Wizard of Oz Party -4yr- Emerald City Castle

My daughter Sky turned 4 this June of 2006.  We had a Wizard of Oz Birthday Party, and it was a blast!!  We had 20 children, and about 30 adults.  Everyone said it was a great party, and how amazed they were, and where did I get everything for the party.  I kept having to repeat to everyone that I made almost everything myself, and came up with the ideas by myself from having to watch the Wizard of Oz Movie at least once daily with my daughter.  Plus, I had to come up with my own things, since Wizard of Oz Party items are NO WHERE TO BE FOUND this year.  I did however, find Wizard of Oz invitations on line, and that was about it. 

I had a Wizard of Oz Cake, with a rainbow on the side, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and then the top was the yellow brick road through the middle, with green grass and flowers... and the characters walking to the Emerald City.  The characters that I bought off of ebay were on one side, and the Emerald City Castle was on the opposite side of the yellow brick road.  For paper products, We used solid red, and solid yellow plates and napkins and silverware, all of which I bought at the dollar store.  We had melted witch punch with a big sign that said, hail hail the wicked witch is dead, and it was green hi-c punch, sprite, and green sherbert so it was foaming on top, and I made a witches hat out of black foam sheets bought from Walmart, and sewed it into a witches hat, and had it floating on top... 

I also had a witches hat from Halloween and a witches broom stick setting on the table next to it, like she had melted.  For the yellow brick road effect, I bought TWO 100 foot rolls of yellow plastic table cloth, and kept them folded in 1/2 - and drew with a big permanant marker all of the bricks of the yellow brick road.   Which took about 3 hours.   Then, we bought yellow duck tape and taped it all along the sides, so it wouldn't slip and it would blend and look uniform, coming up the driveway, up the porch, into the house, and all the way through the house to the backyard.  I also bought life size characters off of ebay, the life size stand up cut outs of Dorothy, Glinda, Lion, Scarecrow, and TinMan and the melting witch.  They were placed along the yellow brick road. 

I also had our cd player out front hidden, that only played 2 songs, follow the yellow brick road, and the munchkin songs and ding dong the wicked witch is dead.  I also bought a rainbow metallic curtain and hung that across the front porch, so they had to go over the rainbow, and the wind was blowing, so it blew the rainbow metallic curtain for a special effect that I didn't even count on.  It was pretty special.  The garage door was on top of 2 legs I made out of white tights, and black electrical tape, that I stuffed with plastic bags, and used my husbands tube socks and stuffed them, then pulled white children's tights over them, and put ruby red slippers on the feet to be like the house falling on the wtich.   I took big size lollipops and spray painted them with clear acrylic paint, and tied gingham bows around them and put them in the ground and inside of the potted plants, which were placed along the yellow brick road.  I drew little munchkin heads and had them peeking out of the ground too. 

Of course, the front door had a sign hanging that said, Doorbell out of order, please knock and then I blew up a photo of the guard at the emerald city peeking through the circle.... to give it that extra effect.... We also had a tornado on our celing fan, with black streamers, 3 rolls of it, that I cut and shredded to give it a special effect and had the celing fan turned on low so it actually looked like a twister, but that wasn't complete without a mirrored (so it was on the front and back) printed image of Mrs. Gulch on her bike, the Gale Farm, The Wicked Witch on her broom, and a cow, and an old lady in her rocking chair....  All that I taped onto the streamers so they were also flying in the tornado, like in the movie.  The table cloths were yellow plastic cloths bought from the dollar store, and I then drew the yellow brick road on them. 

The main table had gingham fabric that I draped across.  I just bought enough fabric to spread around.  I also had bowls of skittles (taste the rainbow) all over the place with regular plastic white bowls, with red metallic tissue type paper that I also got at the dollar store and cut into small squares everywhere.  We played several games.  The first of which was a Ruby Slipper Hunt, like an Easter Egg Hunt, only I bought clear plastic slippers from the dollar store, and put glue on each one and then rolled in red glitter.  This took forever, alot of glue, and a lot of red glitter - but we had to have 100 of these done.  So I hid them all around the yard, and the kids (20 of them) went on a hunt for the Ruby Slippers. 

