Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Sports Themed Birthday Bash


My daughter and son agreed to have a dual birthday party this year (thank goodness). I always let my kids pick the theme, so my son and daughter decided they wanted a sports party with all the sports that they play.  For them, that means baseball, softball, soccer, and basketball.  I stuck with those sports to carry throughout the party decor.


Invite:  I used simple geometric boxes and circular balls to design the invitation.  I am hoping to start an Etsy shop at some point to make the invites I make available to you, but it seems to be on the list of things that never take priority.


I asked all the guests to wear a jersey or sports attire to the party.  It was fun to see so many adults and kids dressed up! For my son and daughter, I asked my friend if she would make them some baseball tees.  She has an Etsy shop called Meraki Handmade + Kids, and she makes great stuff!  Check her out!


The front had their names and the back had our last name and then the number was how old they are turning this birthday.


My husband and I wore referring jerseys -- helped out when we were overseeing the party activities!


For the dessert/favor table, I made a scoreboard with the scores as each of my kid's age and their name.  The game time was the year, 2018.  I made this with poster board, cardstock, and my Cricut cutting machine.


My son wanted a soccer ball cake and my daughter wanted a softball cake.  I made two 8" round cakes and frosted them with the color of each ball.  Then I used a frosting tip to pipe on the details.  I created a stencil for the soccer ball with my Circut to help guide me for the solid black pentagons.  Then just piped on the lines to connect them.  Adding the green grass to bottom was easy and a good addition I think.


For the cupcakes, I made Funfetti cupcakes (my kids' request), and piped on white icing.  I didn't design my own cupcake wrappers this time.  I ended up purchasing some digital images from Etsy.  These were a basketball net, a baseball/softball diamond, and a soccer field with net.  I made cupcakes toppers with the same ball images I used on the invitation and made them 2" so I could easily cut them out with a circular punch.



I wanted to incorporate my kids photos from their years in sports so far, so I decided to use the photo buttons we get each year in the centerpieces of the tables.  I filled a pail with food items that went with each sport -- peanuts for baseball/softball, orange slices for soccer, and popcorn for basketball.  Then I taped the buttons to skewers to place inside.  I also printed out the same 4 balls that I used on my invitation to tape to skewers.  I used my Cricut to add embellishments to a 12x12 piece of cardstock to make a soccer ball pattern, basketball, baseball, and softball to place under each pail.




I decorated the food table with sports equipment and trophies from the kids sports adventures.


Menu:  We stayed simple with game day favorites -- hot dogs and chili nachos.  I also had a green salad and watermelon for guests as well as peanuts, popcorn, and cheese balls.


We had adult and kids drinks as well as a water station set up.


Party Activities:  My kids wanted a bounce house with a slide and basketball hoop.  I rented one that had that and was sports themed which worked out great.  We also borrowed this basketball game from a neighbor which was fun for both kids and adults.  The gladiator jousting set my husband picked up at Sams Club.  The boys had a blast with that.  We also had out some mini soccer nets for the kids to play with.  The original plan was to have a relay race with dribbling a soccer balls around some cones and shooting into the net, but we didn't end of up getting to that.


The one organized game we did have was water balloon batting cages!  This was so fun and perfect for a hot summer day.  Kids had the option of hitting off the tee or just regular pitch.  Each got three pitches each time they came up.


Favor: I bought white bags from Michaels and printed out basketballs, baseballs, softballs, and soccer balls to blue on the front with a colored background.  Simple and easy.

Inside the bag was either a soccer ball or a basketball stress ball (Party City), a box of Cracker Jacks to match with baseball, a basketball or soccer ball pencil (Party City), and some licorice that I put in a bag with a softball tag on top.


The kids had a great birthday celebrating with friends and family.  It wasn't very expensive for us to throw this party either which is always a plus.  Definitely some fun ideas if you are planning a sports birthday or team party!

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