Back To The Future…is already in the past. October 21 2015 has come and went – and while our skies are still not darkened by flying cars there are several prototypes in the works (go team science!). Given the ‘Back To The Future’ frenzy of 2015 it’s no surprise that your child also got embroiled in the wonderful magic of time traveling Deloreans, hoverboards, flux capacitors and mad scientists with crazy hair.

Great Scott! What better time than now to throw a ‘Back To The Future’ birthday party for your children?!. To get your creative juice flowing, below you will find a plethora of ideas for a ‘Back To The Future’ themed party, from invites to party table set up to favors and goodie bags.

Back to the Future Birthday Party Invitations

Personalized Back to the Future party invitations available from BluePerfection Etsy store

The first flipping point of your party’s timeline is easy to spot – invites (no invites, no children, no party). When gathering up your team of time travelers, you need to make sure not to inadvertently set up a temporal paradox (no traveling back in time to warn your past self that the party is much more work than you thought, and the cleanup doubly so). The easiest way to get great ‘Back To The Future’ party invites is to buy them – you don’t even need to dust off your Google-Fu – there are a lot of customizable invites directly available on Etsy and Amazon.

*Free Printable Back to the Future Birthday Invitations
Never fear party planner, as long as your guests can get there in time, you’ll have the tools to get the message to them. Use these free printable Back to the future birthday invitations to make themed invites to send out to guests.  

*Free Printable Back to the future Thank You Cards 
 Alternatively if you want to thank your guests for attending your party, use these free printable Back to the future thank you card templates to make thank you cards to hand out or to place in party favors. 

Back to the Future Birthday Party Decorations

enchanted under the sea dance poster available from allposters.com

The tiny hoard of would be scientists and adventurers need to feel as if they stepped on the set of a magical world (or at least that’s how us parents envision it).  While it might sound more difficult to create a magic atmosphere for a movie that is set in the not so distant past and even closer future past (you’re welcome to join in on the headache inducing search for tenses) there are a few things that quickly come to mind.

*Free Printable Back to the Future Birthday Banner
 Firstly, utilise our back to the future birthday banner templates (its free). Just simply download and print of the templates, assemble the pieces and you’ve got a BTTF banner that reads “Happy Birthday”.

*DIY Back to the Future Welcome Sign
When guests enter your party venue a welcome sign is a great way to get them excited about the prospects of the party. This free Back to the future welcome sign template can be printed and put into a frame to display on a wall or table.

*Under the sea party decorations ideas
An easy way to find decoration is to make your own spin off based on the ‘Enchantment under the sea’ ball/dance from Hill Valley.  Start by strategically placing some Enchantment under the sea posters then feel free to go completely crazy with the sea theme – glittering blue, green and white streamers that form a ‘curtain of water’? Sure.  Dolphin or fish shaped balloons and giant clam shells…why not? And since giant shells don’t really grow on trees (and are even hard to find in their proper place in the ocean) you can even try and make the clam shell yourself – with lots of paper and glue. While on that sub theme, you can make a pretty nifty under water entrance by using a canopy and filling it with streamers. Finish it by and placing fish shapes. Another idea is to add jellyfish paper lanterns – they are easy to make and look great.

*DIY Flaming Tarmac carpet
Another Back To The Future party decorations idea is to make a flaming tarmac welcome carpet – use a long strip of black cloth with white stripes painted or sown down the middle and yellow flames to the sides – like this. Alternatively, for the flames, you can glue red and yellow tissues to the cloth.

*DIY Back to the future Signs
You can then spread around customizable party signs and Outatime license plates – you can buy them or make them out of thick cardboard and glue printed images of the old style license plate and futuristic style bar code license plate. Since we’re on that topic, why not add some speed limit 88 signs?

*DIY Tower clock Prop
For something really special you can add a giant tower clock and aim to replicate the clock tower itself with the aid of some brick sheets and wood strips/prints – like so. There is a tutorial on how to make your own giant tower clock (in fact, there are multiple tutorials on making prop or functional giant clocks, though the level of crafting skill and amount of time spent increase proportionally). 

Back to the Future Birthday Party table setup

The party table is an essential prop for your time rescuing operation – since that’s where your tiny, hungry time travelers will be spending a good portion of their time at.

Under the sea tablecover available from Amazon.com

*Under the Sea Table cloth
If you decided to go with the Enchantment under the sea theme then select a blue table cloth (it can also have fish prints, bubbles, waves).

*DIY Seaweed and Fishnet table decorations 
You can even make seaweed hang down the sides of the table with the help of some green tissues or streamers. Alternatively, you can even add a fish net over part of the table. 

*Under the Sea Plates and Cutlery
As for table wear, you can use clam shell plates, blue or green cutlery and the occasional shell or starfish decoration.

*Flaming Road Table Setup
Another Back To The Future party table setup idea is to make your entrance match your table and have a flaming road table cloth by using the flaming tarmac welcome carpet idea in the section above. To round off the look, you can place a Delorean poster at the end of the flames. Or, you can even add a paper Delorean. If you went with the tarmac option above, you make your tableware match the movie color scheme by adding red plates and yellow cutlery.  You can also use hoverboard plates (skateboard plates, available for sale).

*Hill Valley Paper Props
To round off the look, you can place a stack of Hill Valley Telegraph papers in a corner (using prints of this, or this or this) and place some time chrono-governor coasters (print this image and add to coasters). 

Back to Future Costumes and outfits

Back to the future cosplay costumes by Howie Muzika via Flickr

All time travelers need to be cautioned not to look out of place when they engage in travel – blending in with the locals makes them less suspicious of your origin. Luckily, Back To The Future offers a wide range of costume choices for any one character (what with varied trips over the time continuum – 1885, 1955, 1985, 2015 – take your pick).  That also means that you not only get the option of dressing up your offspring in 80s clothes, but also in the 80s idea of 2015 (which is pretty far from current fashion standards, although not when it comes to half/partially shaved head trends for women – go figure).

*Marty McFly Costume Ideas
Let’s start off with the main character and a simple Marty McFly costume. For that you need: jeans, a jeans jacket, a red jacket vest, white and blue plaid button-down shirt, high-tops and some accessories like a walkman with headphones and a wristwatch.

If you’re thinking of the 2015 version of the character, then here’s how you can make your own Marty McFly jacket from the future.  Which you can pair up with a hoverboard – the simple version and the more crafty one.

*Doc Brown Costume Ideas
When it comes to a simple Doc Brown costume, you can start with a mad scientist theme and build your way up – lab coat, khaki pants, white crazy scientist wig/Einstein wig, rubber gloves, Hawaiian shirt – and let’s not forget the accessories: goggles, tool belt, plutonium silver case (glue a radiation symbol to it).  Another Doc costume consists of a white onesie with a radiation symbol painted on top, yellow rubber gloves with a radiation symbol, a tool belt, a radio transmitter (the remote from a remote controlled car) – something like this.

For a more intricate Back To The Future birthday outfit, you can try and recreate Doc Brown’s mind reading hat – depending on how well you can stand getting zapped, you can chose to add (or not) electricity. If you’re looking instead for something simpler, why not try making these Doc Brown’s shades or Marty McFly’s hat (tie-dye a white cap). They are super easy to make and you can give them out to your guests at the start of the party.

