Not only is my daughter obsessed with the movie and the songs and the characters, but you could catch our whole family singing and dancing to the tunes this past year. We’ve been completely fascinated by Ejae’s journey, the KPOP music industry and can’t get enough of our new favorite music genre.

Of course my daughter dressed up like Rumi, purple hair and all, for Halloween in October and I had complete blast planning her KPOP Demon Hunters themed birthday party the next month. Here’s a quick rundown of all the activities, food and decor that helped us celebrate and keep as true to the theme as possible.

Activities

Demon Scavenger Hunt: The idea here is that demons are hidden around the party and kids have to go find them and slay them. If they “slay” them (by shining their blacklight flashlight on them), it will reveal a hidden number. That hidden number can be written underneath that demon on the above Scavenger Hunt sheet. Once they find all the demons and all the hidden numbers, they add up each row and put the sum after the equal sign. The 3 sums would be a 3 digit code that will unlock the treasure box. We had 3 different prizes to accommodate people showing up at different times through the party so after the first kid unlocked the box, I put another prize in it for next person.

All the things we used:
1) Scavenger Hunt Sheet
2) Demons Sheet (cut and write numbers on it in invisible ink)
3) Invisible Ink Pen
4) UV/Blacklight Flashlights (Bulk)
5) Treasure Box

Gwi-Ma Pinata: There’s nothing better than seeing your little demon hunters slay the ultimate villain in Gwi-Ma. A pinata plus some invisible ink paint for the eyes and mouth can really make them feel like Huntrx with the pole in their hands. Add some black light disco balls and it truly becomes a demon slaying experience. While there are many many ways you can DIY your pinata, I did not have time so we asked our local pinata crafter to make a flame shaped pinata in purple and pink (like Gwi-Ma) and painted eyes and a mouth on with the invisible ink.

All the things we used:
1) Pinata in purple/pink + Candy
2) Invisible Ink Paint
3) Black light Disco Ball – 4pk

Rumi’s Pattern Station: Kids absolutely loved drawing on themselves and the combination of glow in the dark make up, invisible ink makeup and the blacklights everywhere were so fun! We basically set up a table with a mirror on it and all the different make up sticks, temporary tattoos, wet sponge and let them have it for as long as they want. All of it came off with soap and water and/or makeup remover wipes.

All the things we used:
1) Invisible Ink Eyeliner pen
2) Mehran Clear Shimmer eyeshadow
3) Moonglow UV Body Crayon
4) UV Neon Liquid Eyeliner Set
5) Temporary Tattoos
6) Rumi’s Pattern Station 8×11 Printable
7) Rumi’s Pattern Station 8×11 Printable v2

Photo Station & Dance Floor: After getting into demon slaying mode through make up and demon hunting, the kids also loved dancing with Rumi and taking all the fun pictures.

All the things we used:
1) Glow in the Dark Painters tape to mark out the dance floor – it glowed under the black light disco balls
– Pink
– Purple
– Yellow
2) Photo Backdrops

KPOP Cake Pops: Part activity and part snack. We bought plain cake pops from a local baker and kids got to dunk it in frosting, write on it with icing and sprinkle on some shimmer to make their own fun cake pops. Also, saying KPOP Cake Pops is fun.

All the things we used:
1) Plain cake pops from a local baker
2) Mini Fondue Set
3) White Chocolate
4) Icing
5) Sprinkles and Edible Glitter
6) KPOP Cake Pops Station 8×11 Printable
7) Cake Pop Stand

Pin the Sussy on Derpy: It’s not a birthday party without a version of pin the tail on the donkey. Derpy is so cute and the big poster added to the decor as well as make a good backdrop for the game. The poster has a very light version of sussy on top of Derpy’s head to show you where Sussy is supposed to go. Blind fold the kids, turn them around 3 times and let them try to get Sussy on top of Derpy’s head like they see in the movie.

