Did you know that finding Egyptian decorations for parties is nigh impossible? They do not exist, or if they do, they are buried in some pharaoh’s tomb deep in the Saharan Desert saved for the gods. One would think that as popular as Ancient Egypt is, there’d be ready-made decorations. Well, there aren’t. So, when Lily decided that her birthday party theme was Ancient Egypt, I had to get creative… er… make our own. It’s really quite easy, and for a 9 year old, it’s a lot of fun. Okay, for a, um, er, someone my age, it was fun, too. LOL

So, here’s our take on Ancient Egypt:

Decorated table

As you can see, we started with a color scheme. Whenever I think of Ancient Egypt, I think of King Tut and his funerary mask. So, it made sense to go with lapis lazuli blue (or as close as we could get) and gold. Lily saw the leopard print and decided we needed to add that as well. Since this was her birthday party, and the ancient Egyptians did worship animals, although perhaps not leopards, I decided that was fine.

To add more flavor of Ancient Egypt, Lily and I settled on two easy to create stencils. Eye of Ra and Bastet, since Bastet is her favorite goddess of the Egyptian pantheon. Although I could have just printed pics of them off the internet and made stencils with those, I didn’t think of it until after I’d already sketched them. LOL That’s okay. The imperfections make them “special.” LOL

Sketch of the Eye of Ra

These were last minute decorations, mind you. I probably could have bought better paper for the final product, but it is a kid’s party after all. And construction paper was on hand in the right colors. With my trusty Exacto knife, I created the stencil.

Eye of Ra stencil

The end result being this as I layered for a “2d” effect. We made three or four of them. This one is still on the wall, and Lily has appropriated one for her door.

Eye of Ra

Not perfect, but good for a kid’s party. If done with nicer paper, it’d look pretty good. Combined with the balloons, it looks pretty good.

Eye of Ra with balloons

The colors aren’t exact, but the effect was nice.

And, finally, Bastet. She took a little more time to freehand sketch, and it might have been better to have colored her in with something other than pencils, but Lily loved the fact that we made the decorations. I’m not sure who colored this one, me or her.

Bastet, Egyptian cat goddess

And the cake. I am not a professional cake decorator, but I bet that my cake tastes better. 🙂  I had grand plans. The original thought was to make the Eye of Ra out of cupcakes. As the time approached (the night before), my ambitions fizzled. I do think that a cupcake Eye of Ra would be pretty cool. Maybe next year.

Birthday cake

Yes, the cake was completely homemade, even to the frosting. There was so much sugar and cocoa in this cake that one lick, and I clung to the ceiling. It had so much cocoa that Lily’s headache disappeared after eating only a few bites. It had so much sugar and cocoa that the kids tore around the house for a good hour after having one piece. Even the parents weren’t immune and licked their plates clean. And, yes, it was very, very yummy.