*Jennifer Parker Costume Ideas
We should also not forget about Jenifer Parker (Marty’s long standing crush) – her costume is simple to recreate with the aid of white pants stamped with flower patterns, a white shirt and a jeans vest and grey vintage Reebok shoes.

Back to the Future Party Food and drinks

Pepperoni Pizza! courtesy of
rob_rob2001 via Flickr

Back To The Future is great when it comes to preparing themed party food, mostly since the 80s were pretty shameless when it came to product placement. While today’s movie directors have to be subtle about sneaking ads in, Back To The Future blatantly displays brands.   

*Back to the future party drink ideas
That means you get to serve Pepsi Free or Pepsi Perfect at your table. You can make your own soda label or, if you’re going for maximum impact, you can purchase the newly released Pepsi Perfect bottles (that match the bottle shapes in Back To The Future 2). Alternatively, you can serve some Tab cola. 

*Free Printable Back to the Future water bottle labels 
A healthier alternative to soda is water. Use these free Back to the future water bottle labels to decorate bottled water. 

*Free printable Back to the future food labels
Additionally, compliment each futuristic movie based dish you put on your table with a label to help guests out. Use these free printable Back to the future food labels to do just that. 

*Pizza 
In the same movie future style, you can serve dehydrated pizza cookies. Or even serve pizza, like in the movie – half pepperoni, half green pepper with this label.

*Doc Brownies and Marty Macfries
If you don’t mind bad puns (or enjoy making your children squirm) you can add Doc Brownies and Marty McFries. Ow, and let’s not forget the “nobody calls me chicken” chicken thighs.

*Back to the future 50’s themed food ideas
If you’re going with the 50s theme of Back To The Future, why not serve “get me a milk, chocolate!” shakes using these 50 recipes, coupled with some standard diner food, like fries and burgers served on red checkered napkins. Let’s not forget about George McFly’s favorite snack – peanut brittle.

*Clock Tower confetti cookies
For something a bit more special, you can make some clock tower confetti cookies – and change the time to 10.04; or some plutonium jell-o syringes.

Back to Future Birthday cake and cupcakes

The birthday cake is the crown achievement of the party – since it also reminds our time travelers what year they are in. For a fantastic cake, you can always look to a professional cake decorator. 

*Marty’s colored cap cupcakes 
A simple treat are Marty’s colored cap cupcakes – like here, which you can make by splitting the cupcake mixture in four, adding food colorant and then pouring from all four bowls into the baking tray.

*Clock cupcakes
You can also try to make this easy pull apart cupcakes clock cake or these clock cupcakes. Let’s not forget that there are also Back To The Future edible cupcake toppers available on Amazon.

*Free Printable Back to the Future Cupcake toppers and wrappers
Another great way to decorate cupcakes for your BTTF theme is with our free Back to the future cupcake toppers and wrappers. 

*Flux Capacitor cake/ Hoverboard cake
Also in the easy range is this flux capacitor cake or the hoverboard cookie cake. For something more intricate, you can try your hand at this hoverboard cake below…

Back to the Future Games and activities

Time travelers need to be entertained otherwise they get bored, start messing around with the timeline, and you might find yourself in a Man In The High Castle scenario.

*Slamball
The 2015 of Back To The Future had a game called Slamball – since you don’t exactly have flying sneakers lying around the house, you can adapt it to a game of volleyball, basketball, football – or event have the guests try to hit a target with a small ball (which would make it more true to its name – Slamball, bad puns and all).

*Make your own Hoverboard craft
 Another idea is to have them make their own hoverboards. You just need to get some mini skateboards, glue paper on top and arm the kids with crayons (just remember later, when you’re trying to clean colored smudges from the ceiling and other impossible to reach places, that you did this to yourself).

*Are you chicken laughing game
Going with the running theme, you can have them play “Are you chicken, McFly?” . For this game, one child stands in the center of the room and must interact with a rubber chicken to make the others laugh. Whoever laughs first gets to go interact with the chicken. If no one laughs in the timespan of 1-2 min, the child gets eliminated – last one standing wins.

*Untangle Time Game
Another Back To The Future party game idea is to have the children play the ‘untangle time game’ – a version of the Chinese puzzle, where all children but one stand in the circle and hold hands. The remaining child has to turn around/ be blindfolded. The children will try to tie themselves in a complicated knot without letting go of their hands – stepping over/under arms etc.. When they are ready, the remaining child must untangle them without having them let go of their hands (or it will break the space-time continuum)

*Hoverboard obstacle course
You can also host a hoverboard obstacle race – use skateboards and some small obstacles they have to avoid.

*Back to the future memory guessing game
Or try a what’s in the image guessing game – fill a sheet with back to the future items and characters,  show the sheet to the children for 30 sec then see who can remember and write down the most.

Back to the Future Birthday Party Favors

As your party is winding down, your time travelers will want to take souvenirs from their trips, before heading back to their own time.

*DIY Back to the future Treat Bags
You can make your own favor bags to hold candies and small favors with these free Back to the Future favor topper templates and cellophane bags or paper lunch bags. 

*Free printable Back to the Future favor tags 
These free Back to the future favor tags are handy as they can compliment any favors you plan to offer in favor bags. 

*Back to the future favor ideas
There are some very nice Back To The Future gift bags on Etsy which you can then proceed to fill with an AirMag snickers keychain, themed stickers and tattoos, electric guitar necklaces or small inflatable guitars. You can also add some 88 speed limit, clock tower or Outatime badges. Alternatively, you can even make an Outatime necklace using this dog tags totorial, where you print and glue the Outatime license plate. And since time travel is difficult, you can add some Delorean cookies (made with a car cookie cutter) to make sure they don’t get hungry on the way back.

Back to the Future Birthday gift ideas

Back to the future t-shirt available from Amazon.com

When it comes to gift ideas, Back To The Future is rife with possibilities – you don’t have to dig through antiques/thrift shops to find good gifts, you just need to take a stroll down Amazon, Ebay or Etsy.

*Back to the future T-shirts and clothing
You can start off with clothing items like Back To The Future costume converse shoes or Delorean and Flux capacitor t-shirts.

*Back to the future Toys
There are also plenty of action toys available (unsurprisingly, Doc Brown and Marty come in the biggest variety).  There are also Delorean toy cars and build-it kit sets. While on that note, Lego has also given the Delorean and some sets a go.  There are also Back To The Future electric slot car race sets.

*Back to the future collector gift ideas
For the collector, there are Outatime license plate replicas and flux capacitor replicas. If however, you’re looking for something more functional, you can find flux capacitor USB car chargers or watches.

*Back to the future videogame
For the gamers, there is a Back To The Future console game on platforms such as Wii, Xbox one and PS4 now.

If there’s something strange, in your neighborhood. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! (and just like that, the theme song is stuck inside your head). But what better way to throw a themed retro ghost party than to choose Ghostbusters? It’s snarky, it’s quirky, and children these days still like it (which is surprising unto itself – and probably has a lot to do with the fact that the movie doesn’t really take itself seriously). So if you need a bit of help getting your muses going, below you can find plenty of ideas for a Ghostbusters themed party, from Decorations, to costumes and gift ideas.

