Duck Dynasty Party

My son wanted a Duck Dynasty Party for his 13th birthday. My first action was to look online for ideas that others have done. I found NOTHING! I was shocked! How could there be no Duck Dynasty party ideas? So We had to make them up ourselves. We asked around to other family members that also love the show and we came up with more ideas than we could use. I am going to post the ones we did use with pictures but also list the others we thought of so if the other ideas fit your family better you could switch them out.

First, Decorations: That was fairly easy although not readily available. We wanted hunting camouflage, not military but mostly what we could find was military. We made it work for the plates and napkins.

We ordered a Duckaholics sign from Duck Commander and also a beard for our son.

We found pet toys in the form of ducks, beavers and skunks to decorate around with and bought camouflage netting to turn our play structure into a duck blind.

Of course everyone had camo clothes and fake beards. That was fun for everyone. The little beards were bought from Party City.

Activities: This is where it really got fun! Once we started thinking of the shows and the different things that are done on the show, the ideas just kept coming. I am just going to list the ones we thought of and then talk about a few of them.

Donut Eating Contest

Beaver Hunt (scavenger hunt style)

Frog Hunt (egghunt style)

Beehive Pinata

Redneck Water Park

Making Duck Calls

Lawn Mower Race

Trust Fall

Shooting Games

We did the Beehive Pinata. I simply blew up a large balloon and covered in with paper mache and then with streamers and fulled it with candy. Very easy and great fun for all.

Frog Hunt: We bought light up frogs and hid them around. Since we were pretending to eat frog legs for dinner they had to catch the frogs first.

Make Duck Calls: This was very easy and the kids loved it. You take a drinking straw and flatten one end of it. then you cut that end into a point. place the pointed end in your mouth and blow. It makes a sound similar to a duck call and the kids love making noise. You can experiment with different angles and lengths of straw to make different sounds.

Donut Eating Contest: Lots of fun and these kids ate way more I thought they would. The littlest ones at 7 donuts and would have eaten more. 

Now for the FOOD:

I made camouflage cupcakes for the cake. I made one chocolate cake and one vanilla cake. I added food coloring to give me two shades of green and two shades of brown. then I layered the batters in the cups and baked them. very easy and they turned out camouflaged. 

I frosted them with green frosting and topped them with camouflaged ducks we ordered from Oriental Trading.

For the birthday song We changed it up a bit and sang "Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday to you...."

Of course, We had Sweet tea in a cup like Uncle Si.  And below that is our menu for the evening.

We didnt really have duck so we cooked chicken instead and made chickens wings to be our frog legs.

And of course we ended the day with a family dinner because it wouldnt be Duck Dynasty with out that.

I hope this gives you some ideas and you have a great Duck Dynasty party as well. 

Fairy Princess 1st Party

We Recently had a Fairy Princess Party for our granddaughters 1st birthday. We had so much fun and she was an adorable fairy princess. 

For invitations we sent out a card that said the following:

Peek into the garden, and what will you see? A beautiful fairy, sitting under a tree. Her name is Kimber, and she's turning one. Won't you join her for a party, full of fairytale fun.Fairy, gnome, elf or other mythical creature costumes are encouraged. We had a backdrop that we used years ago for a dance camp and just hung it up in our party room to create a nice setting and give us a backdrop for pictures. It is just a canvas dropcloth painted with a castle on it.

We hung paper pom poms and balloons to give the room a whimsical feel.

We had cake made of a fairy castle and little fairies sitting on it. We also had several kinds of cupcakes. We were also celebrating several other birthdays in the family so the cupcakes served as cakes for the grown ups as well. We also had fairy dust candy in cups and fairy crown lollipops.

We asked everyone to dress as characters that would come to a fairy princess party and everyone was creative with their costume ideas.

gnome and woodland fairy

gnomes

king, fairy princesses

fairy princess and unicorn

woodman and fairy princess

dragon

We made lace crowns ahead of time by soaking fabric lace in fabric stiffener and drying. We then painted the lace and added glitter.

She had a great time and enjoyed her first birthday cake. The top was designed to take off so she had her very own cake to eat.

Cowboy and Indian Party

For our sons 4th birthday, he wanted cowboys and indians. He went back and forth the days leading up to it on whether he would be a cowboy or indian and finally settled on indian for himself. 

 The invitations were wanted posters with his picture on it. I dont have a picture of it to show but we found a resource online that would allow us to put his picture in and say what we wanted it to say and then print it out.

