Magic Party

My sweet middle son D turned six a couple weeks ago and requested a Magic Party.

Most of the party ideas online mentioned hiring a magician.  I thought, “Score!”  My father-in-law was a Rodeo Clown for many years and had a few fun magic tricks he’d perform during his acts.  But he was going to be gone in Hawaii, so it was up to my husband to learn a few tricks. 

So with my husband as the magician and only a few games and activities, the party was a success.  It’s not hard to please a group of kids that age!

THE INVITES

I used my Silhouette to cut the invitations, just using shapes from Silhouette’s website.  The invites looked like a plain top-hat.  But we left the top of a bunny sticking out of the middle of two hats glued together so you could pull the bunny out of the hat.  On the bunny, we had all the party information the guests needed to know.

PARTY FAVORS

I made some simple bow ties attached to elastic.  I used the method in my tutorial here, but you can see that I cheated a bit.  I didn’t sew a tube for the middle piece of fabric. Rather, I cut it longer and wider, folded the ends in, then sewed and left the raw edge as pictured in the bottom right hand picture (there was excess fabric so it was easy to sew, that I just clipped off after sewing).  I used hot glue to keep the bow and elastic together.  Easy!

The capes were also really easy.  There was an 8 yard bolt at Wal-Mart of the thin, silky, non-fraying fabric that most cheap Halloween costumes are made out of.  It was only $5.00 for the 8 yards.  So I cut the shape of a cape, then some knit for the neck, which I sewed into a loop.  I then started in the middle of the cape and the seam of the neck loop so the knit seam was in the back and not the front.

I used my Silhouette to cut the hats and names for the favor bags.  The white bags I found at Dollar Tree, 2 for $1.00.

Also at the Dollar Tree were these Magic Kits.  Not all of the tricks worked for my kids, but they had fun with the ones that did!

I also bought some Trix cereal to put in their party favor bags.  I thought of the idea only because of THIS website, because you can purchase a Bag of Trix.  I thought it was a bag of the cereal at first until I read further–it really is a bag of magic tricks.  So that’s how this came about :). 

I added the a.k.a. tricks under the word Trix, because my kids and even a couple adults said, “So, what’s magic about the Trix?  What do they do?”  Kind of funny ;).  But you can download the bag toppers HERE—they fit a normal sandwich Ziploc baggie.

 

GAMES and ACTIVITIES

As the guests came, they tried to guess how many Jelly Bellies were in the jar. There were 123 and someone actually guessed 120!!!  Rather than letting that child take them all, everyone ate them.

Next they got their own wand to decorate.  I found an 8 pack of wood sticks at Joann for a dollar.  I tried to find some good stickers to decorate with, but didn’t find any I really liked.  So they used washable markers.  I wouldn’t recommend that because the marker got all over their hands.  Paint seems like it would be a little messy too, especially if it got on their clothes.  So I recommend stickers!

The third activity we did was like Hot Potato, only with a magician.  I found the idea HERE.   I just made an extra bow tie and cape for the puppy to be the magician, and my husband was in charge of starting and stopping the music from the another room.

The next game, also found HERE, was to have one person in the middle close their eyes, while the other people circle around him and pass the wand around.  When I said stop, the person with the wand hid it behind their back, and all the others in the circle put their hands behind their back also.  The middle person then opens their eyes and tried to guess who has the wand. 

Then, the moment we were building up to…my husband came out to be The Magician.  He did GREAT.  And looked even better with his bathrobe and ironing board he chose to use, ha ha!  I teased him about being some type of Housewife Magician.

I just love this next picture, despite it’s graininess, because D really was so amazed.  Dillon would perform a trick, and D would say, “Awesome!”  so sincerely!  Very cute.   (P.S.  I’m very much aware the D’s magician hat looks rather funny. That’s because it is indeed quite funny looking.)

B really enjoyed it also.  Dillon was pretty funny and if I wasn’t concerned about the privacy of the other kids more, I’d post some fun pics of the kids jumping and laughing.

We ate cupcakes and opened presents and called it a party!

I’m happy he chose to do this kind of party!  I was a little hesitant to agree, but seeing his happy face makes the challenge of some birthday themes totally worth it!