Recently there has been a bit of an obsession with Dragons in our household. And to be honest, I haven't minded one bit. I LOVE Toothless. I love the movies, I love the dragons, I love the music - perfectly happy to support this obsession, especially after a couple of years of Minecraft and Superheroes! And so, when my littlest decided that he was having a Dragon party, I encouraged him!
I am so proud of this Toothless. I made him, using this pattern. I didn't know if he was going to work until he was totally finished, and I was so scared that he didn't! But he was perfect, and made my little boy incredibly happy! :)
The decision to have a Dragons party was made in about March; his birthday isn't until July. So I had several months to think about it, and plan it, and dream big. And dream big, I did!
I posted on Facebook asking for anybody to keep any big sheets of cardboard and boxes and cardboard tubes for me. The local biscuit factory saved me some HUGE boxes. And I booked out the local Scout Hall.
The night before the party, Adam & I went to the hall, armed with boxes and tubes and four rolls of duct tape...
And this is what we built!
A Viking Ship and a castle!
(And we stocked hem both with plastic balls for throwing at each other, too)
We realize that there's no way on Earth we will ever live up to this party again, but oh it was SO much fun. We had an absolute BALL making it, and the kids were just thrilled.
I had also spent a great deal of time in the previous weeks making Viking Hats and shields from cardboard, painting them, and cutting out emblems so the children could make their own personalized shields.
I took some face paints to the party too, and a sheet of pictures of the Dragon Riders' war paint for them to choose from.
Adam built a catapult, and I sourced some stuffed toy sheep from the local charity shop. They had to launch the sheep over the boat using the catapult! :)
And then... the food!
I had fun with this!
Dragon Teeth - Milk Bottle Sweets
An assortment of Sheep - some were marshmallows dipped in chocolate with mini smarties for eyes & ears, and the others were biscuits with chocolate buttons for faces.
Dragon Nests - chocolate Cornflake Nests like we make at Easter
Dragon Eggs - Grapes and Jelly Beans
Dragon Legs - Mini Sausages
Fireballs - Cheese balls!
Dragon Scales - Doritos and Plain Tortilla Chips
Viking Shields - Party Rings
Dragon Food - Fish & Chip crackers
Dragon Drool - Juice
Plus I made Viking Ship biscuits and Dragon shaped Biscuits too!
The piñata was a simple dragon's egg - because I filled it with tiny baby dragon stuffed toys, as well as the normal sweeties (and bouncy balls are great for a piñata too!)
The cake!
I followed this YouTube tutorial for a basic plan. My normal cake would be far too fluffy & hard to sculpt so instead I made a double cake batch, crumbled it and mixed it with frosting as if I were making cake pops, then used the resulting mixture like play doh to mould the cake into the right shape before icing. It was a very dense cake but most of the kids still liked it! :)
And of course, he needed a cake on his Birthday at home, so seeing as the other current obsession is Lego Ninjago, I thought I'd have a go at that! It was easy as anything - just a standard layer cake, with ready to roll yellow icing first, then a layer of green icing (I did have to colour that as I had run out of green!) with some extras draped carefully to look like fabric - made for one very happy and surprised little birthday boy. :)
