Trivia Game

Here's a super fun game I created for our new years party (To read more about my epic party, click here) I'm not entirely sure what to call it. Jenga Trivia? Tower Challenge? Stacking Quiz? Maybe just Stacked? Well, whatever I decide (or if I decide not to decide) you should definitely play it at your next party or gathering. All the questions I have are New Year related, of course you don't have to use my questions. You can totally make up your own questions or find others online somewhere.

If you do play this game, wind up loving it (which you are bound to), and post a lovely account of it on your own blog, please add a link to my blog. And also leave a comment here with a link to your blog so I can read about your party, I would love to see what fun you had with my game.


What you'll need to play

To play you will need is a block stacking game (like Jenga) with numbered pieces. If you have Jenga you could number them with a sharpie (or a wood burner if you're feeling fancy.) I ordered one that was already numbered from Amazon (and, lucky for me, it was also the cheapest one on there.) HERE is the link. It comes with 3 dice which you won't need but are pretty to look at.

You will need a set of questions. There should be one question per block, that's 48 questions if you're using the game previously linked.  HERE is a link to a PDF of the questions I had for the New Years party. They are not easy questions. Some are easier than others, but they are all pretty difficult. If you're playing with a lot of young kids I would suggest using a different set of questions. If you do a Google search for "(whatever theme you want) trivia questions" there will be other options for you

Now recruit a lot of people. You will need all the people who want to play (The more the merrier. If there's a lot of minds at work, there's a better chance of someone knowing the correct answer) and you will need one person to be the question asker. This person is the game master. The one who gets to hold the sheet of questions and cackle loudly while everyone else hurts their brains. It's fun.

Lastly, you will need a timer of some sort. I used my pocket watch but you could use a game timer, a stop watch, or just a clock. You can get this nifty set of timers HERE if you don't have anything that keeps time.

Printable Trivia Questions 

Doesn't she look like Princess Leia when she's knelt beside R2D2?

Game Play

There are two different ways this game can be played and it mostly depends on how many people you have playing and how smart they are. If you have a few people who are very smart I would play version two. If you have a larger gathering of moderately intelligent people I would play the first version.

For each version you will need everyone comfortably seated and the stacking game neatly stacked where everyone can see it. They will also need to be able to reach it if you are playing at a table. We played in the living room and just had the players stand up when it was their turn to take a piece.

Version 1 (The version we played):

• Form teams. I had everyone sit down then I divided the room in thirds. It ended up being 3 teams of  5.
• Have the first team designate a player to remove a block from the tower. They will return to their group and tell the game master which number is on their block. 
• The game master will say the question loud enough for everyone to hear. 
• The team will then be given 60 seconds (Or 30 if you want) to consult among themselves. They have one chance to answer the question and must have team consensus when their time runs out. 
• If they answer the question correctly they get to keep their block and the next team takes their turn. 
• If they do not answer correctly they pass the block clockwise to team 2 and team 2 goes through the same rigmarole and so on until each team has had a chance. 
• In none of the teams answer the question correctly there are 2 things that can happen. 1) the block can be returned to the top of the stack or 2) you can give the block to the team that answered closest. For instance: if they are trying to guess a year and team 3 is only 2 years off while team 1 is 7 years off and team 2 is 408 years off, the piece should probably go to team 3.
• Game ends when the tower can no longer maintain its balance. Which ever team has the largest amount of blocks wins. 

Version 2:

Version 2 is played very similarly to version 1, the difference being that there are no teams and everyone has to try for themselves. I would say this is the harder of the 2 versions. 

• Player 1 picks a block from the tower and tells the game master the number. 
• The game master asks the question loud enough for each player to hear.
• The player is given 30 seconds (Or whatever seems fair to you) to ponder the question then must make a guess when the time is up, or before that if they are ready. 
• If the player answers correctly they get to keep the block and it is then player 2's turn. 
• If they fail to answer correctly they must hand the block over to player 2 and player 2 has the same amount of time. This goes on until one player is able to correctly answer.
• Or, if it has gone all the way around and no one knows the answer, it can either go back to the top of the stack or to the player who answered the closes. For instance: If they players are trying to guess a percentage and player 2 guesses 99% while player 1 guesses 45% and Player 3 Guesses .5% but the correct answer is actually 97%, the block should probably go to player 2. 
• The game ends when the tower tumbles and whoever has earned the most blocks wins the game. 

TIP:
Some of these questions are more difficult than others. On some of the tougher ones, as game master, I gave the players a little help. For instance: if they are trying to guess what the Italians do to bring good luck the game master could tell them "It is something they wear" because otherwise they will be guessing WAY off and the GM will get a headache from all the face palming.

Good luck with your party, I hope you have as much fun with this game as we did. Although I do think everyone was ready to kill me by the end....

