My daughter played The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker this spring, and she was so enamored with the game that she requested Zelda to be the theme of her 6th birthday party—much to the delight of my husband and me, of course! Since you can’t walk into your nearest party store and find a bunch of Zelda-themed party supplies, we had to get extra creative. After some Pinterest research and a little of brainstorming, we had a plan.
The Invitations
For online invitations, I like to use Pingg over Evite simply for the reason that they have a clean blank template that you can plug your theme photo into.
The Decor
On my Zelda Pinterest board, I saved a few perler bead patterns that I thought we could use to make something, maybe. Well, my mom saw them and decided to give it a try. The next thing I know, she’s converted her dining room into a perler bead factory and started making up her own elaborate designs. So really, the trick to throwing a killer Zelda birthday party is to find the most amazing grandma. Should you find the patience to go the perler route, it’s a genius way to customize your own decor to fit any theme. The final products can be glued to cardboard to make hanging decorations, glued to jars for candy, glued to vases for flowers, etc.
I created a banner to welcome everyone to the park. I used an image of the life heart, added the necessary letters, printed them, glued them on thick card stock paper, cut out the shapes (so much cutting!), punches holes on each side, and ran a piece of white yarn through.
We had a box where to deposit gifts, and we also gave people the alternative of donating a few dollars to my daughter’s Disneyland fund since she has been saving to go to Disneyland. It’s an idea I saw a friend do and thought it was genius—your guests end up spending probably less money and saving themselves the time of shopping for a gift and having to wrap it, plus they help her accomplish her goals!
I also printed a “it’s dangerous to go alone…” sign for the goodie bags. The box itself is a pirate treasure chest boxes that fit our theme well enough. Inside we put sparkly chalk and homemade cookies—cookies n’ cream pudding cookies and banana pudding cookies (I replaced the vanilla wafers with chopped pecans). So good!
The Outfits
One of the (albeit indulgent) things I love doing for every party is finding an outfit for every family member to match the theme—usually cosplay for the kids and shirts for my husband and I.
For the birthday girl’s Link outfit, I shopped at the discount clothing store for a couple of green women’s t-shirts. I belted one to create Link’s tunic, and cut the other to create Link’s cap. Then I threw a plain shirt underneath (both because it was cool outside and to provide coverage since the neckline was too large), white leggings, brown boots, a Triforce hair bow from Hot Topic, and finally a Navi necklace also from Hot Topic (but it isn’t available online).
My 2-year-old was always quite excited to catch the fairies in the game, so we decided to turn her into Navi. I used this blue Elsa dress and blue fairy wings.
My husband wore a Triforce symbol shirt that he’s had for a while from I don’t remember where, but it’s similar to this Hot Topic option. As for me, I found a Link shirt from Tee Public which I found quite hilarious.
The Cake
And finally, the cake! Again, I can thank my mom’s extraordinary patience for this one. She made a 2-layer cake covered in white fondant, and, after a few attempts at using different materials, settled on edible sugar paper to make the Triforce symbol and fairies on the side. She passes on an important tip when working with sugar paper, freeze it for a couple of minutes before trying to peel the backing. Good to know!
After all that work, it’s time to start thinking about the next birthday party… My younger daughter’s third birthday is only six months away! We’re thinking Mario Kart—brilliant, right?!
What games did you play?? I am trying to create Zelda-themed party games for my son’s Zelda birthday.