Ghostbusters Birthday Party Invitations

Personalized Ghostbusters birthday party invitations available from Sweet Digital Creation Etsy store

The first step in exorcism – er, ghostbusting, – is to gather your team of exterminators. There are plenty of customizable invites on Etsy and you’ll find Ghostbusters birthday invitations ranging from ones that can include a photo of the birthday boy or girl to ticket style invites if you’re planning a ghostbusters movie party. However, if you want to go for a personal touch, you can make the cards yourself. A good starting point is with this free Ghostbusters party invite printable, or this one. Alternatively, you can use one of the movie posters as background and write using the Ghostbusters font or the Slimer font (which looks amazingly slimy and perfect).  You can also top it off with a Ghostbusters  transparent/white background logo.  As for the text, there aren’t many catchphrases (besides the theme song), but the text is still full of fun usable quotes like: “Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? /Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?/ Have you or your family ever seen a spook, spectre or ghost?/ If the answer is “yes,” then don’t wait another minute. Pick up the phone and call the professionals…/ Ghostbusters.”.  You can have your invitees band together at the haunted house (your home) to help (birthday boy/girl) banish an evil spirit (Oh no, the Stay Puft marshmallow man has risen again – “This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions”).

You can also include Ghostbusters badges. They are available for sale on Etsy – or you can make them yourself.  Another fun item to include in your invite is an origami ghost.  Alternatively, you can make a Ghostbusters pop up card, just add the show’s logo. Another simple Ghostbusters birthday party invitation anyone can make are these Ghostbusters logo invitations.

Ghostbusters Birthday Party Decorations

Ghostbusters Marshmallow man inflatable prop courtesy of Steve Baker on Flickr .

Before receiving your guests, the haunted house needs to be properly scary (and haunted) – and I’m not talking about the spirit of your tired self trying to put the finishing touches. The best way to greet the guests would be with scratching noises or ghostly laughter at the door, this is available from YouTube – you can set up speakers at the door and play this on repeat (for as long as you can stand it).

While you’re at it, why not add some bloody handprints on the windows – or the mirror at the entrance (you can make them with washable paint – unless you like having permanent markings on your windows). Since we’re still at the entrance part, you can add some  chicken wire ghosts in your garden – they look terrific and set the mood for the evening early on.  The same goes for a Ghostbuster skeleton with a “gone but not forgotten” sign. For that you need to purchase a lab skeleton dummy, some overalls and a pair of glasses.

Inside the house you can place a Stay Puft balloon man, available on Amazon. For a backdrop, you can make an ectoplasm wall with a green tablecloth and even an ectoplasm door. For the haunted mood, you can make hanging ghosts or use another tutorial (there is even one with faces, for added creepy factor). You can scatter posters with popular Ghostbusters phrases like “I ain’t afraid of no ghost” or use this free printable Ghostersbusters tools poster as extra decoration.

Place ghost paper lanterns and green slime lanterns all over the living room. You can also add some Slimer balloons – it’s simple, print and glue or draw the face onto green balloons as seen here. Alternatively, you can also make some Ghostbusters balloons by using black mylar balloons and gluing the logo on like this.

Also consider using the color palette of red, black and white to decorate your party area as they are the colors on the Ghostbusters logo. You could also go with a green and black theme as slime is a major part of Ghostbusters (Slimer anyone?). Balloons, streamers, tablecloths, tableware and many different types of decorations in these colors will have your party area matching the Ghostbusters theme fantastically. 

These free templates for Ghostbusters papercraft models are handy for decorating your party table.  There are templates for a cube Slimer paper figure, Ghosbusters character paper dolls, Stay Puft marshmallow man and even the Ghost trap.

Ghostbusters Birthday Party table setup

If you feel you haven’t managed to scare your team of Ghostbusters enough, you get an extra chance with the party table. Ghostbusters provides you with the perfect opportunity to dust off all your Halloween ghost related paraphernalia and put it to good use (or leave the dust on, since it adds to the creepiness factor). In this vein, there are a thousand and one tutorials and ideas about how to make a spooky Halloween table (just stay away from pumpkins, witches, werewolves, in fact, just stick to ghosts and you’ll be fine).  

You can start by adorning your tablecloth with ectoplasm splotches (use an old table cloth and some green paint).  In fact, you can go crazy with the ectoplasm idea and add slime green napkins, cutlery, candles – whatever you can think of. To add to the scene, you can even place some ‘Caution’ tape around the table.

Another Ghostbusters party table setup idea is to make Marshmallow man placemats. You need to print this image, add it to some white placemats and glue a blue stripe of paper at the top. There are also free printable drink labels and other labels to be found on Etsy.

Since we’ve mentioned the ghost idea, it would be a pity not to give some direct links – like, for instance these DIY ghost plates – they are cute and very easy to make (you only need scissors, glue and paper). Then there are these fantastic creepy  DIY ghost hands cutlery cup holders. And to top it off, you can add a Marshmallow plushie – you only need some basic sewing skills.

Ghostbusters Costumes and Outfits

Ghostbusters child’s costume available from Amazon.com

Now here is where the fun begins – you get to be creative and play dress up and get to take embarrassing pictures of your offspring to show them to potential dates in the future – ah, a parent’s dream. Here is how to make a Ghostbusters costume, from a dress. To round off the look, there are iron on embroidery name patches found on Etsy. Alternatively, you can go with a light brown onesie and sew chest pockets and the logo on it. And that about concludes the easy part, since the piece du résistance of a Ghostbusters costume is the equipment (proton pack, ecto-goggles, ghost trap – here we come).

Here’s how you can make a very simple papercraft ghost trap box. You can also make a proton pack by following this tutorial (that includes a description on how to build a ghost trap as well). If you aren’t scared of more complicated crafting, you can try your hand at this proton pack model, complete with equipment labels. Don’t forget to equip the proton packs with silly string proton guns. Lastly, a ghostbuster also needs ecto-goggles (or you can follow this tutorial instead).

Another Ghostbusters birthday outfit idea is to make a Ghostbusters logo costume.  You will need a pair of white pants, a long sleeved shirt or bed sheet, a pair of white gloves, a printed ghost mask and a felt circle with a cushion sown across (made to resemble the forbidden sign) –the overall look should be something like this.

You can also try to dress up as the ghost – for a Puft girl costume you need a tutu, white sailor uniform, white cap with a sowed on strip of blue felt – like this. Or if you want to amaze your guests, you can make this inflatable Stay Puft suit or this realistic Slimer costume made from foam, for the craftier people. There is also a simple version of the Slimer costume – just take care to make it with green bed sheets instead of garbage bags.

Ghostbusters Party Food and drinks

Banana Ghosts by Tim Ellis via Flickr

Slimer is your best friend when it comes to making food for a Ghostbusters themed party – since it’s so distinctive.  You can start your foray into Ghostbusters treats with Slimer popcorn –  you should add green food colorant to some marshmallow mixture, or use green candy melts and pour the result over popcorn. You can also make Slimer cookies with the aid of a Slimer cookie cutter found on Etsy or Ebay. In fact, there are also Stay Puft cookie cutters and even Ghostbusters logo cookie cutters (take your pick). Another way to make Slimer cookies is to just dip them in some green candy melts. 

