Party Planning Mom

Apple of My Eye - Back To School Treats

2011-08-22T12:30:00.000-04:00

It is that time of year again - the time that has kids groaning and parents cheering! It is Back To School time! Here are some fun apple treats that look tasty & easy to make.

Gourmet Mom on the Go created these clever rice krispie treats:

These adorable apple cupcakes have a donut surprise:

Watch out for the worm in this apple:

Love these jelly bean filled apples:

Happy Back To School Week!

Bollywood Cookies & Milk Adoption Shower

2011-06-09T17:48:00.000-04:00

Recently we hosted a baby shower for a dear friend. Since the baby was adopted from India, we thought it would be fun to incorporate a Bollywood theme, full of bright & cheerful colors. To make it even more fun, we had a menu of cookies and milk.

Gold elephants flanked each side of the dessert buffet and were spruced up with little blankets.

A Wishing Well greeted guests as they arrived and the table provided a spot to place gifts. Glass vases filled with Cookie Crisp cereal (ties in with cookie theme) and daisies were scattered throughout the party.

The table centerpiece was created with painted branches, tissue pom poms and butterflies.

Guests were able to write a message to the family on colorful elephant and monkey die-cuts and then hang the message on the tree.

Beverages included coffee and three flavors of milk: white, chocolate and caramel.

The cookie buffet consisted of lots of yummy cookies displayed on pedestals and in varying sized jars tied with ribbon.

It was a lovely afternoon to welcome a new baby to the family!

2010 Christmas Cookie Exchange

2011-01-14T11:50:00.006-05:00

Last week I shared the Save the Date invitations for my annual Christmas Cookie Exchange. Here are some pictures from the party (please ignore the hideous wallpaper, we are in a rental property while our new house is being built!).

I used white tablecloths on the tables with wrapping paper runners for the center (Target Dollar Spot roll wrapping paper is just the right width & price).

The savory buffet included sweet & sour meatballs, mini pigs in a blanket, pepperoni dip with bagel chips, holiday tortilla chips with hot queso dip and vegetable tray with ranch dressing. The dessert buffet included peppermint chocolate cupcakes, Oreo cheesecakes, mini eclairs, dipped Milano cookies, Rice Krispie Treats and Rolo pretzel turtles.

The beverage station. I also had a Hot Cocoa Bar set up (oops, no pictures).

The Bakers:

Mmmm...cookies! Bakers were asked to bring 1 package of 6 cookies for each guest with attached recipe card.

Creative packaging:

Most Creative Packaging winner:

Most Festive Cookie winner:

Favors were mini containers filled with chocolate and jingle bell rings. Tutorial for container here.

I am so excited to have 2011's Cookie Exchange at our new house!

Save The Date ~ Annual Cookie Exchange

2010-12-04T16:12:00.004-05:00

For the past few years, I have hosted a Christmas Cookie Exchange for my friends and family. Even though the party is always on the 2nd Sunday of December, I still like to send out Save the Date invitations in late October.

The holidays can get so jam-packed with parties, decorating and shopping that I always look forward to a laid back afternoon with cookies and my girlfriends!

This year the Save the Date was a recipe card with a mini Christmas cookie cutter attached. I purchased the Wilton cookie cutters on clearance after Christmas last year 6 for 80¢. A magnet strip on the back makes it perfect to hang on the fridge. The recipe card reads:

Recipe for: Save the Date for a Cookie Exchange
From the Kitchen of: Brenda

Ingredients:
1 Calendar and pen
1 Refrigerator
3 tsp Holiday Excitement
5 cups Christmas Cheer
20 Great Friends
Lots of Cookie Recipes

Recipe Instructions:
1. Take pen and mark calendar for the 3rd annual Holiday Cookie Exchange on Sunday. December 12th at 2pm
2. Place this recipe card on your refrigerator as a reminder.
3. Stir together Christmas Cheer and Great Friends until Holiday Excitement bubbles to the top.
4. Search for the perfect cookie recipe and creative packaging.
5. Check email November 30th for Evite with party details.

