Sports Party -5yr- Sports Ball Balloons

I threw my son a sports themed birthday party for his 5th birthday and it was a blast!

INVITATIONS: For the invites I used an old ticket for inspiration and designed one myself on paint.  I cut them out and then glued each one to a piece of cardboard and mailed each guest their ticket to the party.

DECORATIONS:  I used primary colored balloons and streamers and tablecloths that I bought at the local dollar store.  For centerpieces I stacked three small boxes on top of each other and wrapped them with different colored tissue paper and tied them like presents with curling ribbon and glued them together.  I put some sugar in each box to weigh it down too before I wrapped them.  Then I made a long slice down through the center of the three boxes by stabbing through the middle with a knife.  I took four straws and taped them together in a bundle and then taped four more straws together in another bundle.  I taped these two bundles together to make a long pole which I wrapped with white streamers and then white tulle and then I twisted a piece of curling ribbon down the whole thing.  Then I pushed this 'pole' down through the slice I had made in the boxes. 

Next I blew up white and orange balloons and took a red permanent marker and drew the lines onto the white balloons to make them look like baseballs and the orange balloons I drew on with black permanent marker to make them look like basketballs.  I drew tons of baseballs, basketballs, footballs and tennis balls and glues them to a long piece of ribbon and used that as a garland around the top of the diningroom ceiling.  I had lots of balloon clusters in the corners.  I drew big basketballs and footballs and baseballs and big number '5''s and taped them all over the walls.  I also made mini balls and taped them all over the tablecloths. 

ACTIVITIES AND GAMES: We had the mini basketball hoops out and had a shooting contest.  We played freeze dance in the den with the floor covered with balloons that looked like baseballs and basketballs.  We played hot potato with a balloon that looked like a baseball. The kids were having so much fun just dancing and playing with the balloons that we left alone and just let them have fun.  We had planned a balloon relay race and some other games but it worked out great anyway.

CAKE: I made a tower out of three boxes and wrapped them with tissue paper and put them on top of a large piece of cardboard.  I added a few paper tennis and baseballs to decorate it a little.  Then I stacked cupcakes onto the boxes and I made them look like baseballs and tennis balls and basketballs by drawing on the lines with a toothpick dipped in food coloring.  They were a HUGE hit! 

We had ice cream, and tons of party food like taco salad, pasta salad, dips, stuffed mushrooms, etc. I even made tiny baseballs and basketballs and glued them onto the cocktail toothpicks. I also wrapped the silverware into napkins and then glued on strips of tissue paper that had Happy Bday XXX printed on them.  I just ran the tissue paper through the printer and then cut them down.

FAVORS: Everybody went home with an extra cupcake and a bag of chocolates that were wrappde like baseballs.  Kids got goody bags with sports themed pencils, erasers, candy and stickers.