When it comes to drinks, you can make some ectoplasm jello-shots, Slimer slushies, or green soda with the label “Ecto-cola”. Though, best of all is this  Slimer lime sherbet punch. The look is achieved by freezing some of the sherbet and floating the Slimer head shape on an ice cube. You can decorate it with two plastic eyeballs and some melon balls. You can also make Slimer dogs (hot dogs with slime green mustard – thanks to our trusty pall, food colorant).

Another great treat is a Whipped cream Slimer on pudding – in fact, you can make this desert as either a ghost or a Slimer (depending on whether or not you add food colorant to the whipped cream). You can also serve these cute ghost peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or these ghost meringue cookies. Another fun Ghost themed party food to serve at the party is ghost banana pops and to keep with the spooky ghost theme you could make ghost shaped pizza as a more filling food for kids to eat at the party.

For a special Ghostbusters party food idea, you can try making these Stay Puft smores – they are time consuming but very easy to make (and your children will love them).

As a simple snack have some Twinkies for kids to pick up and eat at the party, afterall it Is a snack that features in the movie… remember the “tell em about the twinkie scene”

 Ghostbusters Birthday Cake and Cupcakes

Ghostbusters birthday cake by poppet with a camera via Flickr

The cherry on top, or the ghostly scream in a haunted mansion is the birthday cake, or cupcakes. Slimer once again lends us a friendly helping ghost hand. You can treat your tiny exterminators with these delicious slime cupcakes made with lemon curd. Or you can try to make these slime cupcakes that ooze green sugary goodness when you bite into them.  Another Ghostbusters cupcake idea is to make some simple ghost cupcakes with the aid of marshmallows and candy melts. Another fun idea is to stick lollies in cupcakes and cover them with white fondant, like this. Or if you don’t mind a bit of work, here’s how you can make some slime cupcakes with the Ghostbusters logo.

You can also try your hand at a cake, if you don’t mind piping and have a steady hand, you can make this simple cake with a piped Ghostbusters logo. Or you can give this Funfetti green cake a shot – it also has a Ghostbusters logo, but one that is cut out of cookie dough before being piped (for added depth).

Another great Ghostbusters birthday cake idea is to make a ‘city under attack’ cake. In order to do that you will first need to cover the cake with fondant, then print and cut a skyline out of black fondant and cut yellow rectangles for the lights (which you can stick on with edible glue).  Once that is done, you can cut out the Ghostbusters logo out of fondant (or use the piping tutorials above) and place it on top of the cake. To complete the look, you can add a Stay Puft Marshmallow man topper at the bottom of the city, and some Ghostbusters figurines at the top (just make sure the children don’t eat them).

If you want, you can even make a Stay Puft man cake topper from marshmallows. For the blue accents, use fondant instead of paper.

For the ones who are more crafty, they can try making a Ghostbusters car cake, using this car cake tutorial. The advanced crafting part comes with adding the accessories that make the car look like this – since there are no readily available tutorials.

 Ghostbusters Party Games and activities

Ghostbusters coloring pages courtesy of AZ coloring

Ghostbusters need to be entertained otherwise, they might cross the streams of their proton guns out of boredom and then the world as we know it will cease to exist. For the little ones, you can keep them entertained with coloring pages  and some more coloring pages. If you’re not afraid to have things get a bit messy, you can make your own slime using one of the 6 recipes presented. Making the slime is just as fun as playing with it (though you might want to curse yourself at the end of the day once you have to dig it out of every nook and cranny of the house).

For a nice build-it game, you can have your guests make their own ghosts using marshmallows, toothpicks and edible food paint (though you should be prepared to see more of the food paint on the children than on the ghosts).

Another Ghostbusters party game idea is to play capture the Marshmallow man – using silly string cans. For a variation on the theme, you can play a game of statues, where a child sits at one end of the field/room and the rest stand at the other. The single child is a vengeful spirit, and the rest are the Ghostbusters that need to vanquish it – but they can only do that with close contact. The Ghostbusters have to approach the vengeful spirit without it being aware of their presence – whenever the ‘ghost’ looks their way they need to be frozen, like statues. When the ghost looks away, they can move – if the children get spotted moving they are out of the game.

 Ghostbusters Party Favors

Once your house is cleared of all evil spirits it’s time to send the exterminators on their merry way with a nice thank you gift for taking care of your ghost problems. For something more intricate you can make Ghostbusters ghost trap gift boxes – though it will be quite time consuming (especially if there are a lot of children coming). Alternatively, you can find some gift baggies on Etsy, or give them Stay puft marshmallow baggies. Other Ghostbusters party favors ideas are to give Slimer keychains, Ghostbusters badges, stickers and tattoos. There are also “No Ghost” (the logo) iron on patches available online, the same as with the Ghostbusters font iron on name patches from the Costumes section above. If you haven’t included an origami ghost with your invitation, you can do so now. For some sweet party favors you can make these simple ghost cake pops. And if you’re feeling crafty, you can try your hand at making Ghostbusters bottle cap necklaces.

Ghostbusters Birthday Party gift ideas

Ghostbusters Logo t-shirt available from Amazon.com

Last but not least, you need to consider the gift for the birthday boy or girl.  Fortunately, the Ghostbusters franchise is a prolific one, and an old one, so you don’t have to worry about finding merchandise. There are a lot of Toy figurines and play sets available. The same goes for the Ghostbusters car, Ecto-1 – you can find both the toy car and the build-it scale model kit. There are also Lego sets, like the Ghostbusters firehouse headquarters set.  For the gamers, there are Ghostbusters playing card sets, board games and video games available. The same goes for equipment – you can get your child a Ghost trap lunch box, toy Ecto-goggles, Ghostbusters backpacks, T-shirts, jammies. There is even a Slimer watch (too bad it doesn’t drip ectoplasm) and you can find Stay Puft plush toys of almost all characters (the trouble comes with getting to choose a single gift).

If your children started ‘paw-ifying’ everything (paw-tatoes, paw-lease and other delightful eye-twitch generating names), speaking in rhymes (‘ready, set, let’s get wet’) and acting more interested than usual in puppies (let’s face it, children love dogs) then they probably got hooked on NickJr’s Paw Patrol. The main characters of Paw Patrol meet all criteria of the Holy Trinity of Adorable: small, fluffy, funny – it’s no wonder the seven pups have left their paw marks on your children’s hearts – and most likely in your own as well (we’re hardwired as a species to go ‘aww’ over small fluffy creatures). What this means is that you now have a full-proof, guaranteed to land you parent of the year award, birthday party idea.

Though you shouldn’t start making room on the mantelpiece for it, just yet – that award comes after all the hard work of organizing the party (and the fantastic clean-up afterwards). To get your creative juice flowing, here are some Paw Patrol birthday party ideas, from invites to party favors (the whole works).

Paw Patrol Birthday Party Invitations and Ideas

Personalized Paw Patrol birthday party invitations available from RDandBPaperie store via Etsy

Since you need to assemble your puppy rescue team, the first thing to do is take care of the invites. The easiest way to do that, paws down, is to buy them – one happy internet stroll through Amazon or Etsy and you’re set. There is a great deal of variety in the types of Paw Patrol invitation cards available for purchase. You can even get invites with a chalkboard effect or that offer you the option of including a photo of your child – and all of that in just minutes (not bad if you’re pressed for time).

