DIY Party Mom: August 2018

Game Night Engagement Party

Throw a fun game night party for your favorite engaged couple or family and friends with these awesome Game Night Party Ideas. You’ll find lots of DIY party decorations, ideas, food, and fun for a winning game night.

Marvel vs DC DIY Superhero Chess Game

Create a fun and unique chess set for your game night just like this super chess game staring your favorite heroes! It's easy to DIY your own with a little time, imagination, and cute peg pieces.

Game Night Jenga Guest Book Printable

Create a fun memory and party game with a Jenga game guest book. Find the free printable to help guests build memories and your party fun.

Game of Life Sucker Car Printable

Add a fun party favor or statement piece to your Game night dessert table with this printable Game of Life car. Game car holds 6 suckers so it looks like the actual game piece but instead is a great addition to your Game Night party.

Extra Large Magnetic Checkers Board Game

Play an extra large game of Checkers with this magnetic board game you can hang on the wall. It's so easy to create a fun family game that goes on and on and on.

When you are planning a game night, it's easy to think about the food, the games, and the tables, but the walls end up getting a little forgotten sometimes in the party decorating.

Or maybe not. Maybe you used an easy backdrop decoration like I did here, or maybe you want to turn the wall decorations into part of the party games.

At our Game Night party, the walls had these ugly square sound dimming boxes. I decided to create some extra large games to turn these eyesores into part of the party decorations and party games.

They turned out so cool that we ended up giving them away as prizes during the night and the guests LOVED them.

To make this party game, I used:

24 x 36 poster frame
large checker game (I found mine at Dollar Tree)
2 large command hooks
52 round button magnets
modge podge
E6000 glue
wooden arrow
sharpie marker

Extra Large Magnetic Checkers Board Game

Start by removing the backing from your poster frame. Then add a thin layer of Modge Podge on to the front of the checkerboard. Carefully lay the checkerboard in the center of the back of the glass of your poster frame so the checkerboard shows through to the front of the glass. Allow to dry.

Once the board is dry, use E6000 glue to secure circle button magnets to the back of the red squares on your checkerboard. Every red square needs a magnet in the center.

Glue one of the button magnets to the back of each of the checker pieces. Allow to dry.

One of the great things about the magnetic pieces is you can add another checker on top when the piece is "kinged" and the magnets keep them together and in the game. It worked awesome.

On the bottom of my checkerboard, I used a sharpie marker to write RED and BLACK and glued a circle magnet in between. Then I glued another magnet to the back of a large wooden arrow. This allowed me to let the players know whose turn it was if they wandered off from the game during the night but wanted to keep playing.

Lastly, I added two Command hooks below the RED and BLACK wording. On the hooks I hung two small buckets I found in the party section at Walmart. This allowed the players to place the pieces in the buckets when they got jumped so they didn't get lost.
This game ended up being pretty popular since the players could play throughout the night and didn't have to stay at the game board during other game night activities.

I would think it would also be really good if you wanted to have an "ongoing" checkers game at home with your kids. You could move a piece while they are at school, then they could move a piece while you are cooking dinner, and back and forth. What a fun way to keep connected with the kids.

If you liked this game idea, check out all our game night party ideas:

An InLinkz Link-up

Super Easy Game Night Backdrop

Create a fun accent wall or photo backdrop with this easy backdrop for your Game Night party. Using a few tablecloths and an old pack of Uno cards, you'll have an easy wall that will spark conversation and hide any ugly eyesores at your venue.

Are you ever decorating for a party and find yourself faced with a really ugly wall you want to hide?

There are just some spaces that the only way to save them is to cover them.

But of course, that makes for a great photo background, so it could be a super win when you are faced with that kind of situation.

Especially when you come up with a super easy way to add a backdrop to the wall.

The gym where we had our Game Night party has a really ugly curtain wall on one end of the room. It's functional since you can open the curtains and have extra room, but it's not really pretty when you are trying to decorate.

So I decided to cover the wall in a way that fit our Game Night theme perfectly.

Our wall was about 8 feet high by 30 feet long. So I went to Walmart and bought a bunch of black, white, and red rectangle tablecloths.

I started by hanging the white tablecloths vertically along the top of the curtain. This was easily done with a little packing tape along the top.

Then I sliced the red and black tablecloths in half.

This was a little tricky alone, but as soon as I got a helper to hold one end, I was able to fold the plastic tablecloths in half and slide the scissors down the center very quickly.

I gathered the short end of the red and black tablecloths into an accordion style and taped it so the plastic sort of pleated when it draped.
Then starting at one end of the wall, I alternated the red and black half tablecloths. The black cloths were secured on top at the edge of each white tablecloth, while the red were secured in the center of each tablecloth.

Like the picture above shows, I threaded the tablecloths so they braided in between each other with the left side on top and the right side below the table cloth on the left of it.

About half way down the wall, I secured the tablecloths together with a piece of string.

Over the string, I glued a set of Uno cards, so it looked like each holder was a different player's hand. My assistant (my son) had a great time gluing the cards together imagining which hand was beating which. Then we just added a little glue to the back of the cards and glued it to the string and tablecloth.

If you like this backdrop wall, check out our other game night party ideas:

An InLinkz Link-up

3 Cute Back to School Supplies and Dare to Share Saturday

School starts for us this week, so we are in back to school mode and spending a fortune on supplies. So I'm excited to share some cute back to school supplies from last week's Dare to Share Saturday.