Rock Climbing Party -8yr- Draw String Bags

Rock Climbing Party - Well it was time to plan another party and my oldest son decided this year to have a Rock Climbing Party for his 8th birthday.  We had the actual party at a local Rock Gym that really caters to climbers of all ages.  But I wanted to add some special touches to make this party memorable. 

The invitations were hand made rocks.  We had a bag of concrete patch in our garage (very inexpensive at a home improvement store).  My husband mixed up a bowl full of the concrete.  We took a handful of it and formed it into a ball and placed it on a saran wrapped covered cookie sheet.  Then we pushed in an eye screw (a pretty big one) and let them harden over night.  In the morning were these really cool gray rocks with a metal eye screw poking out of it.  We printed the party info on a label and stuck that to a 2"X4" tag (available at office supply stores).  We tied that tag onto the eye screw and hand delivered the invitations.  The title of the invitation said "Come Climb the Walls with Us".  Everyone loved these invites. 

For decorations:  the rock gym provided a party room for us.  We had 3 long tables in a room with a basketball goal and some video games.  For the paper stuff, I used everything gray to represent rocks.  Gray tablecovers, gray plates, napkins and gray forks.  I set each table with a plate, fork, napkin, a small cup of quarters for the video games and a small cup of chocolate rocks (these I found at a specialty candy store - they looked so real).  I bought water bottles for each child and put their names on them.  We filled them with soda for the party. 

Since rock climbers are well known for carabiners (the little metal clips for their ropes), we used those too.  On the water bottles we attached a small carabiner keychain using a zip tie (the keychains came from oriental trading).  This way the kids could "hook" their water bottles on their belt loops during the party and at home for other events.  The cake was a rice krispy "rock wall" with royal icing "climbers".  I got this idea from the 2003 Wilton Yearbook.  We also made cupcakes with gray icing sprinkled with the chocolate rocks.  We served snack foods as well for the kids (and grown-ups) to eat in between climbs. 

For the party bags, I made drawstring bags for each child.  These were very simple to make and the kids loved them.  I purchased jersey fabric (from Wal-Mart for $1 a yard.  1 yard made the 11 bags I needed).  On the fold I cut out a piece of fabric the size of a sheet of paper and sewed the bottom and side together.  Then I sewed the top inch of the bag down to form the space for the drawstring.  Turn the bag inside out and thread through the opening a black cord.  We purchased black cordlocks from an on-line company and put those on the black cords and tied knots.  We attached a large carabiner (found at Lowe's) on the side of the bag.  Now the kids have a cool draw string bag that they can hook on their belt loops, too.  I filled the bag with pop rocks, a rock bouncy ball, some candy, some cool pencils and a coupon for a free movie from Blockbuster. 

Then for the final touch my husband digitally video taped the whole party.  When we got home, he edited the video and put the whole thing to music - rock music of course.  He found every fun song he could think of that had the word "rock" in it. (and my personal favorite - the Dixie Chicks song "If I fall your going down with me).  He burned the video onto cd's.  We took a group photo of the kids at the party and used this pic to make a cd label for the cd's.  We put these cd's in jewel cases and gave them out as the thank you notes.  The whole party was a blast - for both boys and girls.