Prudent Parties: Doctor Who

For my oldest son's 9th birthday, he requested a Doctor Who themed party. I am a big Doctor who fan so I was excited...and then promptly a little scared. How was I going to portray Doctor who without buying a lot of licensed, and expensive, merchandise? After a while googling "Doctor Who Party" and searching Pinterest, I concluded that the 11th Doctor had the most iconic symbols that would help me get the theme across, so I themed the party after him. Secondly, I quickly realized that the one thing that screams Doctor Who the most was, of course, the TARDIS, and best yet, practically anything in a rectangle shape can be turned into a TARDIS. The TARDIS also gave me my color pallet, Blue with splashes of black and white.

 Invitations

I printed this on card stock with an image of a TARDIS that I found on google images. I downloaded the free Doctor Who font at http://www.dafont.com, a website I use a lot. I also downloaded a free Gallifreyan translator at http://www.shermansplanet.com/gallifreyan, the image printed out a bit pixilated, but it says "Happy Birthday Caden" which I thought was a fun little touch. I sent these to school with my son and used the same images as I did to print, to create a Facebook invite for the rest of our friends and family, much cheaper than sending them the real cards with the benefit of an immediate RSVP.

I realize that most people aren't familiar with Doctor Who and didn't want anyone to feel like they couldn't go because they were unsure what to get for a present, so I made sure to include some more common things Caden is into, which was very appreciated by the parents.

Decorations

This was leftover from a Lego party I did, I had done them in different primary colors and sizes with paper plates from the dollar store and Wallmart. I clustered the domes together and filled them with white christmas lights. Here, I just used the blue one and added some streamers and silver star garland from the dollar store. I found the directions here 

The dollar store has two packs of streamers for $1, a few twists and varying lengths gave a little elegance to cheap streamers. I added the phrase found on the TARDIS "Police Public Call Box" in Sharpie to the plain white streamer. 

In the background, I made a TARDIS using colored paper I got at the dollar store. I used a black Sharpie, white puff paint, four whole sheets of blue paper, and some black paper to line the top. I aligned it so my cupboard door opened right where the TARDIS door would open. This was very easy to assemble and I already had all the materials on hand, so it was FREE!

This was a fun craft because there's nothing scarier than a weeping angel. I started at a thrift store (one of the really inexpensive ones that would have christmas decorations out all year long). I was lucky enough to find a tree topper angel on my first trip. All I did was cut the sleeves, pop off the wings and hot glue them back on upside down, then pop off the arms and hot glue them in the position I wanted. The most expensive part was buying the spray paint that gave a sandy, concrete texture to the angel, it would have been cheaper to just spray here grey, but it is something I'm displaying to this day on a shelf, so I went all out.

Although I had plenty of plain blue and white balloons, I found that it gave off sort of a Hanukkah vibe, so I (quickly) drew a TARDIS on some blue balloons and the "Police Public Call Box" phrase across the white ones. I get packs of balloons from the dollar store but found that Wallmart has a variety of single colored ballon packs. 

I got these awesome prints from  Jeremy Rathbone, an artist at a ComicCon. These were more for me than the party, but if you really dig them, find him online.

 This TARDIS door was really easy and I already had all the materials on hand. You can see the rolled duct tape I used to hang it, but you couldn't see them in person. I used a dollar store table cloth I had leftover from another party. I used a piece of printer paper and just traced around it with a black Sharpie to make the door panels. I took two more sheets of white paper and drew the six panel windows on it. Finally, I google imaged the TARDIS notice and printed it out. This was one of my favorite decorations and helped people easily find which apartment the party was in.

I really liked the star balloons, but they were $1 per ballon at the dollar store, so I only used a few to help people find my door, then another bundle of the blue, white, and black balloons to add to the atmosphere in the house.

Games

I really like BINGO because you don't need to worry about teams or make kids wait as they take turns, everyone plays at the same time. So I went here and created my own, Doctor Who themed BINGO cards. It was easy, free, and fit my theme. I picked up a few toys at the dollar store as prizes and played the game until I had three winners. The kids really dug it.

