Claire's 13th Birthday Party

 My daughters are anime fanatics, so when Claire was turning thirteen, we decided to throw her an anime/Japanese themed birthday party. It was supposed to be a surprise for her, but the day before the party, she caught me making some of the decorations when she came home from school. But even though she was getting suspicious, my parents still took her to Game Stop, hours before the party, so that we can set everything up.

The cherry blossom on the background is a vinyl wall decal we got from Amazon.

This adorable plush creature on the cake is called a Mokona, and is a character from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. We used it as a cake topper but it's actually a coin purse. I placed a piece of wax paper underneath it so it doesn't get any frosting on it. I also made the teeny tiny party hat , and the CLAIRE banner.

I used google translate for the food labels, the framed image, chopstick holders, candy wrappers and favor tags. The chibi characters on the food labels were pictures we found online. We printed them out, cut them and then used foam adhesive to stick them on the food labels. Aren't they cute?

 The kids had fun trying out the Japanese food, but I think they were relieved when we ordered pizza. I guess it takes some getting used to.

Some of the games they played were similar to the games we had for Bea's 15th birthday. We had the chopsticks game - whoever gets the most jelly beans by using the chopsticks wins, fan the balloon game - each person gets one balloon, whoever manages to make the balloon stay up in the air the longest by fanning it, wins, and our own version of fukuwarai - a game similar to pin the tail on the donkey, but instead of using a face, we used a picture of Pikachu. The prize for the games were Hershey's Chocolate bars. I just replaced the wrappers with the a paper with the word Congratulations in English and also in Japanese.

After the games, the kids went to the living room and played video games.

These were the party favors, inside the bags were some Japanese candies. The kids thought it was pretty cool seeing their names written in Japanese characters.

  

I linked this post to these wonderful parties:

A to Zebra Celebrations : Link Party Tuesdays

Love and Laundry : Weekend Wonders

Memories by the Mile : Tuesday Trivia and Link Party

Thirty Handmade Days : Pity Party



Bea's 15th Birthday Party

This was Bea's birthday party when she turned 15 years old (she's turning 17 years old this year). For some reason, my kids tend to gravitate towards all things anime. Is it because we're asian? Hmmm... That's a possible reason, right? Well, anyways, Bea wanted to watch this anime series called Durarara!! with her friends, so we ordered the DVD on Amazon. I don't know if it's popular with the kids but it's about an internet-based anonymous gang called The Dollars in Tokyo, Japan. I searched the internet for party supplies with this theme but there were none, so I had to make most of the decorations.

This was the invitation I made on the computer using Adobe Photoshop Elements. I also made the envelopes. I printed out their names on shipping labels to make it personalized.

This was the welcome sign on our door. Since the story centers on an internet-based gang, I made this look like the log in page for their site.

This was the backdrop. It's made up of pictures of all her favorite anime characters, and also some of her favorite Korean Pop idols.

Her birthday cake was made to look like the invitations.

These were on our walls.

Since they were having a Durarara!! marathon, we served them food that you would usually find at the concession stand in the theater -  hotdogs, nachos, popcorn, candies - you know, the good stuff. (^_^)

Everybody had their own personalized concession boxes.

These were the party favors. If they look like Starbucks Frappuccino bottles, it's because that's exactly what they are. I've been saving them for months.

They played several games before they watched the dvd. First was the chopstick game (whoever gets the most jelly beans by using the chopsticks wins), popping the ballons game (the person who pops the most number of balloons by sitting on them wins), guess the character on the forehead game (this is similar to the Hedbanz game, but the images taped on their forehead are anime characters), hunt for Celty's head game (Celty is a dullahan looking for her stolen head, so we hid different pictures in the backyard, the person that finds the picture of her head wins).

It was a hot summer afternoon and our living room was overcrowded, but the kids did not seem to mind. Judging from all the squealing and fangirling, I think it's safe to say that they all had a blast. And hopefully it would be a nice memory for Bea to look back to when she gets older.

   

I linked this post to these wonderful parties: 

A to Zebra Celebrations : Link Party Tuesdays

Ilse's Thank You Tag

This is a thank you tag I made for my daughter's friend. She is into anime and the character in the tag is one of her favorites, Shikieki Yamaxanadu - the name is a mouthful, I know. Ilse drew a poster of Momo, a character in "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and we used that poster for our "pin the ear on Momo game."

This is the poster that Ilse made. I think she did a great job on it. Thank you Ilse! (^_^)