Once upon a time, we only had one or two kids.  They were young and weren’t involved in sports, and our time was plentiful.  Then we had a couple more kids, and they all kept growing, and became more involved in extra curricular activities, and they started having homework.

Once all of this went down, I started dropping the ball with birthday parties.  We just don’t have the time or money to do anything extravagant.  We do try to encourage the kids to choose an experience rather than a birthday party.

Most of the time, they happily choose the experience.  This year though, J really wanted a birthday party.  Thus, these easy Nerf Gun Party ideas were executed.  And the best part was–  it was a surprise party!

Easy Nerf Gun Party Ideas

*for your convenience, there may be affiliate links throughout this post, so you can easily find the things i am showing you.  by using these links, your pricing stays the same, but i earn a small commission.  you can see my full disclosure here

1. Create a facebook invite.

The first thing I did was send out a quick facebook invite to his friends.  I kept it small because I knew we were going to have the party at our house.  It’s still cold and yucky outside so there was no way we could have done this outside.

I let all of the parents know it was a surprise party and not to mention it to their kids.  I also asked them to bring the kids about 15 minutes before the party was actually to start so we could surprise J!

2. Ask parents to have kids bring their nerf guns to the party.

I let parents know that it was a Nerf Gun Party so their kids should bring their nerf guns (we had a couple extras just in case anyone didn’t have one!).  I literally did this less than a week before the party because I am a hot mess, and I can’t get it together.

3. Gather Nerf Guns and ammo

The day before the party (again, hot mess here) we started gathering all of our Nerf Guns and ammo.  J just thought we were having fun.  He kept begging for a birthday party, and I kept telling him it was too late to plan one.  Lucky for me, this is pretty typical for me, so he totally bought that I dropped the ball.

I did purchase extra darts so we could share!  They’re actually not that expensive and you can get a ton on Amazon here.

4. Use orange, blue, and yellow decorations.

I ran out (again the day before) and bought some blue, orange, and yellow decorations, tons of extra ammo (which would have been significantly cheaper if I had a planned a little and purchased from Amazon– my options were limited and I paid 3 times that price for 1/3 of the darts), a couple bags of chips, and some plates and balloons.

The day of the party, two hours before it started, Brent took J out for lunch.  The 3 kids left at home helped me blow balloons, hang streamers, and frost the cupcakes I made that morning from a box, stick some extra ammo on them for decorations, and set them up on my cupcake stand (one of the most-used novelty items I have ever purchased).

You guys, I’m telling you, I am the queen of procrastination- there’s not a chance I could have waited one second longer to do all of this.

5. Use sunglasses to protect eyes, drawstring bags to hold ammo, and bandannas to create teams, and double as party favors.

I set out some cheap sunglasses as eye protection (yet another thing that would have been cheaper on Amazon) and two different patterns of bandanas to let the kids know who was on their team.

I also got drawstring bags (I found mine at the Dollar Tree along with the sunglasses), for the kids to hold their ammo while they were running around.  The kids wrote their names on their bags with Sharpies, and everyone signed one bag for J to have as a keepsake.

6. Create labels for your goodies.

Now, normally, I would have used my paper cutter and printed out the labels on card stock to make the little labels, but not this time.  I used a pair of scissors, and a permanent marker. BOOM!

I’m here to make all those moms feeling bad about their handwriting and crafting skills, feel better.  

7. Wait for the guest of honor.

Then we waited for our guests, and eventually, J.

8. Set rules.

We gave the kids a couple of rules.  1.  No going in the basement.  2. Ammo is for everyone so no need to get upset, pick up what you find, the next round it will start all over.  3.  No shooting in people’s faces. Other than that, it was kind of a free-for-all, but surprisingly never got out of control.

This was hands down the easiest birthday party I have ever planned, and J smiled from ear to ear the entire time!!  I even heard he was asking who made all of his decorations, and put the party together. He was so proud!

What do you think?  Do you have any nerf gun party ideas?!!

xo, Lorrin

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