Uncategorized

IKEA Scavenger Hunt Birthday Party

January 6, 2011 / 14 Comments




I’m way overdue on this recap of Matt‘s birthday party. Initially, he was going to host a Mexican fiesta in our backyard (with a bouncy house and taco truck), but he decided to pull together a last-minute scavenger hunt at IKEA instead.

Since we had already made way too many trips to IKEA to prepare for the baby’s arrival, we decided to write the scavenger hunt items without taking yet another tour through the store. Here’s what we came up with:

Take a photo of each of the following:
o five people sitting in a one-person chair (5) o a member holding a stack of fifteen pillows (5) o your team helping a person load their car (5) o everyone wearing a different stuffed animal as a hat (5) o the before and after of your team cleaning up a disheveled display area (5) o a kid eating an ice cream cone (10) o everyone on your team wearing fabric as a cape (5) o a member of your team pretending to go to the bathroom in a bathroom display (10) o a member being spun in an office chair (5) o reenact a scene from a common fairy tale w/props (10) o a member tucked into bed (5) o team buying a cinnamon roll for someone in need (10) o three members posing in front of a picture of meatballs erotically (5) o a member decorated like a Christmas tree (10) o team cleaning up trash off the displays or ground (5) o one member riding another member like a horse in front of a red piece of furniture (5) o three team members sitting in a fort you made (10) o critiquing artwork in a display room (5) o a family photo with everyone in the picture (5) o a re-enactment of a married couple getting ready for bed (5) o your team collecting errant shopping carts outside (5) o your team performing a puppet show (10) o two team members pretending to hunt wearing an animal skin (5) o using one of the giant photographs on canvas, play with the angle of the photo to make it appear that one of your team members is in the scene (5) o argue with teammates about where you are in the store in front of one of the maps posted around the store (5) o use the chalkboards to write an inspirational message (5) o bonus: spell Matt’s name with non-letter objects (28) The numbers after each item are different point values.

On the day of the event, almost 30 of us congregated in the restaurant. We broke into teams of 4-5 and then passed out the scavenger hunt forms (which we glued to the back of IKEA maps). We gave everyone 45 minutes to do everything (although, in retrospect, 30 minutes would have been better).

We met back up at the restaurant and crowned the winners with special IKEA buttons.

A good time was had by all!

14 Comments

  • Anonymous

    January 6, 2011 at 6:13 pm Reply

    It sounds like you guys had fun, but as someone who works retail I sure hope you didn't make the lives of IKEA employees difficult that day by creating messes out of their hard work.

  • Kerstin

    January 6, 2011 at 7:26 pm Reply

    I love this idea! Thanks so much for sharing. @Anonymuos: I agree, but if you read closely Sara, as always, is conscious of others and has put in things like cleaning up displays, helping others, and so forth. I'm sure she and all her friends were courteous to everyone as they were enjoying their own adventure.

    Kudos Sara for yet another awesome (and free) fun thing to do!

  • Anonymous

    January 7, 2011 at 2:38 am Reply

    I don't mean to be cynical or anything, but what about taking a picture of a child eating ice-cream? As you guys are both teachers, what about the implications of privacy, angry parents, and possible (to be thrown out, of course) litigation?

    I know I wouldn't want someone taking a picture of my daughter in public without my knowing about it…I'm just surprised that it didn't occur to you guys considering your own careers and your impending birth.

    Anyway, sounds like you had a good time and I agree with the above, Sara and her hubby sound very conscious about not making more work for other people. I have no doubt that they made sure they didn't create any messes.

  • Anonymous

    January 10, 2011 at 9:08 pm Reply

    I was a participant in this and can assure everyone we did not cause any trouble to the IKEA staff or store. If anything, we left it nicer than we found it (examples include straightening up a display and cleaning up trash off the ground). Sara, Matt and their friends are all very conscious and kind people. As for the photo of the kid eating ice cream, our group took one stealthily but I know other groups asked the parent before snapping the shot. And for the record, most of us left the store having bought something we came across during the hunt.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *