High School Musical -9yr- Hot Dogs & Popcorn

Our daughter is crazy about High School Musical 1 & 2.  So, we knew that was the one for her 9th birthday theme.  I

nvitations:  We used our print shop program on our computer and made backstage passes.  On the front of the invite there was a clip art picture of a basketball hoop and the words Backstage Pass in bold black ink.  The reverse side of the invite read: GO WILD CATS! You're invited to attend Payton's HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL Birthday Party!  Auditions will be held at (our address) on September 1, 2007 beginning at 5:00 pm.  Sign up by August 25, 2007 by calling (our phone number).  Casting call requires that you show up in our Favorite Wildcats colors-Red & White.  Payton would be honored if you'd join her backstage to celebrate her birthday!  We printed them off using white cardstock and cut red cardstock 1/4 larger than the white and glue the white invite to the red cardstock.  We then laminated each one and punched a hole in the top and strung white yarn threw it.  We then attached some fake money to each pass so that her guests could buy there treats at the concession stand. 

Decorations:  We found some inexpensive large black music notes made of heavy duty cardstock at a local party supply store and hung them from the ceiling with clear fishing line over all the table areas.  We loved the look of the lunch tables in the movie.  They were our inspiration.  We used five 8 foot tables for people to eat at.  If you've seen the movie you are aware that the tables are round, painted red, and have a large E that is circled on them.  Since we had to use rectangle tables we did this: First we laid down red plastic table cloths, (my cousin works in a label making factory so he gave me a large ream of white label paper-what a deal!) We then traced out 10 of each Large E's and hollowed out circles which we took of the sticky side of the paper and glued to each end of each of the five tables. 

Two of the tables had a basketball as the centerpiece with large red and white pom poms around them.  Two of the tables had white megaphones that I had made out of large poster board and in marker made the words Go Wildcats, music notes, hearts with Troy and Gabriella's name, and etc with large red and white pom poms around them.  The middle table I used the pop-up centerpiece you can buy at the party supply store that has the cast on it.  It too had a set of large red and white pom poms around it.  The gift table had a High School Musical table cloth on it.  The cake table had a white plastic table cloth on it with HSM napkins and plates interchanged with white and red napkins placed diagonally.  

The food table:  This had to be my favorite part of the WHOLE birthday.  Here's what we did:  We used a white plastic table cloth and skirt to cover the 8 foot table.  We saved 2 boxes that paper towels come in (my husband brought them home from work) and cut the open end completely off and cut holes in the other three sides (this was to resemble a popcorn and pretzel machine) and taped clear saran wrap to those three cut sides.  We painted the top and bottom inside and out red and the sides white.  For the popcorn one, we just placed pre-popped popcorn in brown lunch bags and placed them in the large opened side of the box. 

For the pretzel machine we got a 1 diameter dowel rod for the local hardware store and hot glued it the middle of the box and then hot glued ¼ diameter dowel rod cut into 2 pieces along the sides of the larger dowel for our pre-heated pretzels to be displayed.  I then found some wildcat footprints on clip art and typed the words Wildcat Popcorn and Wildcat Pretzels on two 5X7 sheets of white paper, laminated them and glued them to the front of the cardboard machines.  From a distance no one realized they weren't metal.  It was so cute.  We also use two pieces of scrap plywood (cut 10 X 24) and hinged them together on the top, glued clothes pins to one side, and painted the whole thing white.  This was our chip bag holder.  It looked just like a concession stand.  

The food:  As you can probably already imagine we had foods you would get at a basketball game:  Hot dogs, brats, chips, bags of popcorn, pretzels with cheese, nachos with cheese, and candy.  The beverages where assorted pops and juices (kept cool in a red and white camping cooler).   We used trays from our church to serve everyone's goodies from the concession stand to the tables. 

The cake:  My sister-in-law is a culinary chef (how lucky is that), so she made the cake.  It was a basketball backboard, hoop, and basketball going threw the hoop.  Of course she used Wildcat colors Red & White, and the basketball was chocolate inside and the backboard was vanilla Birthday Girl's wishes!  Lastly, we made a stage and bench for Payton to open her gifts at.  The stage was made out a large octagon made of pine 2X4s; we bought some small diameter PVC pipe and drilled holes in the base for them to stand up in.  We then made curtains out of red material and attached black music notes made from laminated construction paper by Velcro.  We used red wrapping paper to make a red carpet up to her stage.

My husband built her a bench to set on.  It was a basic bottom (meaning legs and 2 foot long board on top).  We painted this bright red, and I stenciled WILDCATS and drew a picture of a wildcat mascot head on the top of the seat, and I painted the letters and wildcat while.  The back of the bench was a large circle that my husband cut out of heavy duty plywood and painted to resemble a basketball.  She loved it!  She has the bench in her room still!  She said this was the BEST birthday she's had yet!  She's even thinking about planning a HSM 2 or 3 party for next year.  I'm thinking HSM 2 beach party.  Hope this gave you some ideas for you HSM lover too!