For those with crafty fingers and a bit of patience, you can make your own printable invitations. There is another template here.   Another way to go is to make Pup invites by using the characters from the show and cutting the card in the shape of the pup you want (for fun and diversity, you can make cards based on all seven rescue pups). A simple way to up their ‘wow’ factor is to add some catchphrases from the show – and Paw Patrol is rife with them. Through a great feat of difficulty, I managed to narrow it down to just two quotes per character. Here they are: Marshal – “I am all fired up” or “Ready for a ruff ruff rescue!”; Rubble – “Rubble on the double!” or “Let’s dig it!”; Chase – “These paws uphold the laws!” or “Chase is on the case!”; Rocky – “Don’t lose it, reuse it!” or “Why trash it when you can stash it!”; Zuma – “Ready, set, get wet!” or “Let’s dive in”; Skye – “This pup’s gotta fly!” or “Let’s take to the sky!”; Everest – “Ice or snow I am ready to go!” or “Off the trail, Everest won’t fail!”; Ryder: “No job is too big, no Pup is too small” or “Paw Patrol is on a roll”. By the time you’re done reading through them, you’ll even be thinking in rhymes.

You can also include a pup adoption certificate – just use the printable from NickJr. For the cherry on the cake – you can include Pup Tags in the invitations envelope – they’re the main communication device for the Paw Patrol team, and they are tailored to the individual pup. Here are the printables for most of the gang, and here’s the one for Everest (the mountain pup is the last one to join the team of adventurers). Alternatively, if you’re feeling confident in your origami skills, you can add an origami pup to the invitation envelope – here they are in progressive levels of difficulty : simple, medium and complicated (last one is starting to border the Master Origami Folder – or Super Sayian level).

Paw Patrol Birthday Party Decorations and Ideas

Puppy Dog party decorations and setup – Paw print balloons, streamers and tableware. By Janet via Flickr

With your rescue pups notified, it’s time to get busy decorating the grand hall of the dog house (since all puppies should be treated like royalty). Nickelodeon Junior is your best friend for this occasion – the UK version of the site, where you can find all the printables. Fortunately, they cover just about everything from lollipop wrappers, to birthday banners , cup wrappers and place mats. In terms of color scheme, the show doesn’t have a generic theme – however, you can make Pup specific color themes. For instance, Marshall has red (with a bit of yellow), Rubble has yellow (with refectory material), Chase is blue, Rocky is green, Zuma is orange, Skye is pink and Everest has a combination of teal and yellow.

For a nice welcome that sets your guests in the mood, add some chalk paw prints in front of the house. Your bathroom should not be neglected either – you can make a quick decoration with a dog shaped towel using this towel folding tutorial.

You can also make a Chase paper lantern, using this pumpkin cut out template. In order to make it, cut out the eyes, nose and mouth from the template and use them as stencil guidelines to draw on the lantern – alternatively, you can cut the shapes out and glue them on the paper lantern. You can add some ears and a police cap. For a Marshal version, you can use a white paper lantern and then paint in black spots, add doggie eyes, nose and Marshall’s ears.

For a more substantial fire hydrant – that doesn’t risk destruction at a simple prick, you can make a DIY fire hydrant . And to make Rocky happy, add some of his recycling badges on all the trashcans (you can find the badge model in the invitations section from above).

Paw Patrol Party table setup

La piece de résistance in terms of decorating is the party table – the one that just so happens to hold the tasty ‘doggie treats’. The first thing to do is make a Paw Patrol table cloth by adding some paw prints to it – here’s how you can make your own paw print rubber stamp. Alternatively, you can make a stencil and spray paint the table cloth – print a paw shape, glue it on cardboard, cut out the paw – and get crazy with the spray (action hero with a gun poses are highly encouraged). The next step is to take care of the napkins with a doggie bone napkin holder. Or you can engage in some creative napkin folding – here’s the place to exercise your origami skills. There are a lot of dog napkin folding tutorial out there – here is a simple dog face version , for the grasshopper that is still in training and for the more advanced pupil (that doesn’t mind having to do this model over and over again) here is the more complicated version.

To add more to the feel of the theme, serve your snacks out of puppy bowls, like here. You can do the same for the drinks, or you can serve them fresh out of Marshal’s fire hydrant – print, cut and glue an image of a fire hydrant on a lemonade drinks dispenser. You can accessorize even further with doggie bone cups – there are no tutorials on the internet (I have scoured all the corners looking for them), however, you can buy them in various online shops like Amazon.   Since pups are usually messy, another Paw Patrol table setup idea is to have paw prints all over your plates – no need to hide your china away in fright, you can do them using transparent plastic plates (which make the cleanup so much easier) and use the same paw stamp from above.

You can also add some utility vehicle toys – each pup has his own dog house that transforms into a vehicle. You can have a fire truck for Marshall, bulldozer for Rubble, police car for Chase, hovercraft or submarine for Zuma, helicopter for Skye, Snow plough for Everest. If you want to get creative, you can have the fire truck salvaging a mountain of fries from the fiery depths of hot sauce, the bulldozer can be digging in some “rock” candy (chocolate truffles) or the snow plough can be on an ice tray/bucket.

Paw Patrol Costume and Outfit Ideas

The decoration frenzy can and should happily extend to your child – after all, they get to play dress up and you get to play fashion designer (who says that adults are too old for games?). there are plenty of ways you can be creative with a costume – the simplest, albeit not cheapest method is to buy it from an online store – the costumes are great and you don’t need to fear for the safety of your fingers. Alternatively, there are other ways of making a costume that don’t involve sowing – like printable party hats or making doggie masks using this tutorial or this one. If you don’t mind a bit of stitching, you can make some doggie ears from felt. These ideas are great for when you want to make some simple costumes for all your guests to wear, but if you’re looking to make the birthday boy or girl feel special, then you can make a Pup costume using the templates below to which you add some doggie ears. Marshal, the fire pup, by far has the most amount of costume tutorials out there – here’s version one and version two of a simple costume . If you want to go the extra mile, why not make a ‘wearable fire truck’ – it looks almost like overalls .

There is also a Rubble costume with a bulldozer arm on the back and a Chase costume based on a police uniform tutorial (you just need to adjust a bit, changing for instance the police badge with Chases’ Pup Tag). To round off the Chase look, you can make a police hat.

To make sure that the girls don’t feel neglected, you can make a Skye costume by pairing a brown fleece or sweater with a pink vest and pink goggles. For that extra bit of show authenticity, add a pair of wings (made based on the Buzz Lightyear costume model).

There’s also Everest, the seventh pup and newest addition to the rescue team – her costume consists of a teal vest, a teal jacket, purple felt dog ears, purple pants and long sleeved shirt (to complete the effect, you can add white boots and gloves – perfect for winter)

Paw Patrol Party Food and drinks

Dog bone cookies by Janet via Flickr

Puppies need a lot of nourishment since they are still growing up – so serve them some mini hot dogs (or hot dog pups). Some other Paw Patrol party food ideas include making bone or dog shaped sandwiches – here’s a tutorial (you’ll just need a bone shaped cookie cutter, and a butterfly one – puzzled about the connection between the dog and butterfly? The tutorial shows a clever way of using it to cut and assemble the tasty treat).

