Oliver, the oldest of our three children, turned seven at the end of May. Summer has flown by unfathomably quickly and I am just now finally getting to share with you all the details of his little Pikachu party!
As usual, it was a small family celebration – 12 of us total, including five kiddos. We love these intimate gatherings. It keeps the party nice and low-key. Plus, we have a small home and a small kitchen, so it makes sense to do it that way.
We purchased an invitation design from RedBearCo on Etsy. I emailed this image to all of the guests.
We shopped our paper globe lantern collection to create the backdrop inside as well as add some color outside in our back yard. In addition to the globes, we did purchase a few tissue paper puffs. These don’t store as well as the globes, so sometimes I end up having to throw some away, but I consider them still to be better than balloons and I actually was able to give away some of the tissue puffs on Buy Nothing for someone else to reuse.
If the yellow and gray fabric bunting looks familiar, it’s because I originally made it for Oliver’s WALL-E party last year. The colors just happened to work for this year too. Similarly, I used Oliver’s birthday crown from last year and just removed the red “6” and replaced it with a red “7”. I used Natalie Trusler’s e-book Magical Birthdays for Children as my guide for the fabric-covered elastic band on the back of the crown.
As party hats for the rest of the kiddos, I made these Pikachu ears out of yellow, black, and brown cardstock. I drew inspiration from this post on Kids Activities Blog. Party hats on a table or on a shelf are a nice decoration in themselves, but if kids have fun role playing with them, then that’s a bonus!
The hats only took an hour at most, but one of the more time-consuming parts of preparing for Oliver’s birthday, and my favorite part by far, was sewing these little Pikachu finger puppet favors. I used remnants of a sheet of bright yellow felt I had ordered from my favorite Etsy shop – LilSprigs. The felt was hand felted and dyed with osage orange. I had made a crown with it for my mom’s birthday in April. It comes in long 6 x 26-inch sheets so it’s perfect for crown making. But there was plenty left after the crown for the 10 Pikachu cutouts I needed to make 5 finger puppets. I adapted the pattern from this Pikachu plush tutorial by Mama in the Now. I wrapped the favors and a pack of Pokémon cards in a brown sandwich bag tied up with baker’s twine.
Brown paper and baker’s twine are our go-to wrapping style, so of course we also wrapped Oliver’s gifts this way. I had gray and yellow felted balls from Oliver’s WALL-E party, so I made some red felted balls to add and strung them all up into a garland.
The two main activities for the party were Pin the Tail on Pikachu and Poké Pong.
I used Stockmar watercolor paints and giant pieces of watercolor paper to create Pikachu and his tails. I wrote the kids’ names on each tail and tape on the backs. On each kid’s turn, we used a bandana to blindfold them and spun them around as many times as the number of years they were. It was silly to see many of the tails end up far from Pikachu’s bum!
I found a package of ping-pong balls at a thrift store so we painted them like pokéballs and made up a game we call Poké Pong. It’s basically a simple version of beer pong for kids (without the beer). The goal is to toss the balls into the jars. I covered half of each ball in tape to paint the red part and then Oliver drew the black details onto each ball. He also wrote point values on the jars. I’m learning that it is fun and meaningful to involve kids in the party prep. It takes patience and flexibility to turn a task over and let it go however it goes, but it is so worth it. The child feels pride about their creation and it makes them feel so special to be involved in the process.
Now on to the most important part of any party: the food! Here are a few things we ate and that we used to eat on.
I don’t buy paper plates and napkins anymore, but a sweet friend gave us these Pokémon ones! I put out a request on our local Buy Nothing page for anything Pokémon or Pikachu to use to decorate for the party. When the kids choose a character for their party theme, I like to mostly just decorate in the colors of the theme but then add a few more specific things here and there. My friend responded to the post saying she had these plates and napkins she had bought for her son’s birthday but couldn’t use them due to the pandemic and this year he had chosen a different theme. I am so thankful to have my “village” and for easy ways to communicate what we either need or have extra of. It reduces a lot of waste if we all work together and help each other out.
The pokéball appetizer was made of cherry tomatoes, black olives, and mozzarella pearls, and was served with bamboo skewers and a balsamic reduction.
My mom made this darling Pikachu cake for Oliver. He picked out a picture with the pose he wanted Pikachu to have. She executed it beautifully in 3D and even included his name in Pokémon font! He absolutely loved it.
I think the most magical part about children’s birthday parties is when they are all gathered around the cake with the candles lit. Thank you for letting me share this wonderful day with you!
If you’re planning on throwing a party soon, maybe consider investing in paper globe lanterns instead of using balloons, reusing or tweaking decorations from previous parties, making what you can by hand, buying secondhand, or asking your local Buy Nothing group. But don’t be too hard on yourself if the party creates some waste. I am always reminding myself that the goal is progress, not perfection.
