The genius of a Minecraft birthday party in the park is that while your awesome kid and their friends are having the time of their lives, your own home stays clear of the mess. Minecraft is a universally popular theme, and it’s easy to put this party together yourself. Follow these easy steps and ideas so your child will have a birthday party they will never forget.
Invitations, party food, games, cake and party bag ideas for an epic Minecraft birthday party
Great for kids 4-13 years old!
Invitations for a Minecraft birthday party in the park – in 4 easy steps
1. PLAN – Decide the number of guests you want to invite, and set the date and time of your party. Because this is an outdoor Minecraft birthday party, pick a local park (or your back garden).
2. FIND – There are many different ways to make your party invitations, but my favourite hack for saving time is to order a printable from Etsy. I like to pick one that includes my child’s photo.
When you purchase your printable invitation on Etsy, you will see instructions on where to add your party details (child’s name, date, place, contact number etc.). Sometimes you have to email the seller, and sometimes there is a form on the listing for customisation.
The seller will shortly email you a JPG (photo) version of your custom party invitation.
Tip: Carefully look over the draft invitation and let the seller know right away if there are any errors on it, so they can correct it.
If the invitation looks good, just save the JPG file to your phone’s photo albums (or another device), and it is ready to print.
3. PRINT – You can print your invitation anywhere you usually get your photos done. If you have your own colour printer, you can even do it at home, printing it on white cardstock. Cut it down to size with scissors.
I often do our invitations at a supermarket photo kiosk because it’s cheaper than using our printer’s ink cartridges. We have a Tesco and a Morrison near us that both have a photo kiosk. You just print the invitation like any other photo on your phone, choosing either a 4×6 or 5×7 size.
Be sure to make enough copies for all of your guests. I like to make an extra one for our family too. My son enjoys seeing it on the fridge in the lead up to his birthday. Plus, it is a lovely keepsake for him to look at over the years.
4. SEND – Pop your invitation in a suitably sized envelope and get it out to your guests as soon as possible.
4 great ideas for Minecraft party games
A good rule is to have at least 3-4 activities for kids to do at a birthday party. Here are all of the Minecraft-themed games we did at our birthday party in the park:
1. Decorate your own Minecraft tote bag
Let the kids decorate a canvas tote bag with Minecraft pictures (or whatever the child wants to draw). We did this on a picnic table in the park, and it worked really well.
What you will need:
Tip: If your cotton bag is very thin, put a piece of cardboard (like a cereal box) inside the bag to stop the colour from leaking to the other side. It also makes it easier to draw on, especially on an outdoor picnic table
I love this activity as a ‘welcome to the party’ time filler. While everyone is arriving at slightly different times, the kids can sit down, start chatting and get stuck into decorating their bags. Plus, the kids get to take their bag home too!
Tip: Advise the parents to iron their children’s bags before putting them in the washing machine to make the drawings permanent.
2. Minecraft treasure hunt
Minecraft is all about gathering materials to fulfil crafting recipes. Make this into a party game! The kids will use a list of themed items to search for. You can hide these in the park around the area you are having the party.
The items the children collect for the game make up part of their party bag to take home, too.
I used brown paper bags with handles (the kind you get with a takeaway). On one side of the bag, I glued a picture of a Minecraft Treasure chest, and I wrote the child’s name on it. On the other side of the bag, I put a printed list of items to find, with Minecraft pictures to tie them into the theme.
Tip: Use your discretion for the difficulty of the hunt. This was a 6 to 8-years old party and we wanted it to be fun, not frustrating. Instead of hiding one of each item in different places, we hid all of the diamonds in one place, all of the coal in one place etc. That way when one of the kids found something, they all got excited and ran over to fill their bag. You may want to do it differently if your kids are older.
All the ideas I used for our Minecraft treasure hunt are listed below (with links), but you can use your imagination and come up with anything you like.
When the children had completed their list of items, they got a prize. I love these gold brick bars. Inside I put a chocolate bar.
What you will need:
- Paper bags
- Diamonds – I filled asnack-size Ziploc with some blue scatter gems, folded it in half and stapled a Minecraft diamonds printable onto it
- TNT – print a Minecraft TNT and tape on to a red party popper (try Asda for the poppers and Google for Minecraft TNT party popper printable)
- Coal – black wedding favour boxes. I also added some black gems
- Fishing rod – a mini magnetic toy fishing rod
- Spider web – a piece of string or some Halloween spider web
- Creeper – print creeper faces and tape on to green party poppers (same as the TNT)
- Slime – small tub of green putty
- Diamond armour Steve (but if you can not find a stretchy smiley blue man party bag filler, you could substitute it for another stretchy toy like skeletons or spiders)
- Beacons – Glow sticks (try Poundland)
- Gold bricks and a prize for each child (ie chocolates)
Tip: It’s best to try and use a quiet corner of the park so you don’t have the general public discovering your treasure hunt items
3. Minecraft archery
Look out for hostile mobs!
I found toy bow and arrow sets at the Pound shop and bought one for each child. We printed pictures of a creeper, skeleton and spider, and my husband taped them around the park. The kids enjoyed running around shooting at the pictures randomly. They didn’t really need much of a competition, although you could make it one and offer a prize for accuracy.
What you need:
- Toy bow and arrows (commonly found at a pound shop)
- Printouts of mobs of your choice (skeleton, spider, creeper, enderman etc.)