All the things we used:
1) Derpy Poster (24×36) – I’ve always found the best price at Walgreens for these poster prints (use coupon codes!)
2) 30 Sussies to print and cut – we used tape as the way to attach the sussy to the derpy
3) Pins – the rec room we used only allowed things to be pinned to the walls and not tape so we used these to pin the poster

Food/Snacks

We are fortunate to have so many global food options really close by to us – Indian, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, Mexican, Peruvian – you name it, there’s probably at least one if not multiple authentic restaurants and/or grocery stores within a 10 mile radius to us. It was super easy for me to find Kimbap, hotteok, ramyeon and other foods you see in the movie. I went through the movie, almost clip by clip (there’s a reddit thread out there that makes this easy to do), to find all the pictures of food, used the google to find as much information I could and went to 99 ranch and H Mart to see what I could find. Here’s a list of what I was able to find and some posters I made to display it.

Links:.
1) Hotteok: HMart or Amazon
2) Kimbap: Gangnam Kimbob
3) Ramyeon: We put the Nongshim KPOP Demon Hunter themed package in the goodie bags and used Cup of Noodles with these labels from Etsy on the tables to use. We also used this kettle for the hot water to make the cup of noodles
4) Popcorn: you can use any but we got popcorn buckets from Dollar Tree and this popcorn
5) Dr. Han’s Tonic: Capri Suns and Etsy labels (same bundle as Ramyeon)
6) Soda Pop: 12oz soda cans and Etsy labels (same bundle)
7) All the Posters – I printed these all at Walgreens with coupons, 24×36
– Hotteok/Kimbap/Ramyeon Scene
– how to make Ramyeon
– Popcorn Scene
– Dr. Han’s Tonic
– My little Soda Pop

Decorations and other stuff

The food and activities really made the party but here are a few other things we made and/or bought to add to the theme.

3ft foam Cutouts or Standees: I found high definition pictures online, used Canva to remove backgrounds/isolate the characters and enlarged them to fit on a 24×36 poster print. Printed them at Walgreens (with their discount codes/coupons!) for same day pickup. Took them home and cut them all out (not the best cutter so in retrospect, I should have put a black border around them and used that as a cutting line so all the characters could have a nice white border around them). I bought an 8ft insulation board from Lowes and glued them all on there with regular glue. Then I used a hot knife to cut the foam around the print. Most of them stood on their own because the foam was 1.5 inches thick but I also used a paper towel holder to make them stand up and make them a little taller. I would have used a different picture for Mira because the thinness of her sword made her very fragile and she broke in the spot and I had to tape her back together in transit to the party room. They ended up being about $10-$15 each.

Goodie Bags: The goodie bags had the Nongshim Kpop Demon Hunters themed Noodle packs, themed water bottles I got from this seller on FB Marketplace and stickers. There’s a ton of stuff on Amazon now that would be cool goodie bag stuffers like these stamps, coloring books, and bracelets.

Printouts as Centerpieces: Loved these images from the movie so I put a little Canva magic on them, printed as a 8.5×11, and put them in dollar store frames as centerpieces to the tables in the large room.

1) Happy Fans Happy Honmoon
2) Rumi
3) Zoey
4) Mira

Cake Area: We had a little stage area in the rec room that we rented so we used that as the cake area (and the area for our Rumi character to perform).

Here are the decorations we used for that area:
1) Black Sequin Tablecloth
2) HUNTRX backdrop (it’s actually a blanket)
3) Balloons, cupcake toppers, banner

Final Thoughts

The party was a blast and it felt like we got kicked out of the room too soon lol. We hired “Rumi” and the entertainment company offered “Jinu” availability as well and I thought he would be a great add since we had a lot of boys from the class in the party. In hindsight, Jinu as a demon, amongst all these demon slayers was not a great idea (also it happened to be Jinu’s first birthday event). But as characters, they were amazing – they sang songs, they taught all the kids the dance to golden which they then performed, they played games with the kids, helped with the makeup/pattern station, sang happy birthday, etc. They were awesome.

Here’s some additional details if it’s helpful for anyone reading this that is local to us:
1) Location: Washington Room at Liberty Park in Cerritos – Cerritos Residents pay $60/hour to rent
2) Rumi & Jinu Characters – Wishes Party Entertainment
3) Pinata Vendor – Jocely’s Pinata’s and More
4) Kimbap: Gangnam Kimbob