I'm a big fan of the concept of birth order - I just find the topic so fascinating and am constantly analyzing those around me (to either their interest or annoyance). It's also become a bit of a party trick for me to guess people's birth orders. Since I usually barely know the person (and, well, am not a psychologist), the margin for error is quite wide, but when I'm right, the incredulous looks are hilarious. At any rate, I thought it would be fun to incorporate this little quirk of mine into my party... aaaaaand I knew some of my more birth-order-is-for-quacks friends would be attending. What can I say? I'm a devious lastborn. ;)
My first order of business was aligning birth order with The Night Circus, since that was the overarching theme of the party. I mulled it over a bit with a friend, and I was struck with inspiration - what if I did a guess-the-birth-order-game for famous magicians, as a nod to the novel's protagonists? My friend got on board the idea, and it was full steam ahead... until we realized that, well, there aren't that many famous magicians. I mean, I'm sure there are noteworthy ones, but really, name five. Go on. Try it. Our attempt was like this: Houdini! *pause* David Copperfield! uh, David Blaine! *reaching* Criss Angel? Yeah... So, onto Plan B.
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When I think of magicians, images like these
pop into my head.
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More than, say, this image:
^ In case you're wondering, that's Harry Houdini (or really, Erik Weisz - thanks, Wikipedia!).
Plan B consisted of compiling a list of well-known magic-wielding characters from movies and television shows; initially, I wanted to use the characters themselves, but then I realized that many magical characters don't come with family histories. I mean, how many siblings does Tinkerbell or Nanny McPhee have? So I focused instead on the actors and actresses playing the magical characters for my game. I compiled a list of twenty such "magicians" and proceeded to use Google Image search to find suitable photographs. To stay with the party theme, I turned them all into black and white photos using iPhoto (I added name captions in Microsoft Word - importing the photos into a document also helped with printing/cutting them out) and framed them out with black cardstock, faking vintage photo corners.
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| Corners of the photos tucked through |
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| Insta-vintage charm! |
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| Matted out with cardstock |
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| All it took was a slice with the Exacto knife, then slipping the corners through! |
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| Finished products! |
After that it was time to create my game board! I found sheets of black posterboard at Dollar Tree, so I used duct tape (on the back of the board!) to attach them together for enough surface area and also to create a handle for carrying, since the board was super lightweight, but awkward. I attached my photos so that they hung from the board (see pic at right), because I added hints to the back of the cards, in case people were unfamiliar with the character: |
| Actor Name |
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| Character Name and Movie |
I created game sheets that listed the actors/actresses, with blanks for players to write in their birth order guesses. For the sake of easiness, I numbered the pictures to correspond with the game sheets:
For the game sheets and the title of the game board I downloaded a few free fonts:
Cabaret Regular (from 1001fonts.net)
I also used Rosewood Std Regular, but I don't think I needed to download it. I'm not sure if it's available for free or not - it seems like an Adobe font, that's all I know.
I gussied up some golf pencils to put out with the game sheets using my favorite crafting material: book pages! I got the idea from a pin on Pinterest and Mod-Podged a few of my own! I found a styrofoam plate worked best for drying purposes (not pretty, but resourceful!).
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| My version! |
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I cut the pages down to size, then coated the pencils with Mod Podge (not really the right kind - mine was an old bottle of Puzzle Saver!), wrapped the paper around them, and then coated them again to seal them. They turned out okay, not awesome - they retained the wet look, even after drying and hardening (rendering the pages somewhat transparent and dark), but I went with it and decorated the finished the look with a Sharpie and some baker's twine.
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| Styrofoam drying plate! |
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| Cut pages down to size |
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| Use Mod Podge for adherence |
I sent them home with people as they were leaving, so they made nice little favors. There were also prizes for those who scored the highest in the game. We actually had a 3-way tie at one point, but it was settled by a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors. ;)
I made the paper medallions out of cardstock using the lampshade method, partly for embellishing purposes, partly because I'd never tried it before. The 'mystery' prizes were a magic set and an adorable stuffed elephant, both from Dollar Tree, and a small paperback of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that I found in pristine condition at a thrift store (score!). Beyond the prizes (which cost a grand total of $3.50), I'm pretty sure the posterboard used for the game board was the only material specifically purchased for this project. Everything else was already on hand (such as the prize bags, some of which were used as luminaries and goodie bags, and the ribbon, which was used for a photo display project). It's a good thing the game didn't break the bank, since most of it isn't reusable. But it was fun, and I had fun making it, which is all that counts in the end. :)
Pictures of the game all set up at the party! Table decorations and streamers detailed here. You can also find the instructions for the cute mini spotlight (made from a pencil holder, camera tripod, and a press light) here!
