Peppa Pig Party Basement Blast (Inexpensive!)

4 years ago, my husband and I used to retreat to our basement on Friday nights for Pizza and Projects. We would blast music (preferably Journey radio) while we would reclaim furniture, work on mosaics, or reorganize.

Now, Friday nights still include pizza, but with two young kids, we oftentimes have no energy left for the projects part. That is, until we were inspired for a very special 3-year old's birthday. Our daughter requested a Peppa Pig Party for her birthday, so we transformed our basement space into a huge playroom to host a Peppa Pig Birthday Basement Blast! Once, more my husband and I retreated to our basement to play our Journey music (much softer...kids were sleeping during our project time) and to prepare for the Peppa Projects!

We accomplished this in a very inexpensive way. Decor primarily consisted of lots of balloons, paper made goods, and paint! We tried to mostly use what we already had around the house.

*Please Vote for Us for the Host with the Most Contest! We would love the Cone to blast for our girls to dance around to in the basement and for our special project time should we continue to find the energy!

Step 1: Materials

Here is all that you need for the basic party:

*Balloons (lots! Green for trees, varying pink colors, some fun vibrant assortments)

*Curling ribbon (any color; I used white)

*Crepe Paper (bright colors...this is to cover the metal columns)

*Butcher Block Paper

*Construction Paper

*Paint

*Cupcakes, food, drunks

*Pink Paper Plates and Pink Solo Cups

*Black Permanent Marker

FUN BONUS IDEA:

**Projector

**White Sheet

**DVD Player with Peppa Pig DVD

BASEMENT TRANSFORMATION:

*Foam Mats

*Tons of toys from around the house (helps clear out the upstairs!)

*Tables, chairs, etc for food and adults

*Play structures (we had a playhouse and a climber)

Step 2: The Transformation

We bought enough foam mats to cover just about 1/2 the square footage of our house. We decided that we wanted to dedicate that space to a romp around room for the girls. This space would house big structures such as a climber slide and a playhouse as well as the toy overflow from the upstairs. It makes a perfect place to play on hot humid days since it is a basement, and a great retreat on rainy days!

Once the mats were down, that was the majority of the battle. The rest of our time was spent cleaning and organizing the toys and moving the furniture to where we wanted it.

Step 3: Special Features

One special feature in our basement is a projector that I bought from eBay. It has a super bright bulb, so the picture easily displays in a light room, and we bought a $4 white sheet at Walmart to hang up to watch Peppa on the projector. It was a great addition to have in the background, and it is a fantastic feature for a special way to watch shows as a treat! We put clips on the top of the sheet and hooked them easily into hanging eye-hooks for easy removal (because the sheet is covering shelves filled with toys, and eventually the kids wanted those!).

Step 4: Inexpensive Decorating Touches

To cover the workout area and storage areas in the basement, we hung a "balloon curtain" of about 12 gallons with some higher and some lower, and we placed balloon clusters on both sides. It was just enough to draw the eye forward and away from the clutter behind it.

We also had an art board made of clothespins that my husband had made, and he drilled it to the window for the pig party bags. I made the party bags from pink bags and glued on paper eyes, noses, and ears and filled with Peppa Type items such as post cards, M&Ms packet (Oink!), a gold medal (for the "everyone wins" episode), a spider ring (for the "mr. skinny legs" episode), a glow in the dark dino for George, and so on.

We had a sitting area for adults opposite of the food table. On the wall, we placed posters such as "Daddy's Antique Chair" for our old couch because that corresponded with an episode, and we had a brown blanket on the floor for sitting, and above it we placed a sign that said, "Jumping in Muddy Puddles").

Speaking of jumping in muddy puddles, we also used old rainboots on the window sills and filled with fresh cut hydrangeas from outside.

On blank walls and to cover the top of one of our toy shelves, we use butcher block paper to draw scenes, sayings, and characters to brighten the white walls.

We wrapped purple and teal crepe paper around the metal poles in our basement to give it a circus look.

We used balloon bunches to hang, wrap around poles, and place on the corners of play houses. One play house had colorful balloon bunches, and the other (which has slides) had green balloon bunches. We drew tree trunks on construction paper, and made that climber look like a tree house.

Step 5: Food (Oink!)

I kept the food simple and kid-friendly:

-Goldfish

-Chips and Hummus

-Sweet and Sour Meatballs (the kind with grape jelly, chilli sauce, and meatballs...so easy)

-Crackers and Cheese

-Juice boxes

-Lemonade...I took the black marker, and drew two small dots on the bottom of the pink Solo cups, and these looked like pig-noses when people were drinking from them!

-Soda (for adults)

-Homemade Pig-Frosted cupcakes (with a peanut butter cup nose, candy eyes, and M&M nostrils)

-Ice Cream Cones and assorted flavors for kids to "order" at the ice-cream stand (aka, a baby gate that blocks off the other side of the basement...I stood behind it and served ice-cream as the kids ordered)

Step 6: Thank You!

Thank you for taking the time to read this Instructable! Our kids inspire us, and we hope to continue to show them that life is fun and that anything is possible when you work together and problem-solve.

Please consider casting your vote for us in the Host with the Most Contest to help us add a speaker to our basement to further motivate future family projects!