Why not serve some Paw-sta (because there weren’t enough paw jokes) – add pasta, vegetables and cheese that is cut in a doggie bone shape. Since we’re on the subject of paws, there are also Paw-tato chips or Paw-berries (any types of berries qualify). For more pun-erific points, make Puppy kisses – from Hershey Kisses and let’s not forget about pup-corn (served in a doggie bowl, of course).

If you don’t mind baking, you can make some great bone shaped breadsticks – and serve them with Marshal’s fiery sauce (some spicy red sauce). Speaking of flaming, why not make Marshal’s flaming marshmallows – which are, in essence, marshmallows with red sprinkles. There are also Zuma, the retriever pup’s fetch sticks – or pretzel rods, as us non-canines tend to call them. For Rubble treats, you can serve chocolate truffles as “boulders’. Red candy strips are also great as a party food since you can present them as Marshal’s hose or doggie chew sticks.

Since we’re talking about treats, you can make some doggie treats by using chocolate puffs, bone shaped cookies, crackers dipped in chocolate and so on. Here’s a site with links to 25 different types of “dog chow” party snacks recipes – from caramel apples, to red velvet (yummy yummy yummy – I have food in my tummy).

Lastly, you can make Paw Patrol badge cookies using cookie cutters sets (there are sets available for all of the character badges).  

Paw Patrol Birthday Cake and Cupcakes

The royal breed of the canine party is the birthday cake – all good puppies deserve a giant special treat on their birthday. The easy option, time wise is to order the cake at a local cake decorations shop – you can find cakes of all levels of complexity and (almost) all pockets. Why almost? Because the custom cakes, even the simple ones, still cost quite a bit of money – and unless you’re talking about some of the well know cake decoration companies, you might never know what you get (a tired old lizard instead of a proper Yoda cake). If you don’t mind baking, you can make a simple doggie bone shaped cake – it’s a rectangle with four small round cakes at the corners, like here. Once you’re done, cover the cake with fondant like in the tutorial.

The next cake ideas are a bit more complex and require a bit more fondant work. You can make Marshal, Rubble, Chase Rocky, Zuma, Skype, Everest fondant cakes – first you print the characters, then you place them on the fondant and trace them using knitting needles (so they can leave soft imprints). Then comes the fun part with wielding a fondant knife – it looks a little bit like a scalpel, so you can consider yourself a cake doctor. Lastly, it’s puzzle assembly time – fit all the parts together, eyes, noses, head shapes and glue them on the cake top. Here is a mini tutorial on how to cut out fondant.

Another Paw Patrol birthday cake idea is to make utility vehicle cakes – all the pups have their own specific vehicle (that turns into a dog house as a bonus). You can make a fire truck cake – it doesn’t require world class decorating skills, just a steady hand at icing and a bit of skills when it comes to cake carving. To make the image complete, add a tiny toy Marshal next to it (just make sure the children don’t try to eat him). For Rubble, you can make a bulldozer cake. This one requires more fondant skills, but the results are amazing – and you can fill the bulldozer cup with other treats (like truffles).

Steadily climbing up the ladder towards the “next great baker” fondant skills, you can try your hand at making an Everest fondant topper based on this husky tutorial – all you need to do is replace the color with purple. For the supreme cake masters out there, or if you just like a challenge, you can try to make a Marshal fondant topper or a Ryder fondant topper – apart from the increase in complexity, there are also fewer (almost none) verbal instructions in the tutorial (albeit the videos are pretty self explanatory, if you’ve done this sort of thing before). Either way, be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on them.

For the cupcake lovers, there are printable cupcake toppers and cupcake wrappers. You can make paw print cupcakes (using Oreos). There are also cupcake puppy tutorials – you can make them resemble the Paw Patrol cast by using the character’s coloring. And for those that want the best of both worlds, there is a cupcake cake tutorial for a dog with a bone.

Paw Patrol Games and activities

Paw Patrol coloring pages via coloring-book.info

While puppies are adorable when resting, they can cause quite the mayhem if you don’t properly redirect their energies with a few games. For the little ones, there are printable coloring books from the NickJR site (just press print on the app without coloring anything. In fact, NickJr offers a whole host of game possibilities like more printables, mazes, connect the dots and finger puppets. You can also make your own Paw Patrol piñata or set up a puppy make up table – here’s a – puppy make up tutorial.

For something a bit more active, you can stage a Paw Patrol rescue – children divide in terms of two where one is the victim and the other is the rescue pup. The ‘victim’ will be blindfolded and will be at the other side of a minefield (full with water balloons). The winner is the pup that manages to bring his rescue to safety in the fastest time without setting off any of the ‘mines’.

You can also play Marshal’s ‘put out the fire’ contest – this is in essence a super soaker game. Children will have to hit 5 targets – whoever does it fastest wins.

You can also put a spin on the classics by playing Chases’ chase – one child is Chase, the police dog, and the other children are the robbers. They are only allowed to run in a small zone and Chase has to catch them. Once all robbers have been caught, a different child can play Chase. As an alternative version, Chase can bring some friends to help (Marshal and Skye, for instance) – in this case, when robbers go to jail they can break free with the aid of another comrade. When all robbers are caught, the children can switch roles.

Another fun Paw Patrol party game idea is to play Zuma’s fetch scavenger hunt – children will each get a list with dog related items that are scattered across the yard (toy bones, collars, leashes, slippers etc.) – whoever gets one of each item on the list first, wins.

Since Rubble is feeling left out, why not help him uncover some buried bones? You can hide a whole bunch of item in a sand box (or a children’s pool filled with crinkle paper) and have children dig for them.

There’s even a variant on Simon says – namely, Ryder says. You can dub it as the pup training school, where pups have to do dog tricks (sit, growl, wag tail, roll over, bark, stay, give paw etc.).

Paw Patrol Birthday Party Favors and Ideas

When the night brows dark, all pups need to return to their dog houses – so give them something for on the road.

You can give them doggie bags filled with bright colored candy and with doggie bag toppers.

You can even give them one of Everest’s gadgets – a pocket sized grapple gun (just make the grappling hook out of something less prone to cause accidents, like paper or plastic).

There are also plenty of Paw Patrol stickers, tattoos to share. And just in case the pups get hungry, they can get some dog bone shaped cookies to tide them over till they reach the lands of far far a-home. You can always add some Paw Patrol key chains or magnets, and, in case you didn’t use them for the invites, you can give them an origami dog (see links in the invitations section).

Paw Patrol Gift ideas

If you’re wondering what to get for your own pup, you can check out the toy shops – there are plenty of Paw Patrol toys, from characters and their vehicle (like Zuma and his hovercraft) to series inspired games like Paw Patrol toss across. There are also watches available, t-shirts, slumber bags, soccer balls, bicycles and even flip open couches and upholstered chairs. If your child loves soft cuddly toys, then all characters are available in plushy form. For the children that love playing in the bath, you can find the whole cast of characters as bath squirters. In essence, if you can think about it, there probably already is a Paw Patrol version of it out in the shops.