We also played throw the apple at the apple tree.  I drew a life size version of the apple tree, that stood about 8 feet tall, took a big wardrobe box, and opened it up to stand length wise, then drew on that - and I bought the plastic apples from the dollar store, so they were throwing actual apples, people thought they were real apples.....and then I cut the mouth out of the apple tree and the kids had to try to toss the apples into the mouth of the apple tree. (the prize was a badge of courage for being brave enough to take on the apple tree) I then also bought plastic clear funnels at the dollar store, and a can of silver spray paint, painted the different sized funnels silver, and bought rings at the dollar store.  They had a ring toss, only it was toss the rings onto the tin mans hat. 

We also played pin the heart on the tin man, to which I drew the tin man, then covered him with aluminum foil and spray painted buttons silver,and glued them onto him for his rivet effects.....  and made the hearts as well and covered the hearts in contact paper so the ink wouldn't be ruined and it was easier to use tape on.  Each child apon arrival was presented with thier EMPTY dorothy basket which I made out of brown lunch sacks.  I folded them down until they were the height of a basket, then took a pipe cleaner and made the handle (brown pipe cleaners), and then took ghingham fabric and hot glued a strip around the top of the folded bag, then tied a ghingham fabric bow around the top of the pipe cleaner/handle.  I then printed off stickers of TOTO and stuck them to the front of the bag..... and then put the childs name on the front of the bag,  so each child had their very own Dorothy Basket.  After they did an acitivy or played a game, they were presented with a prize....  I didn't have prizes already put in the bags, they earned things that represented each character.... as they went along.  

They also didn't sell any pinatta's for Wizard of Oz, and I wasn't impressed with the rainbow pinatta's, so I made my own square pinatta, then printed photos of Wizard of Oz, and the characters, and glued them like a collage, all to the pinatta....and then put glue border with red glitter all around it...then took red tissue paper, and twisted them up and glued them to the sides of the pinatta to make it look like poppies.......then hung red streamers off of the bottom.  I only filled the pinatta with rainbow colored bubble gum coins, so when it split open, all of the coins dropped, and it was a rainbow of colors.....    Prizes for games and goodies were, the ruby slippers for the Ruby Slipper (egg hunt) hunt.  I bought small bottles of bubbles in pink and yellow and made sticker labels with Glinda on them, that said Glinda's magic bubbles.    I bought jelly sticky horses from Oriental Trading they were all different colors of the rainbow, and made sticker labels that said "Now that's a horse of a different color."   I then got bags of animal crackers, and put a sticker with a photo of the 4 of them (dorothy, scarecrow, lion, tinman, SCARED in the forest...) with the saying, Lions Tigers and Bears, OH MY.   

I then bought the plastic gold coins on the end of the red/white/blue ribbon at Walmart that say Winner, and I made labels on the computer that said Courage, and hot glued them over the Winner Side, so each child had a badge of courage.    I then found suckers that were pink stars on long sticks, and I made labels and attached them to the suckers that said Glinda's Magic Wand with a photograph of Glinda on that too.    I also made stickers for all of the kids, bought the round sticker labels from Avery and printed Wizard of Oz Clip Art.    I also printed out coloring pages, and tied them with a ribbon, so it looked like the diploma for the scarecrow.   

I also had rainbow whirly pops for the lollipop kids....    For GRAND prizes, (the one child who won each game) I found these doll ink pens at the dollar store, that looked like Munchkins, and put a sticker label on them that said, "we welcome you to Munchkin Land" - And then I also made a copy of my daughter's Wizard of Oz Soundtrack on Red CD's, and put a label that said, "Wizard of Oz Soundtrack, Thank you for coming to My WIzard of Oz Birthday Party, Love Sky." -   I then made a Thank You note for each goodie bag that said, Thank you for having the brains, the courage, and the heart to come to Sky's Wizard of Oz Birthday Party, it wouldn't have been the same without you.    I started making things for the party about 3 months in advance.... and purchased everything I needed from the dollar store, and party express and printed off photos, labels, stickers, etc... on my computer, and got clip art off of the internet....    I enjoy doing over the top birthday parties, and everyone tells me I should start a business doing this...  but it's just a hobby of mine, and I ENJOY every minute of it.  Next in August is a CARNIVAL for my 5 year old turning 6....   Only problem is, everyone expects me to top the party before….  UGH!