Board Game Theme Party: Life-size Candyland

This is the second post for my son's Board Game Theme party.  I totally blame this idea on Pinterest.  See I saw the "pin" of someone creating giant lollipops and repinned it for a future date.  Well it stuck with me and I decided to run with it.  So I created a life-size version of the game Candyland in my basement.  

I taped down sheets of construction paper to create the Candyland path and included all of the special spots, Rainbow Trail, and Gumdrop Path.  Then I tried to decorate each of the different areas of Candyland.  

I created the Gingerbread Tree from a roll of kraft paper and crumpled green tissue paper.  I used the tree on the actual game for reference.  I don't usually think I am good at drawing, but I was pretty pleased how well my tree turned out.  

My parents actually had light-up candy canes for outdoor Christmas decorations, so we borrowed those and stuck them in pots filled with dirt to make the Peppermint Forest.  They were in a perfect spot in the basement because they lit up a darker area.

For the Gumdrop Mountains, I used pots again to create my gumdrops.  I covered them with kraft paper, painted them (my kids helped), and then added a "sugar" sprinkle.  The "sugar" sprinkle was made by taking two styrofoam balls and rubbing them together.  Rubbing the balls together pretty much disintegrates the balls into tiny styrofoam flakes.  So I sprayed the gumdrops with a spray adhesive and then sprinkle the styrofoam flakes over them.  

The lollipops for the Lollipop Woods were created using a rolled up white poster board for the "stick", a balloon, and clear cellophane.  Like I said this was taken from an idea I saw on Pinterest.  We had difficulty getting them to stand up, so we weighted the bottoms with a bag full of pebbles (or sand) and then taping them to the floor.  It worked pretty well!

The peanuts in Peanut Acres on the other hand were a little shaky, but they got the point across.  I taped two balloons together and then wrapped them with crinkled kraft paper. 

The chocolate bars in the Chocolate Swamp were just boxes covered in kraft paper (this stuff can be found at dollar stores!) and painted to look like a chocolate bar.  Then for the finale, I had my Mom whom actually is an artist paint a castle on a large sheet of paper to be our Candy Castle.   

When the kids actually played the game, I ran around and gave them a card from the actual Candyland game so they could move spaces.  The kids had a blast and kept wanting to play it!  The hardest part was knowing by the end of the party that the whole thing would most likely be destroyed...and it was.  We let them go play it while kids finished eating and while waiting for parents to come...yup that was the end of it.  I was kind of sad simply because I wanted to play it too!  

Thanks f0r checking out my kind of engineering!