I also wrote up instructions to another game we played involving silly phrases and people making fools of themselves. You can find that HERE along with a PDF that you can print of the phrases we used.

If you have any questions or ideas please leave a comment. I love hearing from you. 

Our Second Annual Costume Party

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all had an excellent holiday season, I know I did! Have you made any great plans for the coming year? 

To celebrate 2017 my family had our Second Annual New Years Costume Party. It was so much fun. Last year was great, but not as great as I had hoped. Due to last years disappointment, I almost didn't have a party this year. We decided to give it another shot to see how it goes (and because I practically attack any chance to wear a costume) and it was smashing! 

My Eldest brother, Forest, is at Fairwood Bible School and, being home for the holidays, he would have been here anyways, but a number of the other students came as well. We also had friends (some whom we hadn't even met yet) from NY come. Church friends came. Family from MA came. It was a fantastic party. I'm not even sure the exact count of how many people were at the party, but I do know we had 11 extra people staying in our home that night in addition to the six of us. 

I have to say, I really love having a house big enough to be able to do this kind of thing. 

All of the costumes were amazing, however the only two I can say much of are mine and my sister's. Mary was Princess Leia and I was Glinda, the good Witch from the Wizard of Oz.

The Princess Leia costume is a a very basic tunic made from a bed sheet. We made a belt to go around it and put her hair up in double sock buns (tutorial to come.)

My costume took a lot more to create, but it was 100% worth it.


MAKING MY COSTUME:

I started with a wedding dress I had found at a thrift store. I asked the woman working there how much it cost and she nearly begged me to take it. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of it before I started taking it apart but it wasn't all that pretty. Quite outdated. I removed from the dress the train, 4 bows (three on the front and one huge one on the back), an uncountable amount of tiny white beads, and almost all of the lace, of which there was an abundance. To make it witchy (in a good witch sense) I attached tulle to the sleeves and neck, a tacky decorative square thing to the chest, a HUGE butterfly to the collar, silver beads to the waist,  and 12 yards of pink tulle to the skirt. I also added a myriad of sparkly things for added bling. The crown I made of wax paper and tulle (I will make a tutorial for that later as well). Then I just had to snatch up a wand, put an entire thing of blush on my cheeks, and I was ready to party.

This is by far the girliest ensemble I have ever donned. It's especially unlike me if you consider the fact that last year I was an incredibly accurate Captain Jack Sparrow (a costume I will forever take pride in.) Though I must say, I do like the shock factor that comes when one wears 12 yards of pink tulle. Although, I did have to remind people, repeatedly, that I was a witch... not a princess.

I have already disassembled my dress and have a very exciting project in mind for all that tulle. Details will follow.

COSTUMES:

Among the other characters we had were Audrey Hepburn, Effie Trinket (From the Hunger Games), Super Girl, Mr. Clean, John Luke Picard, Captain Jack Sparrow (Borrowing my costume from last year. Although he was much more in character than I was last year!), a Cowboy, a Ninja, Etc. 

GAMES:

One game we played was a party game I have seen on many different websites, under many different names. I'm not sure exactly who came up with it first, but the idea is that everyone is given a silly phrase for the night. The goal is to say your phrase throughout the night in conversation without anyone realizing that you're using your phrase, you also will try to catch others using theirs. It's great fun. You do have to go off of an honor system and have everyone keep a tally of their own score. It's not exactly a game others can score you on as the whole point is to not get caught. I think it works pretty well though, I just made sure to remind them all ahead of time that lying is a sin and that Jesus was watching. 

 Some of the phrases I used were: 

• I could really go for some peanut butter
• I used to be vegan
• Cut the green wire
• I've escaped Alcatraz 
• Like a confused dinosaur 

HERE is the printable PDF page of all the silly phrases I thought up if you want to play this at your own party. It's really a big hit. 

I almost regretted not getting to play this (I knew all the phrases, so it wouldn't exactly be fair) but it really was fun to be able to hear people get away with using them in conversation. 

The other game we played is a trivia/jenga game I created that involved a stacking game like Jenga only with numbers printed on the pieces. HERE is the one I ordered. Each block that was pulled had a new year's themed question according to the number on the block. They aren't easy questions and as everyone was playing I was almost grateful that I already knew the answers and therefore couldn't play. It was a tremendous amount of fun to watch though.

I have written up detailed instructions on how to play and I would definitely recommend this for your next gathering. HERE is a link to the instructions where you can also find a PDF of the questions I used at our party.

And of course I had to dress Lexie up to match

These Chocolate covered Fortune Cookies were the party favors. They were fun to make and such a huge hit! I have a tutorial HERE for how I made them and the tags you can print to make them for Valentine's Day. The image is a link to the tags and sign that you can print at home!

And I'm already eager to plan the our Third Annual! 

Do you have any holiday traditions that excite you? Leave a comment, I would love to hear about them!