Exterminate the Dalek was a fun game that the boys particularly enjoyed. I google imaged a picture of a dalek, I picked this image as it is black and white and not filled in, so it was cheaper to print at a Kinkos. I taped the picture outside of the window and used a dry erase marker to draw targets on the window with varying point values. I got two suction cup guns in two different colors at the dollar store, split the kids into two teams, then let each child shoot the three suction bullets and added the points to their team's score. Just make sure you tape the picture OUTSIDE of the window so the bullets stick.

Prudent Tip

Just as how you spend a bunch of time and money finding that perfect gift for your child, and all they want to do is play in the box it came in, I've found that I can spend hours planning out the perfect party games, only to find that the most fun the children will have is playing in the pile of balloons that accumulate in the living room. I've since found that a couple easy games will be fun, but purchasing a few $0.50 packs of balloons, $1 balloon air pump, then turning the kids loose will result in some of the best fun the kids will have at the party. FYI, it will get rough, don't forget to move the coffee table and low lying valuables.

Food

 I like to make cupcakes vs. a whole cake, I don't have to portion it out and they're easier to decorate. I made these using this recipe, or any white cake/cupcake recipe will work too. I knew I would need a lot of food coloring to get the batter a deep blue, so I used the 50% off coupon I get on my Michael's phone app and got a bottle of royal blue food coloring paste, as to not water down the batter. I thought the silver liners gave a nice spacy feeling.

In honer of the 11th Doctor and his fondness of bow ties (classically red) I made a very simple bow tie pasta salad. I used a large TARDIS colored bowl from the dollar store.
The recipe was simply; 
A box of bow tie pasta, cooked as directed for al dente pasta 
Two red bell peppers, cut into small bites
A carton of quarters cherry tomatoes 
A bottle of zesty italian dressing 
The flavors will really meld if you put the salad together a day ahead of time, tossing and adding more dressing every few hours.

I got all the platters, cups, silver wear, plates, and napkins at the $1 store, I typically only have to add two or three things each party, and simply reuse them for my next party.

Fish fingers and custard, these were so good (fret not, they are cookies, not fish). I used plastic cups from, you guessed it, the dollar store. I followed this recipe for the fish fingers (I had a hard time finding honey-free graham crackers so I did have to splurge a little on vegan crackers from a health food store). I used the bake and serve vanilla Jello Pudding mix, using about 1/3 less soy milk than is called for in milk, it made the pudding thick and custard like.

I walked the aisles at the dollar store and picked out anything sonic screwdriver shaped. The twill cookies are not vegan, but there was so much yummy vegan food, my kids didn't mind.

I got a blue bucket for $1 that was perfect for filling with ice and blue juice bottles from the dollar store.

Call it taboo, but there are usually an equal number of adults as there are children at my parties, so I like to offer a themed cocktail to my of age party goers. Here is my Sonic Screwdriver (vary the quantities on your tastes)

The 10th Doctor (blue)

Vodka

Lemon lime pop

Blue curaco

Ice

The 11th Doctor (green)

Vodka

Lemon lime pop

Orange Juice

Splash Blue curaco 

Ice

Goodies

I'm lucky enough to have a fellow frugal party planner (a mentor if you will, my Yoda) who had picked up a large box of empty cappuccino mix tins at a yard sale. Some blue spray paint, black Sharpie, and white puff paint later and BAM, TARDIS gift box.

I used my 50% off JoeAnn Fabrics coupon on some red felt, some hot glue, and a little velcro to make bow ties. I stuffed one bow tie in each box, displayed them at the party, then let each kid take one home in place of a goody bag.

To make the bow ties, I googled and googled and googled, the easiest way I found to make 15 bow ties came from this video, it's not the best quality, but it was by far the easiest way I could find. I scaled down the size and found that two folds (the two bumped up points) were best for a man's tie, any more makes it look more like a bow.

The End

Well, I hope you've enjoyed my first Prudent Party entry. Check out my Doctor Who Pinterest board to see even more ideas.