Game Night - 12yr - Monopoly, Price is Right, etc.

GAME NIGHT PARTY  The theme for my daughter’s 12th birthday incorporated all of her favorite games. The best part of this theme is that you are able to use a variety of board games, card games, tv game shows and video games. I used Monopoly, Texas Holdem, Yahtzee, Deal No Deal, Wheel of Fortune, Press Your Luck and The Price is Right.

INVITATIONS:  The invitation was made in a lottery scratcher style and mimicked the answer board from Family Feud. I folded a piece of black card stock in half to make a 3x5 card.  On a red 3x5 paper, I printed What are the 5 most common types of parties and listed the answer below in order of popularity. I glued the yellow paper to the front of the cardstock. I placed a 3x5 piece of clear contact paper over the yellow paper. I mixed metallic silver paint with dish liquid and painted rectangles on top of the contact paper to conceal each of the five answers. The recipient was able to scratch it off to reveal the answers. The inside of the invitation read You’re invited to the most popular party! It’s a birthday party for.at

GAMES/ACTIVITIES:  I made a large board in the shape of three dimensional dice. The pips on the dice were circular photos of various board game pieces. The guests had to guess the board games they were from.  I constructed a 6’ tall wood replica of the Plinko board from The Price is Right. The guests had three tries to accumulate the highest score.   There was a version of the Grocery Game. I lined up household items such as bandages, soup and toothpaste on a red painted 2x4. I wrote the prices below each item and covered them up with a piece of blue poster board. The guests had to select quantities of the items they thought would total closest to $20 without going over. I revealed the prices and tallied up each guest’s total. 

We played monopoly poker. I had paper copies of a blank Monopoly boards. Guests had to fill in the properties from memory. For each correct answer, they received a random playing card. From all of their cards, they had to make their best 5-card poker hand. The more correct answers, the more cards and better chances of having the overall winning hand.  Guests were given replica yellow name tags from The Price is right upon arrival.   I replicated the In Jail space from the Monopoly board. I used foam board painted orange and cut out a square in the center where the man is. I used black duct tape covered wrapping paper tubes attached to the back of the board for jail bars. Each guest could stand behind to have their picture taken In Jail.  Guests also took photos as the Monopoly man. I attached cut out foam mustache shapes onto blue wire and had a black top hat for them to wear. The mustaches were stuck into foam inside a box stating Flash Your Stache.

FAVORS: The prizes for the games were chocolate covered oreos decorated as different color poker chips and chocolate covered pretzel rods that had winner written on them. They were displayed in a sideways box that was painted and framed with the game board from Press Your Luck.  We gave travel and card games as party favors. Guests played Punch-a-Bunch from The Price is Right to get the favors. I used a large 4’x6’ cardboard box and painted the sides pink. I cut circles out of the front of the box. I glued large paper cups behind the circles into the inside of the box. I cut white tissue paper squares and taped them onto the front of the box over the circles. I cut matching circles out of another piece of cardboard painted blue and place it over the front of the box to hide the tissue paper. The guests had to punch through the circles to find the favors. 

DECORATIONS: The fireplace mantle had a sign in the Monopoly logo style. It was made on a 5x2 white foam board with a red rectangle in the middle. It read Childsname-opoly in white and had the Monopoly man above the lettering. There were four white balloons flying next to the sign with black felt cutouts of the railroad train glues on them. Hanging from the mantle were red curtains with blinking white Christmas lights behind them.  On the large opening between rooms, I hung the previously mention In Jail sign. To the left of it, I hung the Go To Jail space from the Monopoly board made from foam board and paint. Below the signs was the Free Parking space with large Monopoly money sticking out from underneath it. I made Free Parking from light green fabric, drew on the card with paint pens and trimmed it with black duct tape. The large money was photocopies from our game. On either side of the free Parking were Monopoly houses and hotels. I made these from small cardboard boxes.

After making the shapes, I simply covered them in red and green duct tape.  I made a large Community Chest card that read It’s your Birthday! Collect $500. Above the sink was the Utilities property card and above the light was the Electric Company property card. The backs of the chairs had various large property cards on them.   In the middle of the room, there were 5 large jumbo inflatable dice and a 2’x3’ whiteboard drawn as the gamepad from Yahtzee.  The centerpiece for the dining table was from Deal or No Deal. I used a box covered in metallic silver tape to replicate the briefcase and put my daughter’s age, 12, as the case number. I used a clear plastic box, half of a clear plastic ornament ball painted red and a red flashing light to look like the No deal button.  On the cabinet in the dining room, I made a sign that looked like the Wheel of Fortune board. I used black foam board and green and white rectangular pieces of paper for the letter boxes. I wrote out some of the letters in the phrase Happy Birthday Childsname. I put a sign saying phrase below the sign. On either side of the sign, I had jumbo foil $ balloons.  The area by the snacks was covered in $ confetti, playing cards and stacks of glued poker chips. The plates and napkins were printed with Texas Holdem.  The games such as the Punch-a-Bunch and Plinko also served as decorations. 

CAKE: The cake was a large replica of my daughter’s favorite Monopoly space, Boardwalk, using her favorite playing piece, the iron. The playing piece was made from stacked cardboard into the shape of an iron. I then covered the cardboard iron in black duct tape. I then rubbed on and wiped off silver paint to create a metal/pewter look.

PARTY SNACKS: All of the party food was labeled from various games. We had No Deal Nachos with Banker Black Bean Salsa, Park Place Pringles, Press Your Luck Pretzels and Come On Down Corn Curls. I set up a St. Charles Place Chocolate Fountain with strawberries, rice krispie treats, bananas and marshmallows for dipping. The sticks for dipping were wooden skewers that I attached foil dollar sign sticks on the ends. The holder for the skewers were a small boxes painted like dice.