Here are some ideas on a child's Sports-themed Birthday Party - Enjoy!
My little boy just turned one year old! When I was trying to decide on a theme, I listed all of the things he is really interested in right now, and the top two were climbing and balls. There are so many options and ideas for a sports/ball themed party, so balls it was!
Invitations: You have to grab your guests attention! For the invitations I made "ball" invites. I purchased all of my paper from Michael's (craft store), and luckily I had the envelopes already. I spent about $15 on invitation type paper and made about 23 invitations. I used orange paper as the main piece and used other colored paper to make a combination of different sports balls. I used white, textured paper for a baseball; blue, glitter paper with red construction paper cutouts for a soccer ball; brown paper for a football, and I let the orage paper show through for a basketball. I bought black paper to use inside of the card, to look like a scoreboard, and used leftover orange paper to print the verbiage on. If I had, had more time I would have liked to have printed the invitation verbiage directly onto the invite, but it took about a week as it was.
First, I found a bowl about the size I wanted the overall invite (be sure it will fit in your envelopes). I made a few mockups on plain white computer paper first as tests, and used those as my pattern. These were very helpful to me in measuring each of the "pie" pieces. I cut the pie pieces out of one of the patterns so I could use that to trace onto the white, blue and brown paper.
I folded the orange sheets of paper and traced the ball/bowl onto it, leaving the folded edge as the fold of the invitation, and cut those out. Then I traced each "pie" piece and cut those out. I used red crayon for the red stitching on the baseball piece and a white crayon for the lacing on the football piece. I used red construction paper to cut out the hexagons for the soccer piece and used black sharpie for the basketall lines. After gluing each piece to the fronts and letting those dry, I cut the black rectangles out for the scoredboards. I used silver paint pen for these and used "Come Have a Ball" as the invitation intro and then made it look like a scoreboard. I had originally planned to glue these to the front in the center of all of the ball pieces, but once the fronts were done, I thought it would take away too much from them. So I pasted them inside at the top of the main panel. Then I typed up the logistics for the party in Word on our computer and printed those onto leftover orange paper and cut and glued those to the inside and they were done. I spent about 1-3 hours each night for about 5-6 days, and made 22-23 invitations. I used craft glue, sisscors, and those materials listed above.
Activities: I wanted something the kids could crawl around in and play in, so I gathered large cardboard boxes, which I got from my family's ice machine/refrigeration business, to make various sports goals, batting cage, etc. You could call around to businesses such as these and ask to pick some up. I made a football goal, a batting cage, two small soccer goals, and a golf hole. They didn't look professional, but they served their purpose. For the batting cage, I just cut one face of the box off and then used that discarded piece as the batter's box. I then, broke apart the rest of the box so it would have three panels, like a batting cage. I painted the box like a fence and painted "Batter Up!" in the middle. Then we set a baseall tee, bat and baseballs out in front. The trick to this was getting it to stay up. You're going to need heavy duty staples, packing or duck tape, and probably some pieces of wood and/or rocks for back support.
For the football goal post, I laid the box on it's side, so that it was more rectangular. Then I cut a large rectangle leaving 3-4 inches at the bottom and on the sides to paint those as the goal posts. Then I put two small boxes underneath so it was more like a miniature goal post. I painted "Touchdown" on the inside of the box and I now realize, that would be a field goal, so that was my error! My one-year old didn't care though. He just wanted to crawl under it and throw the footballs in it.
I used small box for the golf hole, cut a large hole in it and painted it green, then surrounded it with a green sheet and some mail packaging to fill the sheet around it. For the soccer goals, I used two of the smaller boxes, and cut squares into one side each, leaving 3-4" around the top and sides to paint as the soccer goal, and painted "GOAL!" inside each one. Then I bought a set of orange cones at the Dollar Tree, for, you guessed it, $1!
We also had a few pools around the backyard, because it's late July in East Texas and that means H-O-T!
As for snacks, I just bought some Capri Suns and Cheez-It Party Mix and put that into little cups for the kids to snack on. That was a big hit. If this had been for older kids I would have gone for popcorn, peanuts and crackerjacks. I did have hot dogs with chili and nacho cheese for the adults.
Cake/Cupcakes: I made cupcakes for the kids that each looked like one of the balls from the invitation, and then I made a two-layer round cake that looked like the invitation for the party. I went with the regular Betty Crocker cake mix ($1) and regular icing ($1 ea). I did buy a tube of cookie icing, thinking that would work best and it didn't. I ended up using the cake icing and food coloring to get it the right color. That was kind of fun.
I made the cupcakes first. Let them cool COMPLETELY. Then iced the football ones with chocolate icing and used plain white icing in a ziploc baggie with the tip of a corner cut off, for the white lacing. I used ziploc baggies with the corner tip cut off for all of the ball detail icing. For the baseball cupcakes I used white icing and then made red icing to resemble the stitching. I made orange icing by mixing food coloring and white icing for the basketball cupcakes, and used chocolate icing for the lines (it looked close enough to black). I made blue icing with food coloring and white icing for the soccer balls, which I was never happy with. The blue was never dark enough and the soccer cupcakes didn't look like soccer balls to me, but I did my best. :)
For the two-layer round cake I did the same thing as above, just on a larger scale.
My total time in the kitchen, including mixing, baking, cooling, icings was about 3 hours. And get ready to get lots of little bowls and spoons and knives dirty for all of your assorted icing colors. Don't forget the ziploc baggies either. And be sure the frosting is at room temperature and that your cake/cupcakes are completely cool.
Party Favors: I bought little ball whistle necklaces at Wal-Mart for $2+ for a 4-pack. I bought hats and water bottles at Michael's all for a $1 each, and then bought little stick on cut outs of various sports balls and stuck those on the caps. The party favors were a big hit too, especially the whistles. The parents weren't too thrilled about those, but the kids were.
All-in-all it was a great party. It was fun going around to the different sports stations and then cooling off in the pool. Any questions? I'd be glad to answer them!
Cost Recap:
Invitations: less than $15 (plus postage)
Cake/Cupcakes: $7 (box mix (2), 3 tubs of icing (only used 2), "1" candle, cupcake holders)
Sports Goals:$0 (gathered boxes for free, had paint)
Snacks: $7 (Capri Suns, Cheez-it Mix; the hot dogs, chips, dips, water, cokes were all more, but that was more for family, not for the party)
Party Favors: $17 (hats, water bottles, stickers, whistles for 6)
Estimated Total $46-50
Now Go Have a Ball!
