Spongebob Party -8yr- Tropical Luau Décor

For my son's 8th birthday he wanted a Spongebob Squarepants theme.  I like Spongebob a lot and thought it would be a lot of fun. We decided to have the party at our townhouse since I was trying to save a little bit of money.

INVITATIONS: For the invitations, I downloaded a picture of Spongebob and typed I'm ready I'm ready I'm READY to celebrate (son's name) 8th birthday!" I printed this out on photopaper so the colors would be really bright and pretty. Then I mounted the 4x6 prints to yellow cardstock and on the back  typed all of the party info. I used a clipart of a pineapple on the back also. Then I put each invitation into a sandwich sized plastic baggie with a little bit of blue colored sand (Wal-mart) and tropical confetti.  Most of the invitations were hand-delivered but I did send some in the mail in envelopes. They were very very cute.

CAKE: For the cake I was going to decorate Spongebob but my son wanted a cake that he saw at the grocery store so I duplicated it. I made a chocolate 9x13" cake and  cut off about a third of it. I placed the part I cut off on top of the larger part of the cake so it was two tiered stair step. I frosted it with blue icing and blue colored sugar. I used pink icing to add jellyfish and green for seaweed. I added little figures of Spongebob Mr. Krabs and Patrick and Spongebob's house. Everyone thought that the cake looked really nice. I also made cupcakes that I frosted bright yellow and added mulicolored sprinkes and those Spongebob sugar decorations that you can buy at the grocery store. They were white cake in case someone didn't like chocolate but I think everyone ate a cupcake and a piece of cake!

DECORATIONS: Since Spongebob is really tropical I used luau decorations around the house. I put a grass skirt around the kitchen table and everyone wore a flower lei. I strung blue streamers in both light and dark blue from the ceiling to look like waves and used green streamers to look like seaweed.  I also put grass skirts along the staircase. I found a inflateable palm tree at a garage sale and put that in the corner. We had seashells laying all around the house. I drew posters of Spongebob and friends and put them around the house. On the front door I drew a driftwood sign that said Bikini Bottom (Spongebob's home) and inside I had a really big one of Spongebob and Patrick holding a banner that read "Happy 8th Birthday!"  I also drew a large one of Spongebob that we used in a game.

ACTIVITIES:  I got most of the ideas for games online. My son has Spongebob DVDs so we played those on the TV in the living room for the kids to get into the mood when they came in. The icebreaker activity that we did was made our own mini-Bikini Bottoms. Each kid had a baby food jar and they added blue sand small seashells and small spongebobs to the jar.

GAMES: After all the kids arrived I told them that Plankton tried to steal Mr. Krabs secret recipe for Krabby Patties and he needed their help. He needed them to find the recipe by following his clues. When they found it they could keep the treasure but he wanted the recipe. The kids followed a series of clues that I wrote on a map. Things like "Ye must climb the mountain (staircase) circle the deadman's tree three times (tree in front yard) go down the slippery slope (at the playground next door)." The treasure ended up being right at the house next to the palm tree. I filled a small wooden box with leftover Halloween candy Spongebob tattoos Mardi Gras beads etc.

On the bottom of the box Mr. Krabs left a message "Tricked you Plankton! You will never get the secret formula!! HA HA! Love Mr. Krabs"  The kids thought that was really funny. After that we had a Krabby Patty relay race. Since we had an even number of boys and girls they divided up into teams in the backyard. I gave each team a spatula and they had to race hamburger buns from one end of the yard to the other and then tag the next teammate. Even the really little kids got into that one. The last game we played was Pin the Tie on Spongebob. The poster of Spongebob that I drew was missing his tie. Each kid got a tie cut from red construction paper. We blindfolded them and turned them around and they tried to get the closest to Spongebob's shirt. After the games we cut the cake and opened presents.

FAVORS: Most of the parents stayed (they said that they got caught up in how cute the party was and didn't want to leave!) so I handed everyone a bag with Spongebob themed stuff in it. Each bag had Spongebob stickers Spongebob fruit snacks candy playdough mini-Spongebob puzzles etc. Everyone had a really great time and I enjoyed the party too. My son said that it was the best party he'd had (and it cost a lot less then most of them!!)"