Lexi’s 8th Candy-Themed Party

My baby girl Lexi turned 8 on Saturday.  I know every parent says it every single birthday, but I really can’t believe she’s been with us 8 years. 

She’s been such a joy for us.  You never know what Lexi is going to say and you can be sure it’s the gut-honest truth.  She’s a black and white kind of gal.  She doesn’t love or live half-way.

We celebrated with a candy-themed sleepover Saturday night she’s been planning for months.

I had a little idea to do a life-sized Candy Land game in the back yard and it was so much fun to make and play.

We just had to buy a can of black spray paint for the path outline and then six cans of spray paint for the colored path—purple, yellow, green, blue, orange and red. 

We used a garden hose to layout a random path and spray painted the path black.  Once that was there, we lined up the other cans and just guesstimated the size of the blocks.  We all took turns spraying the path.

Even the girls were able to help paint.

Although, as you can see Lexi below, she had to work to get leverage on some of the colors (so cute!) . A few of the colors weren’t available in the cheaper Walmart brand, so we had to get the ones that were a little more expensive.  They were worth it though as they had a mechanism the girls could handle better and brighter paint.

We were going to go back and do another black line but we didn’t want to waste the black paint and it really wasn’t needed.

  

 

We made start and finish signs with just piece of spray painted cardboard and a printed sign.

 

 

We used the cards from the regular game to advance the play.

When I drew a Candy Land place in the cards, we would hand out a piece of candy for their goodie bags instead of them having to go somewhere else.

When a person would finish, they would get 5 more pieces of candy to add to their bag.

 

 

Definitely an easy, cheap and unique game for a party.  I’m guessing you could do this with quite a bit of board games!

Lexi had a great time opening presents if these pictures give you any indication:

 

We had an amazing cake by Sweet Scene Cakes.  When I told Sarah about the candy theme she pulled some inspiration from Pinterest and created this beauty.

She switched out the original M&Ms for Skittles and added the Peppermint Patties at Lexi’s request.

 

Cutting it was quite interesting.  We had Skittles everywhere.  I wasn’t hearing too many complaints though.

The kids loved having candy at their disposal although it was interesting they were more concerned with putting it in their goodie bag than actually eating it.

Lexi really enjoyed everyone singing Happy Birthday.

And with a blow of the candles, another birthday is under wraps.

 

If you ever want to make a life-sized Candy Land game, I’ve uploaded a pdf of the Start/Finish signs for you.  Enjoy!