This year my son decided he wanted to have a COD or Call of Duty army party. I am not sure how I got to this point of allowing an Army party as I recall when he was a baby I said I would be a no toy gun parent. At some point, it occurred to me that he was going to find a way to act out gunplay so I might as well cave in. So here is my DIY Army Party for my just turned 8 year old.
The army guy was a prop from Oriental trading – my go-to party supply company where we got all the themed supplies we didn’t DIY. Buying heavily themed items, such as camouflage in this case really made it possible to theme the party with ease.
Let’s start with the Army party rations, shall we? Our party was mid-afternoon so no real meal was required. I re-labeled mini cans of baked beans and sweet corn into Army rations. I packaged up the instant potato that the kids had to add water to re-constitute. We had green candy, muesli bars and fruit bars all with DIY wrapped overlay labels. I will include those images below in case you want to use them.
The Call of Duty Party sign was purchased from Ali-Express and I popped it into to frame. The tank was handmade using paper mache and egg cartons. It was meant to be a pinata but my son wouldn’t allow me to smash it up. I used army green satchels and Ikea storage tins that I already had to place the food in. In this picture, you can also make out the Army Canteens which were a big hit.
Can you see the hidden cake? Yep it was wrapped in Camouflage! It was meant to have a metal number 8 on it but gravity decided to break it so we added a black nerf gun (spray painted) to the top at the last minute. It had wire wrapped around the bottom made from icing.
We made every child sign in and they were each issued with a dog tag, I used a small engraving tool
to engrave each child’s name on to the dog tag.
One arrival each child was handed an Army Cadet backpack or favor bag which contained an Army Compass, a camo headband and a grenade lolly. We wrote their names on to the bag with a marker pen and this is where they were to keep their stuff. Lots of the kids were dropped off by parents so this worked well for their guns and ammo that they had brought along for the war.
I purchased the camo nets off eBay and paid less than $15 for these 5 meter pieces. I grabbed some small ones for decorating the table and some boxes.
I used army print duct tape
to wrap the water bottles.
For the Army party games there was lots of shooting and each team had to make their own base with cardboard boxes.
The kids had to make the stretchers and carry each other from one point to another in a relay. It was lots of fun especially when it started to rain and everyone was getting slippery and muddy.
This dude was my Army Pinata. It took way more time than I had hoped but in hindsight, I could have put a lot less layers on him as in the end he was so strong he wouldn’t split open without help.
To download any of the images below just open the file and print on A4 sized paper.
Oriental trading sponsored this post by supplying us with the above-mentioned items.