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How to Train Your Dragon Party Ideas

How to Train Your Dragon Party Ideas
Need a few How to Train Your Dragon party ideas? I’ve got a few new ones for you today. With the release of the new (and last!) How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World. While the last How to Train Your Dragon party I threw was HUGE, we’re all a few years older now and movie parties are more of a family affair. That doesn’t mean mom doesn’t like to make things special by putting up a few decorations to make the night a little more fun.

If you haven’t heard of the How to Train Your Dragon movies, you’re in for a treat. It’s a heart-warming underdog/man’s best friend sort of story, except man’s best friend happens to be a dragon and the underdog is a brilliant yet misunderstood viking. There is tons of action, amazing animation, well-rounded characters and a catchy musical score.

In this final installment of the movie, the lonely dragon Toothless meets his match with the introduction of a female dragon–the light dragon. The Toothless/light dragon courtship is hilarious and at the end of the movie, there is closure to the series that leaves you feeling satisfied. Our family gives this one a big thumbs up!

DIY How to Train your dragon party decorations

Do you need to make every single thing on this page for party decorations for family night? Definitely no. Pick one (or two) things if you’re settling in for family movie night. Go crazy if you’re throwing a birthday party!

Build a Viking ship

This can be made from a piece of poster board and a few sheets of cardstock–super simple, but looks great! The height of the ship mast makes a great centerpiece for your table. The characters in the How to Train Your Dragon movie spend LOTS of time in viking ships, so this is a party idea that fits right in with the movie. See how to make this DIY Viking Ship centerpiece here!

How to Train Your Dragon Toys as decor

Using purchased toys as decorations is always a good idea. First, you may be able to raid a stash your kids already have. Or, pick up a few on Amazon. When the party is over, your decorations can be reused and the kids while have something to remember the event by when they play. I’ve found over the years that

I’m also a big fan of costumes at parties! (See my Pokemon party – purple hair is so me!) If you don’t have a costume, you can get in the How to Train Your Dragon spirit with a t-shirt or hoodie.

Custom Toothless and Light Dragon Bowls

A few cut outs customized some painted terra cotta pots to make some really darling Toothless and Light Dragon food containers. This project took about 5 minutes to do, but I love the way they look. If you are using terra cotta as a food container, be sure to line the insides with wax paper before you put any food inside. This idea would also be wonderful on small black and white buckets or plastic cups. Check out the How to Train Your Dragon Craft Idea:  Toothless Pot post to get the full tutorial.

DIY Fancy bunting + free printable!

I used these banner buntings in the first party, and they’re still wonderful party decorations at a viking party. They are a free printable, and could also be used in any sort of medieval event. Check out the DIY Fancy Bunting post for the file and tutorial.

When I was setting up my shoot, I was out of brads, so I skipped that part (it’s a great little detail, though!) and used hot glue on the folded strips. Use what works for you when doing easy family movie night decorations. It’s not meant to be difficult.

Dress up your Utensils

Chances are if you are doing snacky type food for movie night, you won’t need forks and knives. On the off chance that you do, though, you can viking them up with a little faux fur or leather and string. It’s always the little details that make people feel special!

How to Train Your Dragon Party Food Ideas

Dragons and vikings give you an awful lot to work with as material for putting together themed party food snacks. You can put out just about anything if you give your viking or dragon party food a fun name.

  • Cookies – viking shields
  • Jelly beans – dragon eggs
  • Crispy corn horns – dragon claws
  • Gummy fish – dragon feed
  • Pretzel rods – ship masts
  • Fish shaped crackers – more dragon food!
  • Popcorn balls – sheep
  • Broccoli – miniature trees

And that is just a start! With a good creative name, you can turn just about anything to something appropriate for your How to Train Your Dragon party theme. We set out a variety of foods this time that were good for movie snacking.

How to make How to Train Your Dragon Popcorn Ball Sheep

One of the really fun How to Train your Dragon party games we played at the last party was a Sheep Toss. I actually sewed every single one of those sheep myself. Yes, I’m a little crazy like that sometimes. Since we’re chilling with the family this time around, I’m definitely not sewing. Those sheep are still my favorites, so I came up with something else to put their sweet little heads on.