If you’re a parent, chances are that you’ve come across Halo in some shape or form, whether from tv adverts, your child’s gaming habits or your own. Halo is one of the best known first person shooter games – and one of the most complex in terms of world building – the storyline itself is full of terms, add to it some player lingo and talking to your child can feel like an exercise in Mandarin (at least it’s not Icelandic, with words like Alþjóðaflutningaverkamannasambandsins – brr). That means that if you hear your child saying UNSC, you can stop jumping for joy, they aren‘t interested in UN‘s security council, but rather the in-game United Nations Space Command. With such a complex world, with various alien species that have their own history and culture, even some of the veteran players can get lost (well, that, or they are there just for the thirll of the game and the rest is cometized „blah“.) If it takes nothing short of a natural disaster to pry your child away from playing Halo on his console/gaming pc then it might just be time to throw him or her a Halo themed birthday party.

Below you‘ll find some Halo birthday party ideas suitable for all ages (and all degrees of game knowledge).

Halo Birthday Party Invitations and Ideas

Personalized Halo birthday party invitations by Tony Party Favor store via Etsy

The first step in protecting humanity from the latest Covenent threat is making sure that you have your troops assembled. If you want to get creative, you can send them a UNSC draft notice: To the people of the outer colonies – join in the fight for humanity’s survival against the Covenant. You are to report to (address) for your first mission: To celebrate (child’s name)’s birthday.

Alternatively, you can make your own invitation using one of these two backgrounds (one and two). You can add logos to the invites, like the Halo legendary difficulty logo or the Halo Spartan logo.

In terms of text, you can add an invitation to a specific mission, in this case, Cortana (widely regarded as one of the most difficult missions, aside with the Library one). You can make your text sound like a variation of this one: “Welcome to the rescue Cortana mission. You are invited to join John-117 and (birthday boy/girl name) on a raid to High Charity (your home). The place is infested by the Flood with the Gravemind using the Council Chamber as a throne room. You need to rescue Cortana in order to activate Installation 04B.”

For the icing on the cake, so to speak, you can also send a CD with the invite, containing a mission intro trailer. Or, even better, you can turn your card into a musical card and add the Halo theme song.

If you like getting crafty, you can include their own Halo badges that they can pin – here’s how to make them. Nicely enough, Halo, like most games of its type, has a whole variety of achievement badges that you can unlock – the names are hilarious, like Killionaire (or Killpocalyplse) and there are plenty of templates, like this one.

Another Halo party invitations idea is to include halo dog tags in your invites. You can make them using this tutorial and for bonus likeness points, you can print cut and glue the UNSC logo on the back of the tags – or can spray paint it – here’s how to make stencils.

If time is a major factor, and you’re particularly short on it, then you can always buy the invitations from Amazon or Etsy – there are plenty of customizable templates, some of them even offering you the possibility of inserting your own child’s photo.

Halo Birthday Party Decorations and Ideas

Halo master Chief wall decals available from Amazon.com

Once the invites are sent, you need to prepare the base for the oncoming recruits. Since the game is in effect based on the military, you can greet your guests with a Camo Balloon Arch. This is the look you’re aiming for. For those that don’t have a secret identity or skill set related to balloons (secretary by day, balloon twister by night), it might be good to check out some tutorials, like this one here – it should be enough to get you started (you’ll just have to use dark green, light green and black balloons).

To create a bit of all around atmosphere, use some white, black, green, blue streamers that are twisted together to look like camo – those colors match the general Halo color scheme. Put some Halo posters in strategic places and the mood is set.

While on the theme of creepy crawling aliens, you can also have a few of them standing in your hallway by making cardboard stands. Use the warrior races templates of the Shangeili or Jiralhanae. You can make them A4 sized and scatter them about the house (poking out of the plants, for instance). If you’re not quite sure how to get them to stay upright, there are tutorials on how to make the cardboard figure stand.

Another idea for halo themed party decorations is to use some gear/toy props. If you have any halo gear, you can set bits and pieces on display. You can even make your own grenade lookalikes based on baseballs using this tutorial. If you like dreaming big, there is also the option of making a rocket launcher – it has the added advantage that kids will play with it (two in one – decoration/game…makes me think of shampoo commercials, two in one, conditioner and shampoo).

Halo Birthday Party table setup

With the house all gloriously set, it’s time to turn your eyes to the party table and mess hall (quite literally a ‘mess’ hall, when dealing with children). To knock their tiny socks off, you should start off by naming your food stand the “World Cuisine” after a restaurant in New Alexandra on the planet Reach.

Since there is a military undercurrent to the game, some simple decorations involve army camouflage colors – camo tablecloth, napkins, army camo food labels and cupcake wrappers – there is an endless supply of things that can be colored with it. A good idea would be to keep the camo as a background to your display. Instead of the camo tablecloth, you can make one with the Halo logo (Halo 3) – you need to print it, trace it and cut it out of felt/other materials and then sow it on – with sufficient patience, you can place several logos on.

Your plates should also get involved in the action and transparent plates are the best, since you can stick anything on their bottom and it will show through, like halo scopes or cut outs of Spartan troopers or alien invaders. If you have some Halo figurines, you can have them mounting an assault (on a mountain of cupcakes/fries/ other stackable food).

You can also scatter grenades on the table – if you have toy grenades. Or you can make your own baseball grenades.

Another Halo party table set up idea is to go zombie. There is a zombie mode (that in Halo 3 is called Infection). For this you can spray paint red blood splatters on a white table cloth and add some of the old forgotten Halloween decorations – plastic eyes, ears etc.

Halo Costumes/Outfit Ideas

Halo Master Chief costume available from Amazon.com

Once your restless decorating hands have finished with the home it’s time to turn your attention to the children – after all, the mission leader needs to set an example (both in terms of conduct and dress code). Fortunately, there are quite a bit of Halo costume tutorials out there, in the vast reaches of the internet. To start you off simply, you can prepare a Halo costume with a toy gun and some camo face paint. If you’re looking for accuracy though, things get difficult – fast. There’s no in-between costume piece here – it’s from zero to full expert. Fortunately, it’s still quite doable if you have patience and some good tutorials to follow. The key word here is Pepakura – nope, that’s not a pepper diet or some sort of long lost Pokemon – it’s paper craft using card stock. If you’re interested in Cosplay, then you’ve probably heard of it before.

Here’s how you can make a Halo helmet – with cardstock and fiberglass resin. For a simpler model, with some pre-made parts that you have to purchase, you can try this tutorial on how to make a Halo Master Chief motorcycle helmet.

Back to Pepakura land, here’s how you can make the full Master Chief armor. For a more detailed tutorial, here’s how you can make the Halo ODST costume: chest, shoulders, side waist, central waist.

Once you have your armor, it’s time to gear up. Keep in mind that the tutorials for the gear are also time consuming. A simple version of a Halo 3 Assault rifle can be found here. For something more detailed though, you can check out this three part tutorial on the same type of weapon: part one, two, three. Use this template.

If a rifle is too bulky, you can make a Halo Magnum gun – it’s in the same style as those above, and it’s a five part tutorial, so buckle in: one, two, three, four, five.

Another Halo piece of gear you can add is an energy sword – and the end of all these tutorials, your inner DIY will rest happily.

Halo Party Food and drink Ideas

Halo offers a wide variety of foods that are being served in game, so you can easily label what you put on the table as ‘game food’ – it’s even easier since regular food like pizzas and clam chowder is featured.

