Indiana Jones Adventure -9yr- Chocolate Skulls

INVITATION: I found some scrapbooking paper that looked like leather and printed on them: Indiana (child's name) is planning his next archaeologist expedition for his 9th birthday to find a lost treasure deep in the sacred caves of fate.  He needs your help on this adventure! Be prepared for danger and hazardous thrills, but be WARNED that it may not be safe! This adventure will take place: date, time, and in the lost city of: (city of our house), then RSVP info.  Had Indiana's hat printed in the corner of the invite.  For the envelopes, I wanted them to look authentic so I stained them with soda (didn't have coffee or tea on hand) and then placed them in the oven for about 10mins until the entire envelope looked somewhat burned and old.  Very cool looking.  

DECORATION: I took brown paper bags and cut them long ways into three sections, then twisted them, and then taped them together to make vines. (Some longer than others) Then took different shades of green cardstock paper and cut about 100 jungle leaves. (My husband helped with this so it went much faster) The day of the party we hung these all over the main room where the party was being held and taped the leaves to the vines. Behind the vines, we had brown packaging paper taped from one wall to the other so all you saw was the brown paper and the vines, not the kitchen which was behind the brown paper. We had brown and lime greem balloons spread all around. For the table, I put one dark brown table cloth down first, then a dark green one over it and pulled back so you saw the brown and the green.  Looked good with the jungle theme that was going on. That was about it for the decoration, very inexpensive but looked so good and took some time to get all the vines and leaves made.  

SNACKS AND FOOD: I had names on most of the foods-worms (sliced hot dogs long ways and boiled until they curled), beetle wings (chips), fried snails(pizza rolls), grapes and cheese, jungle juice(Fruit punch), and my favorite-chilled monkey brains to replicate the scene from The Temple of Doom which was strawberry banana jello with crushed pineapple and cut strawberries in monkey head cups I had ordered from Oriental Trading Co. The kids thought this was so gross but so great! (They're the kind of cups with the screw on straw lids so I just left the lids off and put a brown spoon in each one) There wasn't one chilled monkey brain left to eat! 

GAMES: Before the games started, I had a letter on the table (staccato222 font) written to the birthday boy from Indiana Jones which I read to everyone while they were eating.  It told them that they were going to be going on adventures through out the day but he was going to be helping them along the way by leaving clues for them through out each adventure. I had certain quotes and different things that Indy said in each of the movies in the letter to make it sound more authentic. After that, they got their first clue which said:Ok,

For your first adventure, you are going to be digging for various treasures in the sands of Egypt.  Be careful though, it may be crawling with poisonous creatures.  Whatever you find, you may keep and put in your satchel.  There is a rumor that these sands are filled with gold coins and mysterious bones.  Good Luck.  At this point each child was given an animal print bag with binoculars and compasses already in them (ordered from OTC) and led into the room filled with sand. (it was actually a TON of brown paper bags I had shredded, torn up, and spread ALL over the floor with TONS OF GOODIES in, and under the bags. There were Egyptian coins, gooey Marshmallow spiders, bone candy, cherry filled gum eyeballs, and tons of snakes (all ordered from OTC) spread all around. They also had to be careful because the next clue was buried under all that. The boys LOVED this. The next clue was found and read: Good job!  You bravely searched the sands of Egypt and found my next clue. 

For this adventure, the weak hearted shall not attempt, for this is a dangerous and deadly journey.  Remember the crystal skull we returned and the legend that followed it?  Well, I'm sorry to say that in order to proceed, you too must locate a crystal skull and return it to the box of souls.  You musn't stare too long at it's eyes for you could forever be lost to it's power of evil.  Here's how the legend goes: Twelve skulls must be found, twelve souls must be bound. Hidden apart we have fallen, seek us out. hear our calling.   Once we are found, return us safe and sound. Only then shall you receive a gift from us, once you've  Showed us your trust.    Well, good luck kid.  Look all around, high and low.  

Then they were instructed to look for the skulls (which were white chocolate molded skulls I had made and had dusted with edible shimmer placed in clear treat bags) I held the box of souls for them to return the skulls, which was a nike box I had spray painted gold and had taped the next clue inside. Once they were found, they read the 3rd clue which basically said good news you found the skulls, bad news you were stung by a mosquito carrying the Malaria disease. They then had to find the Holy Grail (a $2.00 flower vase I had sprayed gold also) which held the antidote to eternal life and could save their lives. In order to find the Grail though, they had to answer 6questions about the movies, in return they would get a clue to where the grail was. After all 6 clues were received, they had to put them all together to form the location of the grail, and off they went! They had to go downstairs and through dark halls to find it and it held creepy tubes of candy goo with eyeballs and fingers (OTC) which they had to drink immediately! Again the next clue told them to locate the Golden Ark where the ultimate treasure awaited the birthday boy. Found a cool shaped cooler for $1.88 at walmart, sprayed it gold and put the presents in it for the bday boy. The boys loved this idea and they all carried it back to the party room.

CAKE: Well, I'm a cake decorator so I decided to make a cake shaped just like Indy's hat covered in brown fondant, had a whip, scorpion, rat, snakes, slugs, and creepy crawly black bugs spread all around the cake. It set on a silver platter with crushed graham crackers with chocolate rocks in it the crushed crackers. Everything was edible and everyone loved it! The kids thought it was a real hat being used as a centerpiece on the table!!  So that was our party. Didn't have a pinata because they had already gotten so much from the digging game, each got to have 2 of the skulls, and of course the gooey antidote. One boy said he wanted a party just like what we had! Everybody left happy with full goodie bags, no food was left, and the bday boy was already pretending new adventures with the Holy Grail and the golden ark.  Pretty good day. Oh and also had the soundtrack playing during all of this.