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Candyland Party 5yr - Rainbow Trail

January 2005

Esmeralda in San Antonio, Texas   United States

January 2005 Winner

For my daughter's fifth birthday party we are planning a Candy Land themed party.

For invitations I found some really cute postcards on the Hasbro site and am going to print those out and use those as the invites.

For decorations I am making a path out of fun foam squares leading up our driveway to resemble the ones on the game board. We are making a big arch to put at the entrance to our backyard. The sides of the arch will be PVC pipe with red tape to make the stripes to look like giant candy canes. A wood cut out across the top will read "Candy Land". A wood cut out sign of an arrow will point the way to the Gingerbread Tree. We are making a lifesize gameboard by painting the gameboard onto a very large canvas tarp. Along the edge of the tarp in the respective places we will set out the characters and their areas. For the Gingerbread tree we are making a wood cut out, painting it and decorating it. I am using small purple balloons to add to the tree for the gingerbread plums. This will later be used for another game. For Mr. Mint and Peppermint Forest I am using those lawn decorations of candy canes and sticks and also making additional ones using thinner PVC pipe and red tape. I am blowing up to poster size, a picture of Mr. Mint which I will mount onto foam board, attach a wooden stake to and set up in that area. I will scatter fake snow on the ground in Peppermint Forest. For Jolly in the Gumdrop Forest I am going to use a stuffed dino who resembles Jolly and making gumdrops out of styrofoam balls cut in half and painted with a glittery paint. For Lord Licorice I am also blowing up to poster size a pic of Lord Licorice.

I am using a Color Your Own Castle for Lord Licorice's castle and hanging little plastic bats off the house for Lord Licorice's chocolate bats. For Gramma Nut's house I am using a Color Your Own House and decorating it with a rubber stamp of a peanut to resemble the peanut brittle house. I am also putting up a Gramma Nut blow up. For Lolly,I will do the Lolly blow up. I am making lollipops using cardboard circles wrapped in colored cellophane and then instering a long green floral stick to put it into the ground. You can also use styrofoam discs wrapped in colored cellophane instead or cut circles out of a cardboard box and wrap in the cellophane. For Gloppy, I am using a Gloppy blow up. I am also setting up a one ring inflatable pool to use as Chocolate Swamp. I am filling it with goodie bags of chocolates. This will later be used for another game. I am also making chocolate cattails out of styrofoam shapes painted "chocolate" and dowels or floral sticks to set up around the swamp. For Princess Frostine, I will also use a blow up. I am using a one ring inflatable pool here also for Snowflake Lake. I am filling it with fake snow and snowball cupcakes. I found some foam snowflake garlands I will use to decorate this area as well as some very large plastic snowflake Xmas decorations. For King Kandy and his castle, I am using the blow up of the King and another Color Your Own Castle for King Kandy's castle.

The tables will have different colors of tablecovers (using the colors of the squares on the gameboard). The plates will be in one color such as red, the cups in another such as blue, etc. I am making gingerbread house centerpieces for the tables using some clay gingerbread houses I found at Michael's. I will be adding the accents using accents I also found at Michael's. I am also making some candy centerpieces using giant lollipops stuck into a piece of styrofoam placed in the bottom of a candy cane striped tin bucket. I will also add a big foam cut out of the game piece to the centerpieces. I am lining the edges of our gazeebos with small different colored balloons to look like giant gumballs. I will use red and white streamers twisted together to resemble a candy cane. I am also wrapping styrofoam balls in colored tissue paper and cellophane and twisting off both ends to resemble a giant candy and setting these around for additional decorations. I also bought some Easter fill eggs that look like big jelly beans to use as a decoration. On a kiddie table we are setting up a Candy Land train we found at Big Lots and putting up a gingerbread village around it using my gingerbread village houses from my Xmas decorations. My husband is making a "chocolate fountain" using a pump and a container decorated with "candies". We are going to try to use chocolate milk, if possible.

Somewhere in our yard we want to set up a rainbow balloon arch for Rainbow Trail. For food we are having sandwiches cut into gingerbread shapes using a large gingerbread cookie cutter. We are also serving Pringles Chips Colors. The chips are actually different colors. We will also have rainbow colored Goldfish crackers and Rainbow Nilla Wafers as well as rainbow colored mini marshmallows. We are having different colors of jello cups and chocolate pudding cups. We will also have a fruit tray and set up our Chocolate Factory so everyone can dip their fruit in chocolate or make fruit kabobs dipped in chocolate. We will also have a build your own ice cream sundae bar. We will have chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream as well as peppermint flavored ice cream. We will set out rainbow sprinkles, mini colored marshmallows, mini M&M's and other small candies along with chocolate, strawberry and caramel syrups and whipped cream and cherries. You can also use a rainbow sherbet. We will give out ice cream cone shaped bowls with matching spoons for the kids to build their sundaes in and they get to take these home as a favor as well. For games, we will have a couple of Candy Land game boards set up for anyone who would like to play. We will also play the game on the life size board. The kids will be their own game piece and we will use the cards from the real game board to determine the moves. The winner of this game will win a brand new Candy Land board game. Using the gingerbread tree with the balloons we will do a gingerbread plum pick. I will insert a small piece of paper into each balloon with a number determining their prize. Each child will pick a "plum" and pop their balloon to get their prize. In Chocolate Swamp I am using a "fishing rod" we made for a fishing game from a previous party and the kids will go "fishing" for bags of chocolates.

In Peanut Acres, I am filling a large container with green Easter grass and hiding little snack sized bags of Nutter Butter cookies for each child to pull one out. You can also hide shelled peanuts, give a time limit and see who can find the most and give a prize to the winner. For Lollipop Forest we will have a lollipop pull. I am making a giant lollipop with a styrofoam disc and instering big pops into it. I will mark the bottom of a couple of the pop sticks. Everyone gets to keep their pop, but the ones who pick the marked ones will win an additional prize. We will also have a gingerbread man beanbag toss. I sewed some gingerbread man beanbags from a pattern on Family Fun. We will use different colored plastic pails to toss the men into. We will also use the game cards to draw colors. The color you draw will determine which colored pail you must toss your men into. I am also making a Candy Land bingo game. I bought a very inexpensive bingo set and am placing those colored circle stickers over the numbers. Across the top (over the Bingo letters) I will replace them with the word CANDY. I will then make the call sheet using the letters and the colors. We will also do the guess the number of candies in the jar and the winner gets to take home the jar of sweets.

We will only have one activity. I purchased a tub of gingerbread oraments around Xmas time. We will set these out with some colored glitter glues for the kids to decorate their own gingerbread ornament to take home. The cake will be a sheet cake and I am going to recreate some of the gameboard on it. It will have King Kandy's castle, Lollipop Woods, Peppermint Forest and some other small areas along with the playing pieces from the board. I got this idea off a cake decorating site. The favor bags will be paper bags in the colors of the game squares. For prizes and favors we have bubbles in ice cream cone shaped containers (Walmart $1 each), Tootsie Roll banks (Target $1 each), mini gumball machines (Target $1 each), whistle pops, Candy Land coloring books I am making out of copies of coloring sheets we got at Denny's. I am putting these between two sheets of cardstock and also including a small box of crayons. Candy Land placemat/gameboard with playing cards and pieces. We also got these at Denny's. They were giving these out as the table activity and we asked the manager for them and he was glad to donate for our party. I also have 24 piece Candy Land puzzles (Walmart $2.97 each), Candy Land scratch and sniff board books (off ebay), candy jewelery, Twizzlers, Dots candy, and peppermints. I am still looking for other Candy Land related toys/games for prizes. We are really excited about this theme. The possibilites are endless.

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