For my son's 7th birthday he decided on a pokemon theme. I ordered invitations online that had graphics of Pikachu (his favorite character) This saved me alot of time since there was nothing to write out or create on my own"-his birthday is right after the christmas holidays and always sneeks up on me. I rented a large room with a stage at a local restaurant. I ordered the decorations online and the party favors off e-bay. Thank goodness for e-bay because it is impossible to find pokemon party favors anymore. Before the party my husband made a standing pikachu out of plywood and painted it-it looked just like pikachu.  He cut 5 holes (varying in size for difficulty)and the mouth out to make it a bean bag toss game. One thing my son really wanted was to "trade" pokemon cards-problem is most of his friends didn't know to much about pokemon and some had no cards at all. So to solve the problem I purchased each child (20 were invited)a photo album(the ones you get for a $1)and I made a cover page for each book that read "Child's Name Pokemon Book"  I went trough all of my childs cards and put all the repeats in a pile (you can also by cards in bulk on ebay for cheap)I then put 13 cards each in the books to trade. I used extra cards to decorate the table here and there. As the children arrived I had two crafts for them to do-make Pikachu ears and decorate a Pokeball-both very easy. Ears were made with yellow construction paper and thhe pokeballs were foam balls that they colored on with crayon. I also had their books at their placemats and they were thrilled to see their name on their very own book--the kids loves trading cards and the pokeballs were a big hit.  After that we had pizza then on to more games.  WE took advantage of the stage in the room and did all our games up there. First was the bean bag toss then musical chairs. Before the party I purchased some pokemon pogs off of ebay and put one in each baloon-I only put one pikachu in so when we played the pokemon stomp game each child sat on their baloon till it popped and the one with pikachu one a prize. After that we played dance/freeze to pokemon music.  As each child got out I put a pokemon tatoo on them. Last one won a prize.  WE had the kids sit back down and sang happy birthday and ate cake.The cake was in the shape of pikachu that I had done from a local baker. I knew my son would be picky about what part of the cake he got so I had the baker make a smaller version of the cake just for him. After cake we did the pinata once it was roke open I handed each child a empty bag to collect their goodies in.  We colected all the bags and put all prizes and books in each childs bag and set them at the front of the room for east pickup as parents arrive.  We asked all the children to get the present they brought and to go sit on the floor of the stage.  WE had the birthday boy sit in a chair and put another chair next to him. Each child took turns sitting next to him while he opened their present (great for pictures) By this time parents were arriving and the party was over before we knew it.  Our party was from 12-3. It was a really fun party to plan and do. I think I had as much fun as the kids did!!!   "