How to make an Angry Birds Birthday Party

So I was going to post about Spencer's birthday party and thought about all the blogs I read trying to get ideas for his party and thought it only fair I post what I did in case there is anyone else there looking for ideas.  This year after briefly considering a Ninjago or Pokemon party, Spencer decided on an Angry Birds birthday party.  I was a bit disappointed.  I really think Ninjago or Pokemon better suited him, but this was what he wanted.  To be honest I had never even played Angry Birds at this point in time, although the kids play it on daddy's iphone and ipad.  They also play Angry Frogs.  So as I was a bit clueless on the whole Angry Birds thing I turned to the internet.  This was a couple weeks before Christmas.  At this point I thought it may be important that he get one of the Angry Birds toys he was asking for for Christmas.  But I had already bought all his presents.  So I tried to get a hold of the Angry Birds Knock on Wood game.  It was sold out everywhere online and in every store I kept going to and I couldn't get myself to pay 3x the price on ebay.  My sister's daughter had drawn Spencer's name for a Christmas gift exchange and she said she'd buy him something.

Luckily Santa put a couple cat/dog Angry Bird toys in his stocking so he had something Angry Birds at Christmas and then my neice gave him a couple larger stuffed animals.  And on I went thinking about his birthday party.  I found some fun pictures of cakes and ideas for games.  I then decided I should probably play the game myself.  So I did one day for about 5 minutes.  It's kind of fun but I really don't get all the hoopla surrounding this game.  I then set out for party decorations and invitations.  They didn't exist in any store around here so I ordered them online through Birthday Direct (I found them here the cheapest).  I got invitations, plates, napkins, and cups.  Online I also found some printable Angry Bird faces to put on balloons http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/angry-birds-balloons-free-templates/.  The kids went crazy over these cute balloons--I made 4 pigs and the birds.  I tied the strings to clear pebble rocks so they wouldn't float away at the party.  So many people stopped us at Jungle Jim's asking about the balloons and my kids at home loved them all the way until the helium went out of them.  Here's Clara walking around with some of them.

At Walmart I found some little Angry Bird beanbags in a 2-pack for $5 and some large bags of Angry Bird fruitsnacks on clearance for 50 cents.  I bought enough to send each kid home with one beanbag and a pack of fruit snacks. 

Then on to the cake.  After plenty of googling I had so many fun ideas.  I ended up going with the cake pop idea.  So I made a white cake and some cream cheese frosting and mixed them together.  Then I used my scooper and rolled them into a bunch of balls (and a few triangles) and let them firm up a bit in the cold garage (this is my 2nd refrigerator during the winter months).  Whie these were firming up I made all the little pieces that would need to go on the birds heads.  I used mini marshmallows that I cut in half (so they didn't stick out as much) for the eyes and for the pigs' ears.  I used jelly beans for the pigs' noses.  And I used Starbursts for everything else.  For the beaks I just cut the 4 corners off yellow starbursts.  For the eyebrows and straight top feather of the black bird I just cut strips of orange starbursts.  For everything else I used a technique I modified from Girls' Camp.  The girls up there taught me the trick of melting Starbursts in the fire.  For my cakes I've modified to melting them in the microwave for about 10 seconds.  This makes them nice and pliable.  Then I twisted, folded, cut, molded them into the shapes of the other bird feathers and bellies.  Here's what all my pieces looked like:

Then I separated out a bunch of the white candy melts (and some green ones my mom had left over and gave me) into separate bowls for each color I would need.  I then melted each bowl one at a time and added Wilton icing colors to make them the colors I would need:  red, black, blue, yellow, left some white, and melted the green candy melts.  Then I dipped these pieces in the right colors for their eyebrows, stomachs, and head pieces.  Then I pulled out my cake balls and dipped the lollipop sticks in some melted chocolate before sticking them into the balls.  Then I re-melted one of the bird colors and dipped them one at a time.  Right after dipping them and shaking off the excess I stuck on all the bird parts so they would stick to the ball as the melted chocolate was hardening.  Then I stuck the bird/pig into some styrofoam (sold in the flower craft section at WalMart) and moved onto the next bird/pig.  After finishing all of them the styrofoam seemed a bit top heavy so once they were set I moved them onto a jelly roll pan.  Then I dotted each of the eyes with black icing on a toothpick. I also used this black on the pigs' noses and ears.  And I used a toothpick to add the cheeks on the white and blue birds.  Then I placed them in my basement storage room (about 60 degrees) overnight.

The next day was Spencer's friend party.  I made a 9x13 chocolate cake and another chocolate cake split between two 8x8 pans.  I then layered them with a blackberry-whipped cream filling.  I then made a white chocolate ganache dyed with green to pour over the cake.  After doing this I realized I should have made an actual frosting to at least do a crumb coating or cover it all because the chocolate cake showed through.  But then I decided it was supposed to be a hill so who cares if the "dirt" was showing through?  I put some of the large fudge sticks (chocolate covered wafers from Keebler) and some smaller ones for the top.  I stuck toothpicks halfway through the sticks and the other half into the cake so they would stay.  And now that Christmas was over I found the Knock on Wood game that I bought for Spencer's birthday.  I took the slingshot out of the game for the cake.  Here it is at Spencer's birthday party (without a pig on the top):

I let each kid have an angry bird cake pop (turned out the black bird was the most sought after) and a slice of cake.  Then the next day we had family over and did it again with the remaining cake and cake pops.  This time I even let Spencer slingshot the bird and knock over the pigs.  It even worked!

Spencer also wanted a pinata.  So I paper mached a large pig.  I bought a large 24" balloon at Zurchers for just over a dollar and did the whole newspaper strips dipped in a flour/water mixture coating the balloon.  It was too cold in the garage and backyard to hang it so I hung it in the kitchen from the kitchen fan.

Then I spray painted it green in the backyard.  Tessa helped me paint the eyes and nose and then Spencer drew and cut out a crown for it.  I cut out green paper for the ears and we filled it with candy and hung it downstairs for the kids to break open at the cousin party.  I didn't get a picture of it until after it was destroyed.  I had tried to convince Spencer instead of a pinata to let me fill green bags with candy and put pig faces on them.  Then I was going to set up cardboard boxes and paper towel holders with bags on them and have the kids slingshot the bean bags I had bought and have the kids knock over a bag of candy to keep.  I thought that sounded like more fun and more along the theme of the real game.  But he wanted a pinata.  So he had one.