The ACE Party: Activities & Games

Most of Asa’s first birthday party I did myself. What I mean is, I didn’t buy any games, rent any inflatables or hire a performer. (Although, I was thinking about hiring a walk-around magician. I mean, how cool would that have been?!) Besides the food, we had a few game stations, one group game and…a homemade PHOTO BOOTH. It was DE-LIGHTFUL.

You ready to see it all? Like every last detail?! Here goes…

1. Make Your Own Deck of Cards

I wanted a card craft but knew building card towers would be a little too hard for 3 year olds. Instead I cut up about 50 pieces of cardstock into playing-card size pieces. (I have a paper cutter and used the ruler on the bottom. (I cut it at 5.5″ then turned it and cut at 4 1/4″ and then 2 3/4″ if you really wanna know.)

all the kids liked this one!

My plan was to make stamps of the suits and let the kids design their own cards. I bought an inch thick dowel rod to cut up and use as the handles. Thankfully, about 20billion years ago, when I was in 6th grade, we made some stamps at church which I still have. So, I tore the random stamps off the top of those handles (which was a dowel rod, too) and glued a pre-cut craft foam circle on top—to give the stamp some cushion.

Then I grabbed some craft foam sheets and cut out a diamond, spade and club shape. I just happen to have some heart shapes in my craft stash. This actually took some time because my club kept looking like a lumpy cross.

they weren't perfect but I liked the diy-ness of it

I layered it all together and VOILA! homemade stamps. This only took me about 15-30 minutes and I think it turned out pretty cute. I also put markers and colored pencils out for the kids to color the backs of the cards.

the club doesn't look too bad!

The kids didn’t quite make a whole deck of cards each. But it was still fun!

2. 52 Card Pick Up

Well. It’s pretty self-explanatory. We threw a bunch of cards on the floor and let the kids play with them. I thought they might like to sort them because we had some great decks (random cats on pillows, Loony Tunes, pandas and even mosquitoes) but they just kinda liked picking them up and looking through them.

baby blues!

3. Ace in the Hole Bean Bag Toss

I got this idea from Lark & Lola—they made a bean bag toss to look like the card-guys on Alice in Wonderland. I borrowed a bean bag toss from my mom’s ministry & we painted it that morning to look like an Ace. We used stuffed animals as bean bags and the animals MAY be a little too paint-y for any more snuggling. Oh yeah, and I didn’t get any good pictures of it, either…

4. PHOTO BOOTH

A few days before the party I saw this blog post and said I WANT TO DO THAT. So, that morning when my parents arrived to help set up I said, “If we get everything done I want to try to set up a photo booth.” AND WE DID.

I grabbed (ok, Mama grabbed) two sets of puppet stage curtains from our basement. What? You don’t have a puppet stage laying around your house? Well, the point is you need a background curtain/piece of fabric AND a front piece. The front is so your guests will feel free to be as silly as they’d like with no one watching. I guess you could set it up in another room or large closet. But there is something about a curtain that is just fun.

I set up my Sony Handycam on a tripod, unbelievably found the remote in .2 seconds (in the armoire in a pile of cords) and taped down an X on the ground so everyone would know where to stand. Let me just say the photo booth was very ENJOYED…

my brother & sis-in-law. they took a 30 sec video of themselves on accident, too.

this is 1 of 45 of her.

my fave. i wish i had giant cards to pose with!

sisterchicks rock the house

cutest kid ever.

5. The Asa Shuffle

Every month on Asa’s birthday I take a picture of him with his guitar pillow. (Yes, he has a guitar pillow. Thank you, Aunt Yancy!) So, I printed out all 12 of the pictures and divided the guests up into four teams (by way of the aforementioned suit stamps on a nametag) to get them in order. The first team to win—well, they won. And they got to keep the pictures. It was hilarious because everyone was really working hard on it. And no one got it on the first try!

Hearts team wins!!

And in case you missed it: The ACE Party FOOD, Decor and Invitations!

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I linked this post up to Kimba’s DIY Day. Please go click around–there are so many AMAZING do-it-yourself projects…furniture, crafts, sewing and recipes!