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JennGM
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My son wants a knight or Romans party next month for his birthday. We generally keep our birthdays very low key, mostly family, with a fun theme, but very little structure. Dinner, Cake, and presents, and just playing around. We did a pinata last year, and want to repeat that.
But I thought some elements of knights could be done for fun. Swords, shields, helmets (and a few girls need some stuff)...some things that could be made at the party, some as handouts for play.
I know I'm not the first one to think of this. But ds is young, so we're not talking historically accurate, just fun and durable (and not dangerous).
Anyone have a party like this before? Or costumes? Can you share any ideas, with the stress of KISS -- Keep it Simple, Sister!
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Matilda
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Shields: For Roman shields, I would take an extra large round paper plate, use rope to tie on a handle and decorate it. If it didn't need to be Roman, the Chinet Oval Platters work fine for Knights shields.
Helmets: Our Blue Knights group made helmets out of milk jugs like this.
Swords: Our Blue Knights group also used these for swords. They were a good weight and not flimsy. We wanted them to be extra sturdy so we glued paint stirrers in the middle of two swords, painted the hilt, wrapped the blade in tin foil and let the boys decorate the hilts with gem stickers.
Easy cake: If you were close, I would loan you my castle cake pan. We used it for my oldest son's knight themed birthday party. It looked good, but had a tough crust to it. Maybe it was the recipe I used. This one might be a better one to try, except it's pink.
This castle cake would be my idea of easy, but I leave that to your judgment.
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Charlotte (Matilda)
Mom to four (11, 10 , 9 & 5) an even split for now
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Matilda
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As far as the girls, what about those cone shaped princess hats with ribbons coming out the top? You could make them and let them decorate them or use them as party hats?
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Charlotte (Matilda)
Mom to four (11, 10, 9 & 5) an even split for now
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Mary K
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for girls they could decorate princess crowns and/or fairy wands (wooden dowels) with stick-on glittery things and jewels. you could add some ribbons to the wands also.
castle: appliance box with a door and window, and let their imaginations take care of the rest.
family fun magazine has lots of ideas.
costumes: have capes cut out for each child and let them decorate at the beginning of the party (a great waiting for other guests activity.)
God bless,
Mary-NY
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JennGM
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Great ideas!
The girls are few and far between, so I did think the Maid Marian cone style hats would be nice.
Love that Castle Bundt pan. What I have are stadium and Cathedral. The stadium might be a nice Roman Colliseum... But it's hard for me to do special things with cake, because my son's food allergies. So I love that castle cake with the ice cream cones, but we can't use those. I love the Bundt cakes, but not having frosting won't go over very well. 
Great ideas about the plates. How do you tie the rope on? poke holes through the plates?
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MaryM
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Jenn, when you asked me about this I knew I remembered seeing some party ideas on this theme, but had to think where it was. It was an issue of Family Fun from last year. They have some fabulous ideas that little boys (and girls) would love.
Medieval Birthday Party which includes:
Crafts
Tunic and coat of arms
Jeweled goblet
Games
Ye Olde Knight Tournament (Joust the Target, Storm the Castle, Rescue the Damsel, Jump the Moat - it's a relay that looks wonderfully fun)
Catch the Dragon's Tail
They also have an idea for an invitation. And an "extract a mini excalibur" activity that is clever. That one could be expanded and you could do that in large scale as well - though the mini is sure cute.
Oh, and for the damsel/princess hats that were suggested. I've made them from fun foam (lasts longer than paper) with tulle stapled from top. I think I also got the idea from Family Fun a long time back.
Edited: Found the link for princess hats
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Matilda
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Yup. Just poked holes, fed the rope through and tied them. You could tie it in one big loop or put two knots on the visible side and have a loop in the back.
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Charlotte (Matilda)
Mom to four (11, 10, 9 & 5) an even split for now
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JennGM
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Matilda wrote:
| Helmets: Our Blue Knights group made helmets out of milk jugs like this. |
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That is a neat helmet. At first I was thinking "Oh, I can't do that because they are milk jugs, and my son's allergies." But spring and distilled water come in jugs, too!
