very creative parties online.  

Crafts and fun stuff

The girls started out making jewelry boxes out of small plastic Chinese takeout boxes that I ordered from Oriental Trading company years ago. They used stickers from Martha Stewart, with buttons and ribbon to embellish their boxes.  

Then they made beaded bracelets to go in the jewelry box. 

Along with the bracelets and jewelry boxes I had headbands waiting for the girls with twisted fabric flowers. 

For the girls treat bags I added some ruffle and flowers to store bought canvas bags, that I found at Kauflands. Since it was such a boy oriented party I wanted to emphasize the "craft" in Minecraft for our girls, with fun crafty activities and crafty treats.  

For the boys of all ages I painted boxes to look like Minecraft masks.  We also had a cardboard minecraft swords that I made and canvas bags with a felt creeper on the front for the boys to take home. 

The Food

The birthday cake was a creeper head.  He is that green bad guy sitting next to the cake, that likes to blow up and destroy everything around him.  Myles loooves green so it was a no brainer what the cake should be.  I saw several versions of this online and just tried my best to recreate it without making it look too sloppy.  That probably didn't happen, I think it looks pretty sloppy, but Myles didn't care. He thought it was awesome. 

Marina requested I make an actual Minecraft cake.  In the game you can make cake and it looks exactly like these.  They are little brown squares with white on top and a  sprinkling of red squares.  Instead of cupcakes we had these little square cakes with white butter cream and red chocolate squares on top.  They were my favorite. 

There are also little red topped mushrooms in the game, which I replicated with marshmallows coated in red chocolate. 



The Red Stone is a stone that is used for electrical purposes.  I created a pop rocks chocolate candy for this that was really fun to eat. 

There were also chocolate covered Pretzel Torches,

We had green Zombie Boogies, since there are zombies in Minecraft.  I found the recipe for Green Zombie Boogers at Paper & Parcel.  A genius idea of dying caramel corn green and calling it a booger.  I love creative bloggers. 

Green Jello jiggler Slime Balls,

Creeper Crispies, which were just green rice krispy treats with a chocolate creeper face. 

There was Creeper Juice, or green HiC.  

Thanks to my husband we had a few not so sweet dishes.  He made Capresse mushrooms with mozzarella and cherry tomatoes on top.  

He also made a wonderful mushroom soup by Barefoot Contessa (one of my favorite ladies).

We had pizza cut into squares with square pepperoni, but I sadly forgot to take a picture.  There was a lot of food. 

To go along with the square blocky theme I cut the ice cream into squares, which made it very easy to serve.  

Happy Birthday Marina and Myles.  My two crazy Miners.  

~Sunny~

Gotta give Credit to

Photography: Sunny Duran and Laura Scott

Cake and all baked goods: Sunny Duran

Party printable decorations: Sunny by Design

Paper printable Minecraft characters can be found at PaperMinecraft.com and Minecraft Papercraft.com

Green Zombie Booger recipe from Paper & Parcel

Mushroom soup recipe from Barefoot Contessa

The company Mojang for the wonderfully awesome game of Minecraft

Playlist

If you're as nerdy and geeky as we are you might like our Minecraft playlist. I found all of these on iTunes.

Creepers are Terrible (a Minecraft Parody) by Dreamreaver23

Mine By Minecraft Parody by Dreamreaver23

Kingdom(a Minecraft parody) by Dreamreaver23

Skelly Heart (a Minecraft parody) by Dreamreaver23 

Revenge (Minecraft Creeper song) [feat.CaptainSparklez] by TryHardNinja

Minecraft World (feat. Brad Knauber) by Pedro Esparaza

Redstone: A Minecraft Parody by Brad Knauber

I Found a Diamond(feat. Tyler Clark& Bebop Vox) by Brad Knauber