Planning a Black Belt Birthday

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Welcome to the picture tutorial of my Son's frugal Black Belt Birthday (otherwise know as a Karate Birthday Party).  I wanted something cool for him this year.  We had recently moved and it was a really tough adjustment for him.  He had to leave all his old friends, establish new ones.  Its been a rough spell for him.  What could be cooler than a Black Belt Birthday?  Especially for kids who take up Martial Arts!  Even if your child don't study Martial Arts, its still an awesome idea. Several of the children who attended our birthday party scheduled their own afterward even though they do not take up Martial Arts.

Where do you start?  First we secured our local instructors to host the birthday in their studio.  Their package included pizza and keeping the kids occupied with planned activities.  The kids enjoyed themselves with various karate instruction for most of the time leaving just enough time for Gifts and Cake.

Next, the invitation.  I layered the colors of cardstock allowing a small border of each to show (using the theme color of the establishment which was Black, Red, White).  Now the catchy little phrase.

Im sure if you read my blog you know two things.  I live in a tiny town and I like to keep my business local if at all possible.  So in order to do that and achieve a Black Belt Pinata I had to make one.  First I purchased the Red Spider Man pinata at Walmart.  I peeled off the red paper, spray printed the base white and spray glued white tissue to the whole thing.  Black tissue paper, some child like creativity and print outs from the internet complete the look!

Next the cake.  Any sheet cake can be made into this Black Belt Gee.  Just slice off 2 to 3 inches off the bottom, slice in half with a diagonal cut and place on the sides for sleeves.  Next the v for the neck and black frosting (or fruit strips).  None will be the wiser!  Go ahead and see where I found this AWESOME idea for this cake!

Featured in our Goodie Bags here are foam throwing stars, little ninja figurines, tattoos, stickers, even karate silly bands.  I also found bubbles with a sword through them as well as a sward pen.  I figured since the Karate Studio makes a big deal about cutting the cake with that huge sward, I would play off of that.  I did have to order online for some of these items.  Our local party store had the ninja's, throwing stars and stickers.  The rest I went to Amazon.

The studio provided pizza but I wanted to enhance on that theme and made some Candy Sushi.  Just use any rice crispy cereal (any kind you CAN eat, we secured a GF copycat at Whole Foods), gummy worms for the middle and fruit roll ups around the outside.   They were a huge hit!  The big tip with these is this: use a cooking sheet lined with parchment and rollup jelly roll style.

I always like to send home a cookie.  Its sort of a tradition for us.  This sword cookie fit the bill and the theme perfectly.  With very little parts to frost, it was not that complicated.  I found the plastic wrappers at Walmart.

Another great and frugal idea is to make sword balloons while the kids are eating.  I picked up the balloons from the dollar store and they worked great.  HERE are a couple of different kinds for you to view.  THIS is the sword I made.  Pirate sword I know, but we thought it was cool!  I know what you are thinking too, I can't twist balloons.  Trust me, if I can so can you. Its just one simple sword to master and everyone will think you are a birthday genius!  Nobody gets hurt with a balloon sword and everybody has fun.  Whats not to love about that!!!!