Board Game Night: enjoy a board game night with free printable invitation and banner, and ideas for a Candyland themed Dessert Table.
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This Board Game Night is sure to be loads of fun! We've got free printable invitations, a printable banner and the best snack table ever. It's the perfect way to get through these long winter months. We've set it up board game night for the whole family. It would also be great for a birthday a party, or just a get together with friends for your next party.
The Games
I picked up some great games at the thrift store for our board game night. We had some classics and some family favourites -including Candyland which inspired our snacks!
The thrift store is the perfect place to pick up fun board games at a fraction of the price of a new board game. And when you've had enough of them, or your kids have outgrown them, be sure to donate for the next family to enjoy.
Game Stations
If you have larger groups for game night, it's a good idea to set up different game stations, and rotate through different games, since some games require smaller groups. Set up your coffee table, into a station, your dining table, and possibly set up some folding tables and chairs to make more stations. Just keep in mind that some are a quick game and others take longer. Strategy games like settlers of catan for example, might take all night to play. There's so many different games to choose from.
We went with what we thought were the best games. Old board games are fun and nostalgic for many. You can also include dice games, and card games if you want to.
A word of caution: remember that some people will be there more for the social aspect of the evening, while others take their games very seriously. The main objective of a successful game night is for everyone to have a good time. Make room for people to opt out of a round or two games and socialize too. It could be a nice thing to have a puzzle set somewhere for those who don't love competitive games. We want everyone to have a great time.
Minute To Win It Style Games
Minute To Win It style party games have become very popular too. You might consider having at least some of this style of games for your game night too. These are great for larger groups, or as family games where younger and older kids can all join in with grown ups and even grandparents. You might consider adding even a few of these fun to your next awesome game night party.
Large Group Games
Another great idea is to play some larger group games all together. This is fun to bring large groups together. For these types of games you can break larger groups into teams and have team members work together, or have some people play while others watch. Think of old game shows for inspiration, or the kind of funny games you can go watch on a cruise ship for inspiration.
Prizes
We love the idea of playing games just for fun, but you can also have prices if you wish. You may have to work out a way to keep track of points and wins if you're doing lots of different games. You might want to create some old school ribbons or trophies. Look for these at the dollar store and then customize them. Or a great prize is always a small gift card. Everyone loves coffee, ice cream, or fast food gift cards and can always use them. You could even have your guest list contribute to a grand prize for the evening with everyone chipping in $5 to a pool that goes to the winner.
Most people will be happy though just to get together, enjoy some fun games, great food and socialize for the evening.
One Big Game
One more great option is to just play one long game all evening as a group. You don't have to worry about stations, rotations, or setting up a scoring system if you're all just playing one big game like monopoly or settlers all evening. If you do go this route, make sure it's a game that is long enough to last a few hours.
Board Game Night Invitations
Use our free printable game night invitations. We made them look like a ticket for the night, and included a blank spot where you can add details of the time and place for your party. Perfect for inviting friends over. They'd also be great for a family game night. Fill in the place as your living room, add a meet up time, like 7 pm and slip them under your kids bedroom doors, or in their lunch box for a fun way to invite family members.
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Board Game Night Banner
We also created a new printable Board Game Night banner. The colors and font were inspired by classic board games. One of my favorite family game night ideas to make things extra special with a few easy decorations like this one. Just subscribe below, then download and print on card stock for a the perfect board game night decor.
I also used a few game board pieces to create some simple decorations at the side. The letters are from Scrabble and you could use them to spell out any fun saying for game night.
Candyland Dessert Table
Game night is a lot of fun and lots of people will say that playing the games themselves are their favorite parts of the night, but for me it's always going to be in competition with the snacks!
The star of this party is the Candyland dessert table. We were inspired by the our favorite board game itself, and all the places pictured in this fun game are represented with candy! This is the perfect game night snack idea!
We wanted to make the board game come to life so we included:
- Peppermint Pass
- Cupcake Commons
- Ice Cream Slopes
- Gummy Hills
- Gingerbread House Mansion
- Licorice Lagoon
- Chocolate Mountain
- Lollipop Woods
- Candy Castle
I picked up most of the candy at the dollar store and a few things at the bulk store. It was a lot of fun putting it all together.
My girls helped be bake some of the items too. Making the Candy Castle was the most fun.
Here's how we brought it all together. We started out with setting up the classic board game on top of the board's box in the centre of the table. We wanted to give the game a little height as the centerpiece. Then we arranged all the candy and sweets near where it was pictured on the board. This works best as a large table grazing board, so be sure to set it up where you have enough space to add all the different elements around it. We wanted it to look like the board game was coming to life, and all the candy was overflowing from the picture onto the table. It really created a cool effect.