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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MaryM wrote:
Jenn, when you asked me about this I knew I remembered seeing some party ideas on this theme, but had to think where it was. It was an issue of Family Fun from last year. They have some fabulous ideas that little boys (and girls) would love.
Medieval Birthday Party which includes: |
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This is just great! Thanks, Mary!
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JennGM
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Matilda wrote:
| Yup. Just poked holes, fed the rope through and tied them. You could tie it in one big loop or put two knots on the visible side and have a loop in the back. |
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Okay, I'm hung up on this, Charlotte. Were the boys bothered by holes in the shield? And knots peeking through? Did you make the holes very far apart, or smack in the middle? And did they decorate before or after the handles were in?
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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I need some help in thinking some of this through. The little boys want to do some jousting. I'm following some of the ideas from Mary's link. I'm using foam pool noodles for the jousting sticks and stick horses. But their idea is more of an obstacle course or race, than actual jousting.
We are making those "towers" or turrets and thought I could run a jousting line down the middle (string with some flags. I'll need a middle support (don't know what yet), and dh thought maybe some kind of ring that detaches to have a winner for the joust. Or maybe a ring with tissue paper so the noodle goes through?
I'm just trying to think of a way to joust without doing bodily harm.
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Matilda
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They were not bothered by the holes in the shield because most of them were about 4-5 years old. We were making them for a St. George's party so we used red streamer paper to make simple crosses on the front side and I used thin red ribbon to make the handles. The holes were about 5 inches apart, I would guess.
You can barely see the backside of the one my son is holding in this picture (if the picture comes through). If we were going to use rope and a Chinet platter, use a skewer to poke a hole, feed the rope through and knot it on the front side and I would make the handles first so that you don't damage any of the decoration. Does that help?
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Charlotte (Matilda)
Mom to four (11, 10, 9 & 5) an even split for now
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Matilda
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Grrrrr. Argh! Why can't I do pictures? Can a sweet little computer fairy help me out?
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Charlotte (Matilda)
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JennGM
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You need to provide a url from a place like Flickr or Photobucket for the pictures, as you can't upload them here.
Makes sense, I just wanted a little more hand holding. I was going to use cake boards instead of Chinet plates.
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Matilda
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I thought I could do it by using the url of the picture form my blog. Does that not work? It is already uploaded over at Blogger and I just copied the url of the picture itself.
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Charlotte (Matilda)
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Matilda
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If you are going to use cake boards you might check to see if both sides are waxed. Usually one is. the waxed side won't hold some decorations like crayon, markers, maybe some stickers. I would test one out first.
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Charlotte (Matilda)
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JennGM
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Matilda wrote:
| If you are going to use cake boards you might check to see if both sides are waxed. Usually one is. the waxed side won't hold some decorations like crayon, markers, maybe some stickers. I would test one out first. |
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I was going to test today. I am using some sticky foam cut outs besides other craft materials. I was also going to test if I prepainted with silver or gold if they would take decorations.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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Matilda wrote:
| I thought I could do it by using the url of the picture form my blog. Does that not work? It is already uploaded over at Blogger and I just copied the url of the picture itself. |
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Even as a moderator, I can't help. I honestly don't know. I'll be happy to go the link, though.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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I really wanted to do this, but I'm not having luck finding decent cheap goblets. I looked for plastic, no luck. Glass is either too fragile or the heavier goblets from the Dollar Tree are way heavy for little guys. Any suggestions? I wish I had thought of this before the summer clearance was all done. I don't want halloween scary goblets.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Matilda
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Are you thinking of a large wine glass shape? We have some that I bought at either Walmart or Target that are clear acrylic. They look like glass but feel like plastic. If that is the shape you want, I know that both of those stores also sell the plastic champagne flutes in a wine glass variety.
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Charlotte (Matilda)
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Crafty Knights or Romans Ideas
