We celebrated Pumpkin's tenth birthday this Saturday with a Wii Bowling Tournament for the entire family! This was such a fun party and super easy to put together. The best part about Wii is that adults enjoy it just as much as the kids, so not only did all of the cousins participate, but the adults did too!
The decor for the party was based on the colors of the Wii brand - flourescent lime green, gray and white. For my fellow color geeks, I found that pantone 376 M was the best match to the green for my printer. Using this color scheme and Mii graphics, decorating for the party was a snap. We started with a Happy Birthday banner using the Wii font (continuum) and a bowling ball graphic that I created by layering a vintage-inspired bowling ball clipart with simple shapes for a bolder look. I am working on making this banner available as a free download. In the meantime, you can contact me by email and I will send you the pdf file of the banner.
As an fun little surprise in the decor, I replaced a framed picture hanging on the wall with our Mii family portrait and waited to see if our party guests would notice. (and they did, slowly as the party progressed. such fun to see the reaction!)
As each guest arrived, they were given a lanyard with their tournament badge featuring their own personalized Mii. Badges were easily laminated using Avery lamination paper.
Hanging on the door leading to the play room (the venue for the tournament) was a chart containing cards for each person's Mii. This was used to create brackets for the tournament. The bracket cards were held in a classroom chart purchased in Target's dollar spot. (dear Target, how did I ever live without you?).
During a break between rounds, we sang to the birthday boy and enjoyed cupcakes adorned with his Mii, of course. Then back to the tournament. At this point, it was getting really intense!
When the tournament concluded and the winner was crowned (congratualations Petunia!), the guests left with their own Wiimote filled with treats. The wiimotes were made from paper using a pattern found here {via mumbojumbo}. I printed the pattern on 100 lb. cardstock and they were very sturdy, but did take some extra time to fold. Be prepared to spend some time cutting and folding, about 4 minutes per wiimote.
At first, I thought I would use double-sided tape to assemble these, but quickly decided that hot glue worked much better. To fill the remotes, I put gummy lifesavers (about 14 per remote) in cellophane bags and then sealed the open end of the remote with tape. Ziploc snack bags would work just as well and the long shape would fit nicely into the wiimotes. No significance to the gummy savers, just a safe choice given food allergy concerns in our family.
Reading this over, it seems like this party was a lot of work, but it really wasn't! The party came together very quickly and easily with the most time-consuming task being the Wiimote favors. If you're short on time, Wiimote candy dispensers are available on Amazon and at Walgreens {found via hwtm}.
Now on to the thank you notes - I'll be back with those tomorrow! {invites were sent via evite due to holiday card season burnout}
ETA: Thanks so much to everyone for all of your enthusiastic emails and comments. You can make Miis at several sites online including miimaker.com
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