Pandamonium – an Easy Kids Party to DIY

My daughter had her sixth birthday last week.  She’s SIX!  I know.  I can hardly believe it.  And this meant I had to do the whole birthday party rigamarole thing.  I heaved a HUGE sigh of relief when she said she wanted a Panda Party.  So many DIY ideas came to me to go with the theme.  This really was an easy party to put together with a DIY budget and dollar store shopping!

 

1) Panda Ear Headbands

You’ll need:

• Plastic headbands
• Black felt (get the kind with a sticky back)

Fold the black felt in half and cut ear shapes at the fold (so they are connected at the base to give you a front and back.)  Wrap around the headband and stick the front to the back so the headband is sandwiched in the middle.  Two ears per headband

2) Easy Panda Head Decorations

You’ll need:

• Styrofoam circles
• Black circle shapes cut from the leftover sticky back felt you used for the headbands.
• Googly eyes
• Glue stick

Stick the circles on the Styrofoam base.  Two ears, two eyes, a mouth and a nose, then stick the google eyes on top using the glue stick.  We put our Panda heads on the bannister but you could stick them up about anywhere with a bit of tape.

3) Panda Layer Cake

You’ll need:

• Cake Mix
• White icing (I used white marshmallow fondant and vanilla butter cream)
• Wilton’s Sugar Sheet in black, Available at Micheal’s (2)
• Tube of icing in black (to write your child’s name)

Make your cake mix and bake according to directions.  Let cool. Decorate with white icing and stack layers. Using the Sugar Sheet, cut out circles for eye patches, half circles for ears, a nose and a small mouth shape.  Adhere the sugar sheet to the cake with a little dab of icing.  I used white fondant so I layered a white circle of fondant over the black eye patches.  If you aren’t using fondant you could cheat and use an Oreo cookie!  Just pry the top off and voila you have a black circle with a smaller white circle on top.  Add yet another black circle of sugar sheet to the eyes to make a pupil.  Use the sugar sheet to make a black band at the base of each layer for that real panda look. I also added some fondant bamboo decorations but you could leave those off. Finish the cake by adding your child’s name in black icing.

4) Pin the Nose on the Panda Game

You’ll need:

• White poster board
• Big black marker
• Googly eyes
• Glue stick
• Felt Noses (use the same felt with sticky back as you used for the headbands and decorations.)

Draw a Panda Bear shape on your poster board (it’s easy and it doesn’t have to be perfect.)  Color in the ears and eye patches.  Add googly eyes with the glue stick.  Cut out enough sticky felt noses for each child to use one during his/her turn.  Write the child’s initial above her nose to keep track of who is the winner!

5) Panda Goody bag (doubles as a craft for the kids!)

You’ll need

• Small white gift bags
• Black construction paper
• Black markers
• Glue sticks
• Googly eyes

Pre-cut the black shapes from the construction paper so the kids can stick them on themselves.  Fold the bags down a bit to mark where the ears should go.  Let the kids make their Panda bags and have each child write their name on the bottom.  Fill with goodies and hand them back to their owners as they leave the party.

 

We supplemented the decorations with black and white balloons and black and white crepe streamers.  Oh and the cutest part!  We asked all the kids to wear black and white and then I drew panda noses on them with black eyeliner.  Super easy to do (no artistic face painting skills required) and the kids loved it!