Create a great magic theme birthday party with these magic ideas for themed party invitations, decorations, food, games, costumes and prizes.

Everybody loves a little bit of magic, and the beauty of a magic party is that you can adapt the theme to suit the age of your child. You don’t have to be a magician to pull it of, just use your imagination and keep these tricks close at hand for a magic birthday party your child will never forget.

Magic Party Invitation Ideas

• Turn an everyday postal tube into a magic wand, by painting it black with white tips at either end. Roll your invitation up inside the tube, and fill it with glitter for some extra magic.
• Cut out a top hat from a piece of black cardboard, and use double sided tape to attach it to a piece of silver card. Leave the rim of the hat unstuck, so that it works like a pocket. Cut a bunny head out of white cardboard, and on the back write all your party details. Slide the white rabbit into the pocket, and your guests can then pull their invitation ‘out of the hat’.
• Make a truly magic invitation by using lemon juice to write the party details onto white paper. When your guests receive their invite the writing will be invisible, and they will need to heat it over a toaster to reveal the words. (Of course you’ll have to include some instructions with your magic invite, or else your guests will have no idea what the empty piece of paper is for!)
• Make up some tickets to attend an exclusive magic show, asking each child to be one of your guests of honour. If you are having an entertainer, make sure you include their details with the party information.

Magic Party Decorations

• It’s easy to turn your lounge room into a magicians stage – all you need is lots of black fabric (old sheets and tablecloths are fine), and plenty of sparkly stars in all sorts of shapes and sizes.Drape the fabric over door ways and windows to create stage curtains, and pin them to the wall if you really want to black it out. Cut stars out of old cardboard boxes, cover them with glitter on both sides, then hang them from the ceiling, walls, lampshades, or wherever you can find a space. (If you don’t have any glitter, simply wrap the stars in tinfoil.) Add white, black and silver balloons as a final touch.
• If you are having an entertainer, you may want to make a pretend ticket booth so you can collect the ‘tickets’ as guests arrive, or decorate a garden archway as an entrance to the magicians cave.

Magic Party Games and Activities

• You can’t beat a live performance at a magic party, and with a good entertainer, you really don’t need any other activities. While the cost may sound a big deal at first, keep in mind that if you were to organise lots of games and prizes yourself, the dollars would soon add up – not to mention the stress.
• If you are not having an entertainer at your party, you may want to perform some magic tricks of your own. After your performance you could teach the kids the secrets of each trick, and they could practice their own tricks to perform when their parents arrive back. There are some great magic trick books available for children, or check out www.magicalkingdom.co.ukfor easy to follow ideas and instructions.
• Have your guests make their own magicians wand by decorating a piece dowel with paint and glitter. You could attach a cardboard star to one end, or keep it traditional by painting it black with white tips. Dowel is available in long lengths from hardware stores and is easy to cut using a hacksaw or hobby knife.

Magic Party Food

• If you are having an entertainer at the birthday party, you’ll need some great snack food for during the show. Take candy floss from its plastic bag and serve it wrapped around a chopstick, fill paper bags with hot salted popcorn, and serve fizzy drinks in paper cups with twisty straws.
• Make edible wands for each child by painting white icing at both ends of a black liquorice log. Stand all the wands in a drinking glass to serve.
• Nothing says ‘magic’ like stars do, so use a star shaped cookie cutter to cut all your party food. You could have star shaped fairy bread, biscuits, pizza, cheese on toast, club sandwiches…
• Turn ordinary cup cakes into little white bunnies by icing them with white icing, sprinkling them with coconut, and adding marshmallows for the ears and nose. (Use scissors to cut the marshmallows in half long ways. This will give you a nice petal or ‘ear shaped’ sweet.) Liquorice straps can be used to define the mouth and whiskers.

Magic Party Costumes

To make a simple magicians costume, children simply need to dress in black pants with a white top and a black bow tie. Make a black cape out of an old sheet or tablecloth, add a cheap top hat from an emporium type store, and with the wave of your plastic wand – you’re done.

If you really want to make your child stand out from the rest, you can paint silver stars onto the cape using fabric paints. Fabric paints are available from good craft stores for approximately $4 per tube.

Magic Party Loot Bags

You can make each of your guests a great magic trick kit with very little cost. Simply gather together a whole heap of everyday objects, and put them in a small drawstring bag along with instructions for some basic magic tricks. Some of the things you could include are:

• A couple of coins
• A dice
• A pack of cards
• A length of string
• A ping pong ball
• A matchbox
• A scarf
• Some game counters

Abracadabra – they’re a magician!