There a few different versions of this board game available, where the pictures are slightly different so keep that in mind when your choosing your Candyland game.
Peppermint Pass
For peppermint pass we just used some peppermint candies.
Cupcakes Commons
Cupcakes Commons was made up of mini and regular sized cupcakes made from a cake mix and decorated with vanilla and chocolate icing, candy and sprinkles. Having the two different flavors and two different sizes helps add interest. Instead of baking these, you could also just pick them up at the grocery store.
Ice Cream Slopes
For Ice Cream Slopes I debated using ice cream, but was worried about it melting so we used some mini marshmallow ice cream cones, and then some chocolate dipped cones, and sugar cones filled with cotton candy. It looked great, and you could also offer some real ice cream scoops to guests while guests are helping themselves to the dessert board.
Gummy Hills
Next was Gummy Hills. The smell of all these gummy treats was amazing!
We used an assortment of gummy treats, but my favourite were the tiny mini gummy bears we found at the bulk store. There was also fuzzy peaches, Swedish berries, lifesaver gummies, and some gummy hearts.
Gingerbread House Mansion
For Gingerbread House Mansion we used some mini gingerbread houses we had from Christmas and a gingerbread men kit. Instead of decorating them for Christmas though, we used bright coloured candies to make them fit our candyland theme.
Since we were making the large Candy Castle we didn't want a large gingerbread house too, so these mini gingerbread houses worked out perfectly.
Licorice Lagoon
Next up was Licorice Lagoon. We're not huge licorice fans so I just got a couple different red ones. We used the traditional long red licorice pieces, and then the shorter red ones as well. If you or your guests like black licorice, that would be great to include here too.
Chocolate Mountain
Chocolate Mountain was a lot of fun to put together, and we might have gone slightly overboard, but hey, who doesn't love a mountain of chocolate? To create our mountain I wanted to create a bit of height in the middle so I started with a stack of brownies which were easy to make from a mix.
Then I added all kinds of our favourite chocolate treats like
- chocolate covered pretzels
- mini peanut butter cups
- chocolate covered almonds
- Hershey bars
- Skor bars
- Coffee Crisp bars
- Kit Kat bars
- chocolate cookies
- Ferrero Rocher chocolates
Look for small quantities of these at the bulk food store. It's more fun to have lots of small options, rather than more of just a few different things. Buying at the bulk store is a great way to get a little of everything.
Lollipop Woods
Next was the Lollipop Woods where I used an assortment of lollipops, included one giant one for fun.
Candy Castle
Lastly we made our Candy Castle. It was so much fun to put together and the star of the show!
Rice Krispie Base
We started out with two batches of Rice Krispie squares in two 9x12 baking dishes. I cut up the squares using one batch to make the front of the castle and one to make the back part.
We used thick icing to put everything together. I did find that over time the rice krispies started to lose their shape a little. I put the castle together the day before the photo shoot and had to take it apart and lay it flat overnight and then reassemble it the day of the shoot. So I would suggest making it the day of the party. It will hold up fine for hours and hours, but maybe not overnight.
Candy Decorations
We made the front door out of a Hershey's bar decorated with sprinkles and candy, and the front path is wafer cookies and gum balls. We were inspired by the illustrations on the board game.
The castle turrets are all made of different ice cream cones and candy decorated with icing.
Birthday Party Idea
The Candy Castle was the star of the Candyland Dessert Table and so much fun! Everyone loved it. If you were doing a Candyland dessert table as part of a birthday party, another great option would be to make a candy castle birthday cake. Start with a cake base, and add candy and ice cream turrets and decorations just we like we did with our rice krispie castle.
After everyone admired the rice krispie castle, we used a knife to slice pieces of the rice krispies into squares for serving.
Goodie Bags
The candyland dessert table was everyone's favorite part of the evening and it was so fun to make a great game like this come to life! It was also a lot of food, and a lot of sugar, but perfect for big groups. It might also be a great idea to have some empty goodie bags, so guests can help themselves to the candy to take home with them. If you were having a smaller group for your game night, you could make a smaller version of this board, with less options, but follow the same idea of making the board come to life.
Salty Snacks
Salty SnacksA few salty snacks would be a great idea too. Feel free to add bowls of chips, nuts, popcorn or items like these to the table so that snackers can help themselves as they play. You might want to add in a change for players to revisit the dessert table and refill glasses between their rounds of games.
This party was so great to put together, and would be so much fun with friends, family, or extended family for a special night.
We set up our dessert table in the kitchen, and then played the games in the living room, which worked out perfectly.
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Game night is the perfect excuse to get out your favorite games and invite some friends over for a night of good games and great snacks. A classic game night is so much fun, quite easy to put together, and such a perfect way to spend quality time together.
With a special Board Game Night to enjoy, life really is a party!
More Inspiration
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