My oldest daughter hit double digits this year. I actually had a really hard time with it, for personal reasons…her turning ten means that my father has been gone now for ten years. I was always a daddy’s girl and losing him had been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with.

But as we all know, life still moves on. And Sophie turned ten. TEN. Jeez! She has been really into Minecraft for a year or so, and thus requested a Minecraft party. I thought, awesome! Minecraft is extremely popular. I’m sure I’ll find tons of decorations to make it easy on me.

Nope. Not at all. Or at least not in my tiny town or the surrounding bigger ones. Online I found a few things, but they were more than I was willing to pay and then my procrastination meant they wouldn’t arrive in time anyways. So what’s a mama to do?

Hello, Pinterest! The place where you see some of the most amazing things and feel so inadequate. Lol! Seriously, I don’t know how some off those people manage to pull it off. I wish I had the tiniest fraction of their talent!

I may not be crafty, but what I am is creative. So I got to work collecting party items in the signature black and green that signals “Minecraft” to the masses, and the result was a slightly unconventional but still really fun birthday party.

Behind the gaggle of birthday attendees here, you see the green tablecloth my sister-in-law spent a good twenty minutes drawing a creeper face onto.

From behind the scenes here, you can see the big balloon and streamer spider we made and stuck in the corner, complete with four red eyes painted on there. These were really simple to throw together and everyone loved them. My four year old is now insisting she wants some at her birthday party next year, she liked them so much.

The table, all decorated up to make the kids happy. You can see another spider on the wall, our balloon chandelier, and the creeper boxes on the table are actually the party favor boxes. You can’t see it, but they’re filled with green and black candies. Just in case I didn’t wind them up enough with cake, ice cream, and karaoke. Ha!

Speaking of cake…

I was going for a look similar to these:

With the layers and the little figures. I thought, that’s easy enough. Bake two cakes, and one you can just cut up to make layers. Throw green icing on top, put your little figurines in that you can buy at Wal-Mart, and you’re set.

Yeah…not so much!

My cake wasn’t stiff enough to do that with. It was moist and kept crumbling on me, then the crumbs would spread around with the icing. The icing, which, btw, does not come in that color from the small cans you buy at the grocery. You have to use food dye. I also highly recommend against taking a swig from the bottle when you’re done to see how it tastes. For one thing, it’s gross, and it will dye your lips and teeth. You will brush for fifteen minutes to get it off. You will, however, laugh about it the entire time. Or maybe that’s just me.

So what did I do with my disaster? I looked for a dinosaur in the girls’ rooms. How else could I try to explain this mess? Found none, so I stuck a TNT box there with a creeper running the other direction and Diamond Steve being thrown onto his back from the explosion.

Like I said, I’m not crafty by any means. But I am creative.