Theme Parties - Board Game Shower

This past weekend I threw a co-ed shower for some good friends who are getting married at the end of this month.  I pride myself on original showers that are not boring...so, because they love board games, I chose that for the theme.  I'll break this into two posts, an overview of the shower and activities, and then a little more in depth on the food.

A colorful "Candyland" Path went throughout the house.  Super simple, just sheets of construction paper taped to the floor.

The rest of the house had a "Monopoly" theme.  By the front door, we had "jail", a good place for the guys when they got out of hand!  Again, pretty simple...I got carpet tubes and propped them up by our front door.  These were easy to get because I work at a carpet store, but if you ask nicely, most carpet stores will give them to you.

I printed signs of different Monopoly spaces and taped them around the house.  This sign was on the bathroom.

A little teaser for the next post, the amazing food table!  I used a twister board for the tablecloth.

 The guys attempted to play chess with the sandwich chess board.

We played a couple of fun wedding theme games.  The first was our own version of Scattegories, using the couple's last name.  Each category was wedding related and they had 6 minutes to work in a team of 3 and fill out as many squares as they could.  I gave them extra points for every "W" and "Z" word because they were extra hard!

My gift for them and our second game was "The Bowl Game".  This is a favorite with our group of friends.  The great thing about this game is that all you need is a bowl and slips of paper.  So as a fun gift I bought them a pretty bowl and a fancy paper cube.

To start the game, everyone writes 3 words on separate slips of paper, usually to go with the theme of your party.  Of course, our theme was weddings.  The game is made up of 4 rounds - Catch Phrase, Password, Charades & Puppeteering.  Split your group into two teams, and then take turns giving clues to your own team.  We usually pick a random amount of time, between 30-60 seconds for each turn

The first round is Catch Phrase, so you can give as many clues as you want (short of saying the word or any part of it) to get your team to guess the word.  When time is up, play passes to the other team.  Continue until the bowl is empty and count up your team's total.  When the last clue is given, stop the timer and that person will pick up with the remaining time for the next round.

The second round is Password, so the clue giver can only say one word to get their team to guess the answer.  If the first word out of your mouth is "ummm", that's your word!  And your team has to try to guess the word.  This is easier than it seems because you've already guessed all of the words once.

The third round is charades, so basic charades rules apply.

The final round is Puppeteering - so it's like charades, but you have to use another person as your puppet.  Get your camera ready for this round...it's hilarious!

This game is a lot of fun, and always a little bit different since you are making up new clues every time you play.

Stay tuned for the next post on Friday where I'll explain all the fun food that we made for this party!

Grace and love,
Jenn