How to Train Your Dragon Popcorn Ball Sheep

How to Train Your Dragon Popcorn Ball Sheep

Popcorn ball sheep for How to Train Your Dragon party food! Free printable included.

Materials

Instructions

Make the marshmallow popcorn balls per the recipe below. When you are shaping your popcorn balls, make sure they are about softball size so they are large enough for the sheep heads to look to scale when stuck to the front of the finished balls.

After the popcorn balls are set, place each into a cellophane bag and use a twist tie to seal the top. Cut off the excess bag.

Print the Sheep head to the white cardstock and cut out each head. There are five on each sheet--four white sheep and one black sheep. 

Use a glue dot to stick the sheep head to the front of the popcorn ball. Set out your flock of sheep to delight your How to Train Your Dragon party goers!

Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

Cook Time: 10 minutes
Additional Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Marshmallow popcorn balls that are quick and easy to make and perfect for all sorts of party favors!

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 4 cups miniature marshmallows
  • 12 cups popped popcorn (about 4 bags)
  • Rainbow sprinkles - amount of your choice (optional)

Instructions

Heat a large pot on the stove. Drop in your butter and let it melt all the way.

Add the 4 cups of marshmallows (this is generally about 1 standard sized bag of marshmallows) and stir the marshmallows until they are melted and combined with the butter.

Remove the pot from heat and stir the popcorn into the marshmallow mixture. Be sure to keep as many unpopped kernels out of the mix as possible! Stir in the rainbow sprinkles, however many you want, but It's really hard to put too many in!

Drop large clumps of popcorn onto waxed or parchment paper, allowing the popcorn to cool for a minute or two. Pick up each popcorn clump and roll into a ball. Makes 8 popcorn balls.

Crafty Dragon Party Food – Light Dragon Cake

This is likely an idea better suited to a How to Train Your Dragon birthday party, but if you’re super motivated, get out and bake a cake and turn it into a light dragon cake for family movie night!

PARTY PLANNING PRO TIP: Grocery store cakes are usually great and you can order them in the color of your choice.  For most of my parties, I order a two layer cake in a solid color (no trimming) then decorate the cake with paper printables. Between the time it takes to DIY baking the cake and clean up after and the ingredients, it’s a huge time saver to order ahead to make everything go smoother on party day. 

The other thing that makes this cake a beginner level super easy party hack is that you’re going to print and cut out a few graphics to make the cake. It’s really really difficult to mess this up! A light dragon head, wings and tail get inserted onto the cake with wooden bamboo skewers. That’s it! The cake is decorated a al How to Train Your Dragon and it’ll only take a few minutes to do.

Throw your own How to Train Your Dragon 3 family movie night

Pick a few details to make your family movie night (or party!) all the more fun. 

Paula Biggs

Owner at Frog Prince Paperie
Paula Biggs is a party planner, DIY crafter, and owner of Frog Prince Paperie, where you can find hundreds of party, craft and lifestyle ideas.

Vanessa

Sunday 23rd of July 2023

TOLLE PARTY IDEE - VIELEN DANK ♡♡♡

How to Make a DIY Viking Ship Centerpiece - How to Train Your Dragon Party Ideas - Frog Prince Paperie

Monday 3rd of June 2019

[…] But that’s not to say it’s not out of the realm of possibility. When our family had a How to Train Your Dragon movie night, I took the basic DIY Viking ship idea and made it a doable centerpiece in a few minutes, something […]

TAMMY

Monday 3rd of June 2019

Can you please give details on how to make the ship? Perhaps a template as well? I am loving your ideas!

Paula Biggs

Wednesday 19th of June 2019

THere's instructions in its own post! :)

CW

Friday 31st of May 2019

This is just a great idea. I am hoping to use these next month. I was wondering where the popcorn ball sheep head printable file and the toothless and light dragon bowl printable was located? I could not seem to find it when I looked.

Paula Biggs

Saturday 1st of June 2019

They got themselves unlinked--but they are both updated now. You can find the links in the materials list. Thanks!

How to Train Your Dragon Craft Idea: Toothless Pot - Frog Prince Paperie

Thursday 30th of May 2019

[…] I put together the How to Train Your Dragon party ideas for family movie night, I was willing to do a little work for the evening’s celebration of our favorite vikings and […]

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