Skylanders Party Planning - Part 5, Mod-Podge Woes, Faux Leather Treasure Chest, Neon Balls, and a Portal Punch Possibility

I'm chunking through my Skylanders Party to-do list - whoo hoo!  The party isn't until July, but we have big vacation out West planned for June, so I'm trying to be proactive.  Next up...

Treasure Chest
This chest was a thrift store find.  It was originally cream with grapevines and a bit of a crackle finish.  I just attacked it with some brown spray paint. 

I LOVE that the crackle finish is still visible but now looks like textured, pebbly leather.  I will pretend that I knew all along that this was how to make spray paint look like leather.  It will be our little secret.  Kay?

Next step is to rub the nail heads and clasp with some dull gold glaze.  Once done, this will hold the party favors and the kids will need to do a treasure hunt to find it.  I all ready wrote and printed the clues.  Sample clue:  Find your way to a very tall tree, around the trunk you'll find clue #3. 

I wrote all the clues in verse 

could anything be worse?

Than someone who thinks she's a poet

and doesn't really know it

that she's not?

For the Wrecking Ball Tongue Grab Magic Element Challenge, I found 2 large flat platters at the Dollar Tree.  I thought that these would work to hold the gems to be grabbed and the shallowness of the lip wouldn't interfere with the game.

To make them more fun, I mod-podged on pictures of Wrecking Ball with 2 different catchphrases. 

I'm having a lot of trouble with my mod-podge lately - lots of wrinkling.  I think that I need to switch to card stock instead of regular copy paper.  So be forewarned - these are not perfect.  I just have to accept this with a sigh and move on.

For Trigger Happy's Coin Toss Tech Element Challenge, I found some red and gold bins at Dollar Tree and hit them with some mod-podge as well.

Wrinkled again!  Doh!  The kids won't mind, right?

And finally, I modified and gussied up the Dollar Tree boomerangs originally shown here with some brown paint and mod-podge.  You can see one in the front here:

Meh.  Not my best work.  But I think that the kids will get a kick out of these more so than a plain old tray, bin, or boomerang.  Note that the boomerangs are meant to fly with a helicopter attached, but the kids tested them and they work just as well sans copter.

While I had the drop cloth out for the treasure chest, I also took some time to paint some foam balls found at Dollar Tree (again with the Dollar Tree!).  The idea is to use my frosted glass bottles and make funky centerpieces.  I used bright green, orange, aqua, and purple to turn these plain balls into...

...these bright balls.  Aren't they fun?

I might do this again and make a wreath - I love how colorful they are.

And finally, at a store you might have heard of called Dollar Tree, I found this little foam ring, which doesn't look like much, but will hopefully work for my vision of a Portal Punch. 

The color changing pumpkin light fits PERFECTLY in the middle and my punch bowl will be supported on top.  If this works, if will be fabulous!