I came across a saying that made me laugh a little – friends who mine together, stay together! I think in the case of my son and his friends, it might actually be true. For his 7th birthday, my son chose a Minecraft theme and it was so much fun thinking of different ideas for activities, decorations, and games. I always start with pinterest for inspiration (that’s probably how you got here, so hi!) and then I adapt what I find to make it my own or to work with our group of kids.
As always, I had about three main activities/games planned and the rest of the time was for the kids to just play together, eat snacks, open presents, etc. The main activities for this Minecraft Party were: decorating swords, a gathering resources game, and a punch board. I hope what I did inspires you! Please note, As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Decorating Swords
You can make Minecraft swords from thin cardboard (like cereal boxes) or cardstock. I chose cardstock so I could use my Cricut to cut the shape and draw the grid lines at once. I uploaded my design so you can easily use it too. Then I got square stickers in a variety of colors and the kids filled in the sword in their own pattern.
Gathering Resources – A Minecraft Game
A key part about Minecraft is using different resources to craft items. I recreated this with a game I made up for the kids to craft their axes to use on the punch board.
I purchased two sets of boxes that looked like stone and dirt blocks from Minecraft. In each block there were different items: diamond, gold, sticks, cake, or a mob character. We were able to 3d print all the items to make them more realistic but you could easily print everything out on paper. I provide recipe cards for the kids to make a pickaxe or regular axe in gold or diamond.
Rules of the game:
- On your turn, open a box or take an item from the supplies chest (the supplies chest starts empty).
- If you need the resource in the box, add it to your crafting table. If you don’t need it, put it in the supplies chest.
- If you get “cake”, you get a second turn.
- If you get a “mob”, then you lose everything on your crafting table and put it all in the supplies chest
- When you have all the resources to craft an axe, you’re done!
We let the kids keep going until everyone had made an axe since they would be using them for the Pickaxe Punch game next.
The items were distributed in the boxes as 6 mobs, 4 cakes, 8 sets of sticks, 15 gold bars, and 15 diamonds. We had 7 kids playing the game and we told them in advance they could not all make the same type of axe.
The crafting tables were just two pieces of cardstock glued together. I used my Cricut to cut out the grid from a single sheet to make it easier to assemble.
Pickaxe Punch
I have done several different versions of punch boards in the past (Nerf Party, Avengers Party) and each time I use a slightly different method. For this board we used the end of soda cases, which are nicely square, to hold the candy.
To make the covers look like Minecraft dirt or grass blocks, I printed a “pixelated texture” onto green and brown construction paper. The construction paper was easy enough to break but also opaque to hide what was inside.
I added a title sign to the board using a Minecraft Font.
Minecraft Photo Op
Minecraft has many characters, animals, and mobs that make great decorations. What started as just a pile of boxes for decoration turned into a fun photo op for the kids.
I painted 8” cube boxes to look like Steve, Alex, skeletons, creepers, goo blobs, mooshrooms, pigs, wolves, etc. We cut the bottom flaps off so the kids could wear them for pictures. To make drawing the grid easier for painting, I used a one inch square stencil like this or you can 3d print one.
Minecraft Inspired Cake and Decorations
In addition to the photo op characters, I made two ghasts to hang as decoration.
A few other fun decorations were nether portals that we hung in the doorways. This purple backdrop tinsel is perfect for a nether portal and I framed it with black crepe paper. The kids had a blast running back and forth between it.
In the area of the house that was the nether, we hung enderman on the walls using construction paper and crepe paper streamers. It was really easy to make and the kids loved it.
In my scrolling for inspiration, I found several examples of using solid color plates to make a giant creeper head on the wall. I didn’t want to buy plates just to hang on the wall so I used origami paper instead. They were the perfect square size.
The last thing I made for the party was the cake. I don’t have the skills to make anything out of fondant so I stick to simpler decorations. For this cake I made three areas to look like Minecraft blocks of water, sand, and dirt/grass.
For the water, I made blue raspberry jello in a square baking pan. I used a jello/gelatin ratio very similar to how I made gummies for my daughter’s gummy party.
Rice Krispie treats made excellent sand blocks and regular chocolate cake was stacked for dirt. Then I added some green icing for a grass layer. It was really simple to assemble and offered a good variety of dessert choices too.
