We recently celebrated my son Harvey’s 6th birthday party, and I’m very happy to be able to share some photos of Harvey’s Arcade!
Harvey absolutely loves Pac-Man after Santa brought him an old-school games console for Christmas which you plug into the TV. And when we saw Wreck-it Ralph at the movies, he was delighted to see Pac-Man amongst the characters and became fascinated with the idea of amusement arcades and arcade games. We visited a local (modern) games arcade, and Harvey couldn’t believe some of the machines spat out tickets that he could then redeem for a prize. Bonus! So when I suggested we could create his own games arcade for his birthday in the middle of our lounge room, he just about fell over! 
I started out by designing this invitation, which set the tone for a bit of retro gaming fun…
And then I set about creating the buffet table in the same retro flavour…
I made these Sonic’s Golden Rings cookies myself. Very simple (and delicious) – I’ll be creating an easy tutorial blog post to show you how!
I made these cake pop joysticks myself! My first attempt at cake pops, and I was very happy with how they turned out (thanks for the tips everyone gave me on my Facebook page!)
I’ll be creating a blog post tutorial about these super-easy Pac-Man mini pancakes too! Yummo!
These Mario’s Mushroom Muffins were very easy to make. I used store-bought mini muffins and dipped them in melted white chocolate (which I had already coloured red for the cake pop joysticks). Then I just dabbed some melted white chocolate dots on them. Viola!
Once again I enlisted the help of the very talented Lisa from Cakes & Biscuits by Lisa to create Harvey’s birthday cake. And once again, Lisa was able to take my flat illustrations and turn them into a three-dimensional masterpiece! Needless to say, Harvey’s face lit up like an arcade game when he saw it!
I designed this name plate to go across the front of the cake which Lisa had made up for me in edible printed icing. In the end, the colours of the edible icing were a little muted for my in-your-face-colour tastes, so I simply printed the nameplate on my inkjet printer to the same size and stuck it on over the top! We obviously didn’t eat that part, but the same sort of thing can definitely be achieved with printed icing that you can eat.
For party favours, we gave away cookies in favour bags, Donkey Kong lucky dips (which were plastic barrels with stationery items inside), and toy Wii controllers which were like Pez dispensers.
And here’s the cute little manager of Harvey’s Arcade! Harvey specifically requested he be the manager instead of the owner. He wanted to manage all the games and make sure everyone was having a good time.
The games room!
I whipped these cushions up the day before the party to throw on the couch in the games room. I simply bought two cushions from Ikea, cut out the felt shapes, and glued them on with craft glue. No sewing required! (which is good since I can’t sew very well…)
This was by far the most popular item in the arcade. The kids queued across the lounge room to have their turn on this thing, and the perseverance in trying to get a chocolate bar was very amusing! In the end (and after multiple attempts), a lucky few managed to do it! Persistence pays off!
We played team ball games in the back yard so the kids could earn tickets to redeem at the prize counter. There are always some kids who are reluctant to play party games, so this enticed them to participate because everyone who did automatically earned tickets. Then the winning team earned bonus tickets so they had more to redeem at the prize counter.
Harvey with his amazing birthday cake. Thanks Lisa!
So, there we have it! Harvey’s Arcade. I think this was our most successful kids party to date in terms of the fun factor on the day. The kids absolutely loved the arcade and all played so well together. Sometimes the noise level hit fever pitch as they all played the games together and egged each other on…just like in a real arcade.
As always, the party printables will be available soon in my Etsy shop!
Party Credits
Party Styling, Food and Photography: Crackers Art
Party Invitation and Printables: Crackers Art
Pac-Man Cake: Cakes & Biscuits By Lisa
Now we’re all set up for cake and ice-cream when we come home from dinner tonight.