4. Conquer the Ender Dragon (pinata)
What child doesn’t love a mad dash for candy at a party? We used a black dragon pinata and told the kids they had to conquer the Ender Dragon. If you can’t find a black dragon, you could instead use a llama pinata, and tell the kids to do their best to make it ‘spit’ (candy!). You’ll need a tree to hang this from.
What you need:
- A dragon or llama pinata and a stick (blindfold optional)
- A long piece of rope or string to tie it up with
- Selection of sweets (try a pound shop for big bags of lollies and individually wrapped sweets). Fun detail: Use some small bags of chocolate mini eggs to replicate the Ender Dragon eggs! You can usually find those in the own-brand section of your supermarket confectionery aisle
*Minecraft Party Food Hack*
Here is one of my all-time best party hacks:
If you are hosting a party in the park, consider packing the children’s lunches or snacks in individual lunch boxes. I find this makes transporting the food a lot easier.
- Write names on the boxes to make the kids feel special, plus you can be sure to accommodate any dietary requests, too. We had Halal, dairy-free and vegetarian kids, so this was a great way to make sure each kid had the right lunch.
- These green paper lunch boxes are great for a Minecraft party! If you have a little time, you can use black electrical tape cut in squares to make a creeper face, but I left them as they were.
- Finally, when they are done eating, the kids can pack up their rubbish in the same box to quickly clear away till you get it all back home.
Food Ideas for your Minecraft Party kids
The Minecraft world luckily has lots of easy-to-find food in it. We used these ideas for our Minecraft birthday party in the park:
- Sandwiches cut in squares (blocks)
- Mini baton carrots and kid-size apples (carrots & apples)
- Watermelon wedges (melon)
- A large chocolate chip cookie (cookie)
- Pretzel sticks (wood)
- Goldfish cheddars (fish)
I also used an awesome Minecraft printable to easily make creeper water bottles.
PARTY TIP: Make twice as many water bottles as there are guests so that the kids can take a bottle home as well. Cheap party favour!
DIY or store-bought Minecraft cake?
I confess my cake-making skills are laughable! I have a rule that I will either plan a party or make a cake because I don’t have time for both! However, this was a pretty easy party to do ahead of time, and I talked myself into putting together a cake after seeing this amazing tutorial. The theme was Minecraft earth, water and sand blocks.
Luckily, my Dad was flying over from America to holiday with us, so I asked him to bring us some blue Jell-O for the water. They don’t commonly sell blue jelly in the UK, but you can find it on Amazon or at an American import store. You will need to mix the blue Jell-o I with half the usual amount of water to make it dense.
Next, I made an extra-deep chocolate cake for the earth, topping it with green icing and desiccated coconut for grass.
Then, I made extra deep Rice Krispy cakes. After cutting everything up into blocks and arranging it as aesthetically as I could manage, I added a few Minecraft toys and voila! A dirt/sand/water cake. It was delicious but quite hard to transport. If you attempt this, I suggest putting wooden BBQ skewers through it to keep the layers together (remove them before serving).
TIP: If you have loads of time to bake, check out Pinterest for Minecraft cakes, there are tonnes of ideas! Or, if you want to make your life easy (remember you are planning a party already!), then just go to Morrison or Asda. You can order a white cake with a photo printed on top. If your kid has a Minecraft shirt, maybe take a picture of them wearing their shirt or holding their favourite Minecraft toy or sword. A custom photo cake always looks better than it deserves to be, and they are not expensive.
A side note to this story – I also made a tray of cupcakes for the party, but the wind pushed them into the dirt! Note to self: Do not ever bring cakes to an outdoor party that are not properly weighed down.
Set up and decoration for an outdoor party
If you are not keen on party decorations, then a Minecraft party outside is perfect for you. I put my effort into the games, knowing that I would not need to make many decorations. That worked out great.
To set this all up it’s very easy:
- A couple of hours before the party, we sent a family member to perch on the picnic table in the park we wanted.
- We covered the food table with a Minecraft plastic table cover (wrapped like a present and secured with packing tape because it was very windy that day).
- Pop your food or lunch boxes, drinks and cakes etc on this table
- Set out materials for the tote bag activity
- Add whatever else you want. We hung a Minecraft banner and the pinata from a tree, but we did not need any more decorations. If you have good weather, you might consider a big helium balloon with your child’s age to add a birthday vibe. If it’s very hot, and your park is lacking in trees, you might also consider popping up a gazebo and putting a bit of decoration on that.
- If you’re doing a treasure hunt, hide the items shortly before your party is to begin (or have a family member hide the items while the children are doing the tote bag activity)
- Wait for your guests to arrive!
Minecraft Party bag ideas
And finally, it’s time to send everyone home! (Party bags are really a bribe to get the little darlings to leave, right?)
At this point, the party guests had collected quite a bit. They had their decorated tote bag, their treasure hunt items including a gold bar filled with chocolate, and a couple of handfuls of candy from the piñata.
So, as a parting gift, I gave the kids a Minecraft keychain, a sticker and the creeper water bottle I mentioned earlier. I put these in their tote bags so I didn’t need any more plastic bags.
If you are looking for more Minecraft party bag ideas, I have some great ones here:
Have the best outdoor Minecraft party ever!
From games to food, this Minecraft birthday party in the park was so much fun to plan. It is an easy theme to work with and universally popular for boys and girls age 4 to 13. If you need any help planning your party, leave me a comment below. Have a wonderful birthday party!
If you enjoyed this, you might also like my ideas for an amazing Animal Crossing party.