We set up a teepee in our back yard and and older brother made a totem pole out of boxes. 

The kids could choose to dress as indians or cowboys and we had the cowboy base set up at the fire pit.

We set up hay bales with a saddle on it for the 'horse' that everyone could ride and each person got a photo taken on the 'horse'

Games were relay races and target practice with bow and arrows. Mostly the kids played their own imaginations as they pretended to be cowboys and indians. The cows and horses in the background added to the fun.

The cake was so fun and turned out great. This was a super fun party for the boys and easy to put on for the mom :-)

50's Style Party

For my husbands 55th birthday we had a 50's style surprise party. We decorated the house like a 50's soda shop and kept all the plans simple and fun.

The cake was decorated like a record. I used black food coloring but it didnt get as dark as I would have liked. I now know that to get a dark black you need to mix the black food coloring with chocolate frosting and I would do that next time to make it more like a vinyl record.

I bought 50's style car decorations and they not only decorated the tables and area but the big cut out was used for a photo prop and everyone had picture made in the car for fun. 

We also had cut out records for decorations on the tables. We played 50's style songs and people were free to dance or do karaoke to the songs as they liked.

We kept the food simple as well and made hamburgers and fries and potato salad. This was a very fun and easy party to host and with it being a surprise for my husband it worked great.

A Party For Yourself Anytime You Want It.

Okay, so there isnt any reason to party coming up and you really want a cupcake, What do you do but make the best ever cupcakes just to throw a party in your mouth. Of course you can make your favorite cupcake or you can make my favorite in cupcake form.

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Cupcakes

Start with your crust. You can use what ever crumbs you like for the flavor you want. I used graham crackers this time. 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, 1/2 cup melted butter and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Mix all together and put in cup cake cups.

I pressed the crumb mixture into the bottom of the cups using a rolling pin to form the crust.

Next is the filling. You can use any cheesecake recipe you want to use and have any flavor you want. I used my favorite basic cheesecake recipe modified slightly by adding the vanilla beans from one pod of vanilla to give it more vanilla flavor and also the tiny vanilla beans in the batter.
1 cup sugar. 1 tbsp corn starch. 5 -8 oz pkg cream cheese. 2 large eggs. 2 tsp vanilla extract. 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream. vanilla beans from one vanilla bean pod. Mix all ingredients together and spoon over crust. Bake at 350° for approximately 20 minutes. Watch closely and take out when filling is just set.  center should be slightly jiggly and edges firm. Let cool.

While cupcakes are cooling you can make the topping. A white chocolate cream mousse. You will need 6 oz white chocolate chips, melted. 1 cup heavy whipping cream. 1/4 cup powdered sugar. 4 oz cream cheese.

Melt chocolate chips and let cool. Mix cream cheese, sugar, and cream together then add chocolate and beat well. Spoon onto cooled cupcakes.

 At this point, need to melt some chocolate chips to drizzle over cupcakes.  You can use semi sweet or milk chocolate, whichever you prefer. I used semi sweet on mine. About 6 oz of chips will do and mix a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream into melted chips to get a drizzling consistency.

Next comes the vanilla bean whipped cream for decoration. Mix 1 cup heavy whipping cream with 1 tbsp of powdered sugar and the beans from one vanilla bean pod. Beat until stiff peaks form. Use  a rosette tip to pipe rosettes on top of cupcake and enjoy!

 A Party In Every Bite!

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Cupcakes

Crust: 

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup melted butter

1/4 cup brown sugar. 

Mix all together and press in cup cake cups.

Filling:

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp corn starch

5 -8 oz pkg cream cheese

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

vanilla beans from one vanilla bean pod

Mix all ingredients together and spoon over crust. Bake at 350° for approximately 20 minutes. Watch closely and take out when filling is just set.  center should be slightly jiggly and edges firm. Let cool.

Mousse Topping:

6 oz white chocolate chips, melted

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

4 oz cream cheese.

Melt chocolate chips and let cool. Mix cream cheese, sugar, and cream together then add chocolate and beat well. Spoon onto cooled cupcakes. 

Melt some chocolate chips to drizzle over cupcakes. 6 oz of chips will do and mix a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream into melted chips to get a drizzling consistency.

Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp of powdered sugar

beans from one vanilla bean pod

Beat until stiff peaks form. Use a rosette tip to pipe rosettes on top of cupcake and enjoy!