Being a little cash-strapped this year, we decided to forego a big party for Dylan’s 9th birthday and held it at home instead.
Without wanting the house to be trashed, we limited the number to eight school friends and let Dylan choose the theme from a selection of: paint balling, secret agent or cookery competition; the secret agent theme won.
To my delight Pinterest was a great source of ideas so began my crafting…
Logo
Being a keen logo-maker, and having just done an Udemy GIMP course, I designed the Lacey Secret Agent Training School logo, which I typically over-used throughout.
Code Breaker
This was a simple task which I made in Word out of a table, then flipped the text into Wingdings font.
Laser Maze
The Code Breaker led the boys outside where we had made a laser maze out of wool. Each boy took it in turns to climb through without touching the lasers; whoever was quickest won a small bag of Haribo sweets.
Pinata
The next thing to make was a pinata, taking inspiration from One Creative Mommy.
It was a big job, but thoroughly worth it! AND it worked without the boys ripping my handiwork apart (probably because they were distracted by 44 balloons sitting around it!).
Mug shot wall
Next came the mug shot wall. This took a couple of attempts as my first, printed version, didn’t stick well, so we ended up simply painting a piece of wood, drawing the lines and then sticking the numbers on.
Nerf Gun Shooting Wall
Dylan modelled the shooting wall, expertly made by Sam, which had points velcroed to it so that the points varied from child to child. We already had the Nerf gun but bought 100 extra bullets from Amazon to avoid having to pick them up between rounds.
Party Bags
I decided not to go all in for party bags but instead, each boy got a t-shirt with their initials on (iron on transfers from www.fastironontransfers.co.uk), a keyring with logo on one side and fingerprint on the other, a pair of sunglasses, pencil, badge, cupcake and water pistol.
Decorations
Other decorations included 30 metres of ‘Crime Scene Do Not Cross’ tape, security access and hand scan to enter, a security line to enter and plenty of balloons!
Cost
Lucky enough to have accrued some Topcashback, the party only cost £40.75 (excluding cake mix) in total. Without it, it still would have been under £100 so I think a bargain!
