When my 8 year old daughter wanted to have a spy party I was very excited. Thanks to the books EJ 12 Girl Hero and the television program KC Undercover she has become obsessed with playing spies.
But this wasn’t going to be a simple spy party. Oh no! This was a recruit training session.
If you are looking for more amazing decorations check out these Party backdrops.
We broke the party in to three sections:
- the signing in desk, where they are fingerprinted and choose a spy name. We used this printout for our badges.
- The training session and then
- Access to headquarters once they were official spies.
In the headquarters they were given a Secret Birthday Mission.
Our favor bags were filled with Oriental trading supplies which made it really easy to theme the bags. Dusting Powder Candy, disguises, top Secret Pencils and Handcuffs. I actually placed these items along with a calculator (they were only $1 and we used them for coding) and some random snacks like, chips, dried fruit and a UV pen from EBay.
I also created my own black notebooks by printing off Top Secret labels and popping them on to the pocket books. I popped the supplies in to black backpacks I found for under $2.50 each on Ebay and these were issued in the headquarters. We purchased these Evidence Spy totes but only used them for decorations as they were too big for loot bags.
Here are some of the decorations we used. The bomb was a pass the parcel game (except we forgot to use it). It was created from two foam trays and some cardboard rolls. I printed of an LCD clock and added some wire. The game was to pass it around until a bomb sound went off and then you were out.
No prizes for this as we felt they were getting enough stuff. The briefcase was a re-used camping stove box. I had a few of these so I just emptied them out and used them to hold my printed signs.
This suspicious Box has a back story. We created a Spy video for our headquarters. The video was filmed by a friend and in that video he was congratulating the recruits for passing. Then the alarm goes off and a sudden mission is upon them. The new recruits have to locate the code to unlock the “suspicious package” which has all the birthday girls presents locked inside of it. It was fun because no one knew what the box was for until the Mission was announced.
Here are the recruits all lined up and I am the Training Supervisor.
We pinned the balloons (bombs) to the ground and the kids had to navigate through them without popping them. The second round they had to go back and pop them. We had a cargo net, climbing frame, nerf target practice and lazer beams to navigate. 
For this, we handcuffed their hands behind their back as if they were captured and they had to bob for food to survive.
Session two was the Headquarters. The anticipation of not knowing what was inside was killing the kids. We had it closed off until they had passed their training session. We used these amazing party backgrounds from Oriental trading to create a command center. I stuck them on to black boxes. (I knew I was saving the grocery delivery boxes for something important). We used a real laptop for some movement and also used the laptop to screen our DIY Spy video. I also added these Agents of God posters around the headquarters and used the fingerprint one for the sign in table at the beginning of the party.
Oriental Trading is my number one go to website for party supplies. Long before I was blogging I was using them. The Oriental Trading supplies used for this party were provided for free in exchange for their placement in this party post. I have contacted them about an exciting space-themed party I am about to plan for my son so stay tuned for that.