My son absolutely loves Pokemon, so when he turned 8, a Pokemon Birthday Party was the obvious choice. We used a few cute and simple Pokemon party ideas that I thought would be fun to share–they made the party theme stand out without spending a ton of money, and the kids really enjoyed them!
Decorations and Party Favors:
We kept things pretty simple in the decoration department with red, blue, and yellow streamers and balloons. I ordered Pokemon-themed plates, napkins, and tablecloths, and we spread Pokemon cards along the center of the table.
The take-home party favor bags included Pokemon tattoos, a pencil and mini notepad, a pack of hot cocoa (sledding was one of our activities!), a few Pokemon cards, and these super cute Pikachu Peeps, which were individually wrapped on a stick:
Making the Pikachu peeps was pretty simple. I followed the basic instructions in this post and used food color markers to draw the details onto yellow bunny Peeps. When they were finished, I put each one on a sucker stick and wrapped it in its own cellophane bag. A few tips:
- Keep the tip of the marker clean–if the sugar coating builds up, wipe it off on a napkin to help it write better.
- Pinch the tips of the ears to make them pointy before you color the tips black. You can bend one or both of them a little to give them even more personality.
- Use your fingernail or the tip of a knife to pop the eyes and nose off the Peep’s face before you draw with the food color markers
- Make the mouth as a wide, shallow “W”, then fill in the middle with pink or red to create an open-mouth smile. Then add rosy cheeks
- The nose should be a short upside-down “U” shape
- You can add a lightning-bolt-shaped tail on the back
- It’s great if you can find Peeps in season (or buy them on clearance after Easter and save them!), but if it’s far from Easter, you can order them on Amazon year-round–a little more expensive than the stores at Easter time, but at least they’re available!
Food:
We love to do themed snack foods at a birthday party, and for the Pokemon party it was really easy to do–we just picked a Pokemon that started with the same letter or letters as the snack, and named the snack after the character. For example:
- Frogadier’s Fruit
- Charmeleon’s Chips & Dip
- Krokorok’s Crackers & Cheese
- Venusaur’s Veggies & Dip
To create the tags, we taped the actual Pokemon card to a piece of cardstock and wrote the name (my printer wasn’t working or we would have typed it…but we improvised!) There are countless Pokemon characters that could go along with just about any food or beverage you’d serve, so it’s easy to be creative and give cute names.
We followed up the snacks with Pokeball cupcakes. They looked cute all displayed together, but they really only took a few more minutes to decorate than just using plain icing. Here’s how:
Activities:
We didn’t get too elaborate with activities at this party, since the main entertainment was heading outside to go sledding. But it would be pretty simple to turn any party game into a “Pokemon Training” activity. A few ideas:
- Pin the “flame” on the Charmander
- Catch the Pokemon (hula hoop=Pokeball: toss small Pokemon stuffed animals into the hoop like a ring toss)
- Musical chairs with Pokemon music
- Pokemon Charades or Pictionary (draw a card and either act out or draw for your team)
I’d love to hear more ideas for how you keep birthday parties fun and frugal. Any other ideas for a fun Pokemon birthday party? Share those in the comments as well! Don’t forget to Pin this to use later.
