Friday, May 20, 2022

Our Jungle Cruise Scavenger Hunt: Video Tour & How To Make Your Own!

Happy Friday, my boop-able bumbersnoots!

Now I know, I know, it seems like this party will NEVER END.

This is it, though, the last big reveal from our Jungle Cruise pun party! And I hope you'll steal some of these ideas, because they're a hoot.

 So, owl you ready to go on the hunt?

John and I spent the last several days making this video, so hopefully you can feel like you're here with the rest of our friends:



(Can you tell I picked the music? :D)

This is a fairly simple scavenger hunt, and most of it you can recreate yourself with only a few props and purchases. So c'mon, lemme walk you through it clue-by-clue, and show you how!


1) My favorite punny prop is definitely the butterfly display. This one is the most subtle, so it's easy to walk by without noticing what's tucked in the flowers:


Just a pretty little floral arrangement on this side, AND THEN:



I made this with a charger plate we already had, some old florals stuck in pink foam, and a plastic cloche cover from Dollar Tree. You can use an existing flower arrangement, though, and just add the butter.

The stick of butter is pink insulation foam that John stacked, painted, and wrapped in a (cleaned) butter wrapper.


 
It's surprisingly satisfying holding a fake stick of butter in your hand, y'all. As my friend Kristi wisely said, "You know someone is friend material if they're impressed with your fake stick of butter."

(I told John we need to make a bunch of these and sneak them into friends' fridges when we visit, for maximum harmless chaos.)

For the final touch I added paper butterfly wings to the stick of butter. Seriously, these magnetic butterflies have neverending uses.



2) The Jungle "paradise" cost $10 from Amazon, come in lots of colors, and have plastic dots that are easy to write on with pencil:


They also come with a suction cup, so you can stick them up to any smooth surface.


3) For Trader Sam's Hair Tonic I made my own label using a vintage ad from The Graphics Fairy and some free clip art and flourishes:


Even if you never do your own scavenger hunt, this is a fun DIY for Disney geeks. Add it to a fancy bottle in your guest bath, and see who notices!

Here's my graphic, so you can print your own. Right-click to embiggen, save to your desktop, and then adjust the size to fit your bottle:



4) The ruler's an easy one, you probably already have a few around the house.



Our full clue was, "This ruler of the jungle really measures up." So if you want to add a red herring, then add a wrong letter on a lion stuffed animal or statue:



This one tripped up a lot of our friends, because of where I put the lion. See how the pillow under him has sheet music on it, like, with measures? Yeah. Oops. That was an unintentional red herring, which only added to my glee as friends shrieked their outrage later.

 
5) Any mushroom will work for the "fun guy" clue. So you could make a plush one like mine (using this handy tutorial):


 
Or you could use a thrifted ceramic one, or heck, even real mushrooms.



6) For the "back side of water," if you don't have a giant fake waterfall like we did, then laminate your letter and stick it inside a sink, under the faucet. That way the letter is behind the water. Boom. The back side of water!

7) The Amazon box should be another easy find. If you don't have one, ask a friend.

8) This is a fun one: for "party time",  add a paper hat to a bottle of thyme:



The sunglasses are from my Dollar Tree sloth bobble head, and John made the can of beer by printing the label and rolling it around a plastic pipe, topped with a piece of metal tape.

Party Thyme was the most popular prop with our guests, and hilariously some people even took selfies with it, but later still fell for the "party time" red herring:


In their defense, John and I do have a lot of clocks around the house.


9) For my "mug shot" John drilled holes in a Dollar Tree cup and stuck a skewer "arrow" through:



We figured if the mug shattered during drilling, then we'd stick the arrow in the broken pieces. Works either way!

For a safer option, though, cut your "arrow" into pieces and hot-glue them so it only looks like they're piercing the mug. Our arrow is a BBQ skewer with a feather on one end, and sandwiched metal tape making a valid point on the end.




10) If you don't have a boat in your dining room, then you can change "leak in the boat" to "leak in the tub" and use your bathtub instead. We used a real leek (though I was tempted to make a fake one) and used zip ties and a command hook to hang our leek in place:



 
11) And finally, to "get something off your chest" you'll need a hinged box, ideally treasure chest-shaped. If you plan to lock prizes inside like we did, and if it doesn't have one already, glue on a hasp like this to make your box lock-able:



You can buy hasps at any hardware store, or this one for about $5 on Amazon. Hot glue is fine; it only needs to be strong enough to support a combination lock.


The last thing you'll need is a word lock, which is super handy if you like making scavenger hunts, puzzles, and/or escape rooms. We use this one:



It costs about $12-15 on Amazon, depending on the color. Totally worth the splurge since you can re-use it with different words for every hunt or puzzle.

And finally, let's talk about THOSE PRIZES:

::scritchy slithering sounds::

You're not going to believe this, but John and I really weren't aiming for nightmare fuel when we made this chest full of Rocktopusses. Honest.

That was just a happy accident.
::evil grin::

Also hard to believe, but the Rocktopus was NOT our idea; it already existed. In fact the Facebook algorithm knows me so well it's been advertising these things to me for months now. We paid an Etsy seller to 3D print a bunch of them for us in gray, then used a "Stone Texture" spray to make them look even more rock-like. (Not to be taken for granite.) And et voila, The Rock Rockin' Rock-topus! 

I wanted them to be holding tiny guitars, but even we have our limits. So they're metaphorically rocking. Or rocking air guitars.

And finally, here's my slightly adjusted list of clues, in case you can use it:
Our final clue was "inspiration", so folks would know to use "falls" to unlock the word lock.  You can change your final clue and word lock, though!

I'll end with a fun reel by my friend Melissa, which I didn't want to share earlier, because spoilers:
That's also a fun recap of the party as a whole. Ahh, good stuff.

Thanks for sticking with me through all these party posts, my friends. Our next big thing is convention season, as John and I are at MegaCon Orlando this weekend and covering ALL THE THINGS. Be sure to watch my Stories on IG or FB to see what we're up to, and keep an eye on the Epbot Youtube channel; we've already uploaded our Thursday recap video!

*****


If you like the silly stuff I do and feature here on Epbot, and want to help fund the fun, you can support me through Paypal! Whether it's a one time tip or a monthly donation, every little bit helps me and John keep pouring our time and hearts into this little corner of the internet - so THANK YOU.

4 comments:

  1. I think it would be fun if you two printed your own label for the butter - where looks just about right but then if you start actually reading or looking at there are puns/inside jokes, etc. Plus maybe you can print it on yellow paper - not sure if that would be easier or harder than coloring the foam.
    Also, if you glue the arrow to mug, it's still usable. And pretty funny! Maybe use a smaller arrow if you go that route.

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  2. Can I just say as someone who struggles with dyscalculia, (way to make me feel unseen there, incorrect SpellCheck;it IS a word!) thank you for posting about the word lock! I had NO idea that such things existed, and they will make life a little easier the next time I need to lock something!

    Cheers, and I hope you guys enjoy the hell outta your Con; I went to a local small one a month ago today, rocked my Klingon drag for the first time in 7 years, saw SO many people I'd missed AND made new pals, too!

    Godspeed, You Magnificent Nerds!

    Storm the Klingon

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  3. I'm going to have to bookmark this. That 'butterfly' still makes me chuckle. I thought it was a real stick of butter and I was wondering how it was not melting!

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  4. This is amazing! So. Many. Puns. You are a source of inspiration. I visit your site often when I need a jumpstart on any idea. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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