The beginning of September I found out that I was in charge of the ward trunk or treat along with my presidency and I could also use the primary presidency for help. I knew I had lots of great people to work with and I love putting together ward parties. It truly feels like magic when you have this vision of what it could look like and then seeing all of our hard work come together into this wonderful and fun party. I came up with the idea of going off the theme of Candy Land and I'm so glad I did. I knew it was something we could really work with and come up with something that was magical and an experience for the kids.
For the past two months I have been doing A LOT of painting in any free time that I had. I traced and projected and painted all the characters in the game, signs, giant playing cards, the Candy Land sign and castle, and giant squares. I decided to be in charge of the gym along with one of my counselors. My counselor created some large candy pieces and I did the tables and some other décor to bring it all together.
The way it all came together was AMAZING! Anna did the hallways and she really caught the vision that I had and she went all out and did such an amazing job. When you first walked in there was this GIANT gingerbread tree to welcome you.
Then to the right was Peppermint Forest with Mr. Mint. I love how she created this experience for each of the different parts.
At the end of this hallway was Gumdrop Mountain with Jolly. This room turned out so cute. In each of the rooms was also activities that the kids got to do that had to do with the theme of that room. The kids got to create gumdrop and toothpick creations and also there was a basketball hoop that gumdrop shaped beanbags were thrown in.
Then going back and if you turn left after the gingerbread tree you would go through Licorice Lagoon. Lord Licorice is the mischievous one in the game and the darker character and this section of hallway provide the perfect mood for that.
At the end of this was Nutty Acres with Gramma Nutt. The tree that was created was so big and turned out so cute. I love the details that everyone thought of. This room the kids got to use nerf guns to shoot darts through the holes in the trees.
Then the last hallway was Lollipop Woods with Lolly.
This hallway was so cute and just filled with so much color!
The last room was Snowflake Lake with Princess Frostine.
I especially loved the hanging snowflakes in this room. The activities for the kids in the snow room was a snowball toss into the snowmen, some "ice" fishing, and some fun coloring pages.
Then the gym was King Kandy's area. On the stage I painted this huge candy land castle mural and behind the food table was a "Welcome to Candy Land" sign. There were large painted squares that led to the castle from the doors.
I just wanted the gym to be very colorful and like you entered Candy Land. I used circle tables cloths on the walls to add more color along with large playing cards.
Some pictures of the cute large candy decorations that added to the gym and then table decorations. On six of the tables I put light pink tablecloths for the 6 pink squares on the game that have the characters on them. Each table represented the different characters and one table was black with licorice with miss your turn signs on it. On six other tables I had the playing squares on them. Then on the circle tables I had some gingerbread characters and just some other fun colorful decorations.
If you look back at the pictures you will notice some gingerbread characters. If you look at the Candy Land game board you will see these little gingerbread throughout the game and that's where this idea came from. I painted 10 different gingerbread characters representing each different area along with some extra for the gym. It was Paige's idea to create a Search and Find for the kids to do for another activity. I wish I would have announced this more during the night but I'm sure whoever ended up doing it had fun finding them. Nate and I had fun hiding them in the different areas. Nate even had the idea of putting one on the back of the basketball hoop in the gym and then the hoop was raised so you had to look pretty far up to find that one.
Then in one corner of the gym was my favorite part that I did which was the Chocolate Swamp with Gloppy. I got these velvet brown tablecloths from someone in the ward and then I made a whole bunch of chocolate desserts along with 2 others ladies. We individually wrapped all these chocolate desserts to have all over in the swamp. It turned out so good and delicious!
I also made 3 of these prizes for the top 3 best decorated trunks for the trunk or treat portion of the night to hopefully encourage people to decorate their trunks and make it a little more fun for the kids.
It was a group effort and took most of the day to set it up but it was all worth it when you saw people's faces and reactions to it all. It was like being in Candy Land. We started off with our potluck and I had to be careful with Covid. So thank you to all those that helped serve food to prevent too many people from touching the same utensils. Paige was even my little side kick and helped make sure everyone got some hand sanitizer and handed out forks while I handed out plates.
After we ate then the kids got to go play all the games and thank you to our amazing youth that stepped in to help run the games.
Then it was time for trunk or treat. Anna and Scott did this amazing Jurassic Park themed trunk. Since I was busy with decorating the church, I told Paige that she was in charge of decorating our trunk and she did a great job. She created teeth to go at the top of our trunk and cut out from a red table cloth a tongue for the bottom and a giant chocolate candy bar to go on the inside so our trunk looked like a giant mouth. I loved handing out candy and seeing all the cute kids and it was such a fun evening and we didn't even have rain which was an extra bonus.
What a wonderful and fun evening! It was worth all the time and effort to see this vision I had come to life. There were so many people that helped and I'm grateful for all those that helped in any way. It was a big group effort and it was such a fun thing to be a part of.
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