This DIY Zombie Birthday Party has to be in the top 5 best themed birthdays in our house of all time. It just HAS to, because, well, look at it!
Let me back up a moment here. My son’s 13th birthday was fast approaching when we started to discuss his party theme ideas. We’ve had some seriously epic parties for his birthday in the past, Steampunk, Fire Truck, Science, and we wanted this one to be memorable as well. One of is favorite video games involves Zombies, so he thought, let’s do that! With the undead on my mind, I came up with my version of a DIY Zombie Birthday Party.
To begin, I want to tell you about that tablecloth. I took all of my leftover burlap materials from every old project, party set and event, laid it out on the floor, and then took a BIG needle and some black embroidery thread and Frankenstein-ed it together in an apocalyptic fashion. It was a terrible idea in that it took some time to make, but it makes up for it in that it is a SHOWSTOPPER! Here is a close up…
SO good. Here is a secret, there is no back – other than a few inches to clamp it to the back of the table. Also, there is a Tablevogue table cover underneath the burlap because burlap is kind of see-through. The birthday pennant banner-part of our new printable kit– is assembled using large safety pins, because, ribbon was just not appropriate in this case.
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Now, I’m sure you have questions about the giant zombies-in-the-woods backdrop- and we’ll fill you in on that a bit later. But those black and white “survival posters” are included in the printable set. There are 7 different designs, and they are hilarious. I had them printed at Staples as black and white blueprint prints and mounted them on foam core to display. But you could tape the un-mounted posters onto walls or windows, or you could affix them to wooden stakes and stick them around the yard or outdoor party venue.
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Now, lets talk about the dessert table details. I use the same white and/or black cake stands for just about every party I design, from Princesses to Succulents! I also have several of the same wooden crates to act as risers (they are a blond, unfinished wood in the store, just stain them dark and beat them up with a hammer for a distressed look). An old lidded jar holds some zombie themed gummies, a test tube rack (from an previous party) is filled with sand candy, faux barbed wire looks so real and lots of regular old soup cans to round out the details.
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Of course we had some serious desserts on the table! S’mores cupcakes, apple pies and snickerdoodle cookie cups {thanks Kristin!!} – all minis so you can try all the different flavors. The cake was lemon with lemon buttercream and covered in more of the Zombie gummies and topped with a silhouette hand from the printable kit. AND the coolest looking gummie brain that ever existed!
SO insanely cool – especially for thirteen year old boys.
And lastly on this table, was SO. MUCH. CANDY. I don’t usually offer this much candy at my kids birthday parties, and of course you should offer however much (or none at all) to fit your family, but, I just couldn’t resist snapping up all the zombie themed candy I could find. It was so hard to stop myself!
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Okay, next lets talk activities! My son is really into this whole Escape Room fad, so in searching for something budget friendly and logistically possible for the 25 kids that were coming to this party, I came up with a printable DIY version from Lock Paper Scissors. I followed their directions, and printed out a set for each team of 4 kids – I packed each team’s set of clues into little plastic boxes along with pens, scissors and a pad of paper.
The “Escape Room” activity has you set a timer for an hour, and gives a master set of clues that can be handed out to the players at a time penalty if needed. I was pleasantly surprised that all the kids who participated LOVED playing the game, and worked hard with their teams to escape! At about the 40 minute mark, a team completed the puzzles and we stopped the game to find out if they had successfully solved it by having them enter the combination into a little box (that I found just for this purpose). They did enter the correct combination, and the box opened with the final answer to the whole escape room riddle.
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And of course, the obligatory birthday boy and his cake shots. We all had an amazing time – homemade pizza, desserts, cake and candy, an escape room, so much fun! So, happy birthday to my amazing goofball kid!
Now, for some shopping… do you want to throw this DIY Zombie Birthday Party? Our party decorations are is ready to go!
Vendor Credits:
Party Decorations and styling Paper & Cake
Photography courtesy of Missy Marie Photography
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