A little bit of sunshine: How I threw my son a Nerf Party

My 8 year old wanted his birthday party this year to be at a place called Dart Warz. They have an indoor area for Nerf gun wars and my son loves it. I checked into packages and prices which ranged from 11 to 21 people from 300 to 500 dollars for 75 minutes. No thanks! So I needed an option that worked on a budget. That's where creative thinking and Pinterest came in!
The decision was made to have a Nerf war at a park. I called around to a few parks in the area to find out about renting a pavilion since his party was on Memorial Day weekend, I wanted to be sure we would have a place to set up and have some protection from the sun and weather if needed. The pavilion was $48.00 for 4 hours with a $100.00 deposit. I can deal with that! (I did make this reservation one month in advance and informed them it would be a Nerf war. They were completely fine with it. Just FYI)

Okay, I have a place, great! Now what??!! How am I going to make this a Nerf war? I bet there's something on Pinterest! Well what do ya know!? The answers to all of my questions were on Pinterest after all. I just typed in Nerf Party in the search engine and let the pinning/planning begin.

1. The goodie bags:
I decided on one shot Nerf guns and
sunglasses that I found on Amazon.

Nerf N-Strike Jolt Blaster (blue) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009T45X78/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_bzCtxb80ZYC4H

Rhode Island Novelty Neon 80's Style Party Sunglasses with Dark Lens (Pack of 12) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NBM3KG/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_JxCtxbZQEQDQA

     That was perfect and cost enough that
      I didn't get anything else for the bags.
      Speaking of bags, I decided on paper bags. They are cheap and everything would fit in them. I found some tutorials on Pinterest for printing on paper bags and then got to. it!

      First I typed up a Thank You message
      then got to work figuring out how to
      put the bags in the printer so they
      would come out right. I used painters
      tape to keep the bottom down while
      printing.

They turned out PERFECT! :)

The Goodies!

Okay, a place, goodies, cool bags.....game, what about a game?

2. Shooting game:

Once again, Pinterest came to the rescue. I decided on a game that requires solo cups, prizes, tissue paper and a display board. The cups are filled with prizes and covered with tissue paper then inserted into the board. Then the kids line up and get one shot with a Nerf gun each turn. That way everyone gets a chance to shoot and win!

We used a protractor and a box cutter to cut the holes. Make sure the holes are smaller than the rim of the cup so the cups stay in place.

Prizes were random:

Jerky sticks, glow sticks, a cheap hand held game, candy, hot wheels and a Mine Craft figurine did the trick for this game.

Stuff the prizes in the cup, cover with tissue paper and tape the tissue paper in place. Place cup in board. This is how it turned out.....

The kids LOVED IT! :)

Okay, how about a Nerf war now? I didn't want to complicate it for the kids, so we had a blue team and a yellow team. Really the only rules were wear the sunglasses so no one gets an eye shot out, and if your are shot you had to run to a certain tree on the play ground touch it then you were in again. We used blue and yellow streamers and tied them to the kids arms so they could tell who was on what team. (Yes, the cheap paper decorating streamers.)