To start off, you can put your troopers in the mood with some video game controller cookies.

For drinks you can either serve some Cortana neon blue soda and purple Covenant drinks or you can make use of the popular in game Blast Soda (looks like this). You can print the template, cut the text and glue it on a yellow/green soda can. For more fun to be had, you can add right under the soda station a label with: Achievment unlocked, Monumental Thirst – use this achievement template. If you really want to have a few laughs, you can use another popular drink from Halo, the dihydrogen monoxide (H2O – or water).

Another Halo party food idea is to fill up syringes with green or yellow jell-o and call them Stim-Packs.

Since I mentioned food, more substantial than cookies, you can serve your troops some Moa burger, for a real taste of home. Moa is a xeno-avian – extraterrestrial bird, resembling an extinct moa (current day emu) with a lizard head – in case you were wondering what goes in the burger ;). Here are a few burger recipes from the food and wine network.

You can also serve a Halo halo (from in the game) containing shaved ice, evaporated milk and toppings – here is a recipe.

You can also serve some Irukan grain pasta with Thorn Beast meat (essentially, spaghetti and meatballs). In addition, you can make some nice snacks like camo popcorn or Cortana popcorn – green and brown coated with candy melts or with blue ones (for Cortana).

For another bit of fun, you can serve mysterious fruit non-alcoholic punch and label it as Chef’s Surprise (the drink is present in the game, but no one knows for sure what is in it – it’s a drink surrounded in mystery).

Halo Birthday Cake and Cupcake Decorations and Ideas

Center stage is reserved for the birthday cake – and there are plenty of tutorials from vehicles to helmets.

In order of difficulty, let’s start with the easy to make fondant Halo cut-outs – you need to cover the cake in fondant, like here then print the templates and cut them out. You can try your hand with a Master Chief helmet, or if you’re confident enough, you can go for the full armor.

Following the same line, you can make a Halo ODST armor cake. You start by covering the cake in fondant, just like in the tutorial above. Then you make cut outs following the model here – you can also add one of the Halo logos, out of blue fondant like this one.

Next up, you can try your hand at a Halo Reach kit cake – use this cake recipe and images as templates, though keep in mind that you will have to add a lot of the details yourself.

You can also make a Halo Xbox cake (there was an edition made after the game). Here is how to make the cake –

There is even a tutorial for a Halo plasma grenade cake. While on the topic of weapons, you can make a Halo energy sword cake that should end up looking something like this . You can use this template and place it above the cake. For a lesson on cake carving check out this tutorial. Once you are done cutting, you need to ice the cake and cover it in fondant, like in the links above. For an extra effect, add some darker blue on the inside with food colorant (can paint it on) and paint some lightning strikes with white.

Another Halo birthday cake idea is to adapt this Nerf Gun Cake and make a Halo Magnum gun (or look-alike) – for extra realism, make it entirely black/grey.

For the Cake Masters out there, there are two more tutorials to try out – a Halo ghost cake and a Halo helmet cake tutorial (with another version here).

If you’re craving for some cupcakes, you can take advantage of the zombie mode and make some Mmm Brains cupcakes based on the delicious ’blood clot’ cupcakes. Underneath, you can add Mmm Brains badge.

Halo Party Games and activities

“What kind of halo player are you?” is a perfect ice breaker game – print out the types found in the first answer of the forum (children can identify with up to 3 types of the 57 Halo gamer types).

Halo has a lot of solo but also co-op campaigns which make for nice games in real life. For instance, you can play Grifball, where the aim of the game is to place the explosive in the other team’s gate. It was created by the Rooster Teeth Productions crew – Gavin and Burnie (or so the legend goes). In order to play it you should divide children in teams and place a time limit, after which the bomb (water balloon) explodes – this also makes the game more challenging since the team has to keep the balloon from popping (scraping on their armor/clothes or being snagged in branches). If the balloon bursts, victory goes to the other team, and the players are shuffled, and new teams formed. Players will be armed with super soakers and will try to kill the other teams’ members (2-3 shots to be eliminated).

The children can also play Flood – also with super soakers. Here a small unit of children with red headbands are the zombies –their aim is to infect the other people. They are a bit more resistant than the regular player, so it should take a few shots to kill them. Zombies are not allowed to carry guns. Once a player gets bitten (touched), he puts on a red band and joins the zombie crew. If all zombies are dead, then victory goes to the survivors, conversely, if all survivors are infected, then the zombies win.

Another game they can play is free-for-all-Oddball. Grab some skull shaped toys and place them around the yard. The game is played by individuals and the aim is to be able to hold the Oddball for 2 minutes. It requires some parents to keep track of who has the Oddball and how long they have kept it. Players can run and hide but they can’t use weapons when they have the skull. It takes two hits for them to be out. The players can respawn, but it takes them 5 minutes. You can play it with foam swords for variety and to make it easier for the people holding the skull – then you can call it Swordball.

Another possible game is Dominion – a sort of capture the hill with a twist. There are two teams – ones are attackers, the others are defenders. The defenders have to hold 3 bases for 10 minutes – they acquire them via race (once teams are decided, the defenders have 2 minutes to choose and set up in the bases – after that the attackers are free to assault them). If a member gets hit, it takes them 3-4 minutes to respawn (they go to the sidelines in the meanwhile). The children can also play a regular king of the hill version.

Lastly, they can play a Juggernaut game. Juggernaut, as the name suggests, is one against all. The aim of the child that plays the Juggernaut is to get as many people eliminated as possible. Each child will have his turn as the Juggernaut. The Juggernaut will have to be a bit harder to kill than the other players (2-3 hits, instead of one, for an elimination). Who has eliminated the most players as a Juggernaut wins.

Halo Birthday Party Favors and Ideas

Once all the fun has been had – and your garden has received more water than in an entire lifetime, it’s time to send the troopers home with a small favor bag. A nice idea is to use a green metal lunch box instead of a bag, and to print and glue a Halo themed wrap (check out the invitations section for nice Halo backgrounds). You can add a message where you thank them for their help in saving the universe. In the goodie bag you can place stickers and tattoos, or, if you did not use them for the invitations, either the Halo achievement badges or the Halo dog tags. You can add some grenade key chains made out of paracord – here is the tutorial. There is a whole host of merchandise available, from bracelets, to pins, Cortana chip keychains and bottle cap necklaces available on Amazon.

Halo Birthday Party Gift Ideas

Last, but most definitely not least, we should not forget about the birthday boy or girl.

In terms of clothing, you can find hoodies or t-shirts with the legendary difficulty badge or the UNSC crest. You can also find ones with Spartan troopers and Master Chief helmet. You can get the Halo UNSC M6 blaster, or the BOOMco. Halo Covenant Carabine blaster, or Energy Swords (made from titanium) on Amazon. There is also a limited collector’s edition Halo 5:Guardians Xbox – if you are willing to spend a bit extra. There is also a more affordable option with an Xbox one Limited edition Halo 5 Master Chief wireless controller.

In addition to that, you can always find some action figure sets on Amazon – from Spartan or Didact figurines to the Warthog vehicle pack. There are even Mega Blocks versions of the game available – like the Halo Firebase.