My youngest son, who likes cats in general, recently became addicted to the Nyan Cat internet meme. It’s one of the few “clean” memes so I figured there was no harm in it, right?
Then he asked if he could have a Nyan Cat-themed birthday party.
Um…how on earth would we do that? I love how my sons come up with unique ideas and I was so hesitant to turn it down, so I promised him we’d do our best.
First of all, for the uninitiated, let me show you the Nyan Cat video, which started it all.
Thanks to the magic of a computer printer, rainbow party supplies and a whole lot of icing, we made it happen for our youngest son’s 8th birthday party this past weekend.
My son had it in his head that I could go to our local Party City and pick up Nyan Cat plates, cups and centerpieces. I had to explain to him that we’d have to use our imagination. And that it would involve a lot of rainbows.
LOTS of rainbows.
At first we had explored some cat themes, but our son said it wouldn’t work because they weren’t 8-bit cats. Oh well.
(Part of me would have enjoyed a Hello Kitty-themed party, since I love Hello Kitty and all her friends, but I think my boys would have called my bluff.)
Thanks to the power of the internet and some great employees at Party City, we had what mostly looked like a rainbow themed party, with a few cats tucked in there…
About a month ago I had sent a plea to the other GeekMoms. I asked for party ideas, saying “Besides serving Pop Tarts, I’m flummoxed.” GeekMom Natania came right back and said “Card stock. Streamers. Chop sticks. Print out the Nyan cat bodies from a graphic, stream rainbow streamers behind them, have a race!”
Genius! That’s what we did, except we didn’t garner enough interest for a race.
Nyan Cat Puppets
For each puppet you will need:
- 1 Popsicle stick or disposable chopstick
- One sheet of card stock with mirror images of the Nyan Cat printed on it**
- 3 feet of rainbow streamer, from your local party supply store. Use more than one length of streamer if you like
- Glue
**Drop a Nyan Cat into Microsoft Powerpoint, and then place a mirror image next to it. Adults can pre-cut the cats ahead of time to save time. Cutting 8-bit cats is not for the faint of heart. To ease the burden you can do what we did: my neighbors and I cut the cats while drinking martinis the night before the party.
Glue the streamer to the reverse side of the one of the cats, then glue the popsicle stick to the underside. Glue the opposite-facing cat to the streamer, popsicle stick and front side cat and you’re finished. We used Alene’s Tacky Glue, which made the cats ready to use in under a minute!
The kids enjoyed running around our yard with the puppets. I assembled all the extras we had after the party and now my son has a clowder of Nyan Cats for my sons to enjoy. They’ve already given a couple of puppet shows from behind our couch. Granted, all they seem to ever say is “Nyan nyan nyan nyan nyan!”
My now-8-year-old son was thrilled with his party and I consider my work here done. Who knows what he will come up with next year…