Ice Cream Inspiration

2010-06-08T21:24:00.003-04:00

Aren't these ice cream bowls and spoons awesome?? We used these for my daughter's Daisy Girl Scout Ice Cream Social. The best part....they are from Dollar Tree and come 3 bowls & 3 bowls to a package for ONLY $1.oo!

Just think of all the fun parties you could use these adorable spoons and bowls for. They are even perfect just to use for your own bowl of creamy goodness after the kiddos are in bed!

Bingo Inspiration

2010-04-25T06:32:00.005-04:00

How fun would these be at the Old Fogey Potluck Bingo? A paper & plastic place setting becomes more dynamic with just a few print-outs from your computer.

These little treats are doughnut holes dipped in white chocolate with piped on letters and numbers.

See more Bingo party inspiration in the May 2010 edition of Parents Magazine.

Old Fogey Potluck Bingo

2010-04-20T09:11:00.003-04:00

Inspired by this Real Party: Bingo Night Birthday over at Birthday Girl, ~~my husband &~~ I thought it would be fun to throw an Old Fogey Potluck Bingo party (seriously, do any of our husbands ever really want us to throw a party??). It is a great opportunity for my girlfriends' husbands to finally all meet and hang out. Since getting a sitter isn't always easy (or cheap), we've made it a kids optional event.

I have to say, hunting down geriatric party decorations is WAY more fun than I thought it would be! I am so looking forward to putting plastic on the sofas, doilies on everything, and lots of decorative afghans all around!

To keep the budget down, I sent invitations using Evite. I love the instant gratification of knowing who has looked at their invitation and who is able to attend. Another way of keeping costs down was to make this a Potluck Dinner. I plan on having a homemade pot of chili in the crockpot and providing basic drinks, but we've asked guests to bring a dish or dessert to share and to BYOB (the adult kind).

Guests have been asked to come dressed as their favorite senior citizen - I can't wait to hit up the local thrift stores for my "Thelma Harper" outfit! Bingo prizes will include denture cream, corn cushions and prune juice! I am so excited for what is sure to be a fun & memorable party!

Celebration Inspiration Party

2010-04-07T07:50:00.004-04:00

It's Party Time! Join Stephanie Lynn over at Under the Table & Dreaming for a Celebration Inspiration Party. Stop by for some great party ideas submitted by fellow bloggers and readers like you!

Spring Into Brunch House Party

2010-03-31T08:14:00.007-04:00

My Spring Into Brunch House Party was a hit! Sponsored by Velveeta & Maxwell House coffee, the party included great coffee and yummy food.

Sponsor food recipes
Velveeta Cheesy Bacon Hash Brown Bake

Maxwell House Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Velveeta Peanut Butter Cheese Fudge & Chocolate Cheese Fudge

Decorations were kept simple and budget-friendly with Spring paper goods from Dollar Tree.

I set out crayons and an Easter coloring book to occupy the kids during breakfast.

Party Girls!

An easy spring craft we did after breakfast.

Favors for the kids were Wilton disposable icing bags filled with cheese crackers & tied with green ribbons - looks like carrots! I found this cute idea somewhere online, but I lost the link, so thank you to the creative gal that came up with this!

Adult favors were Easter tin buckets from Dollar Tree, a can of Maxwell House coffee and Velveeta spatula, recipes and coupons.We all had a fun time just hanging out and eating yummy food!

Pink & Brown Baby Shower

2010-03-21T18:35:00.008-04:00

Recently I had the pleasure of co-hosting a baby shower for my friend Tamara. Since the baby is a girl, we chose a pink and brown color scheme.

The invitation:
The day of the shower brought lovely weather and we were able to have the party on one of the host's lanai. Since the buffet was so pretty and the outdoors were all around, we kept decorations to a minimum.

One the wall of the lanai we strung a pink clothesline held by 2 sequined butterflies. On the clothesline we used pink clothespins to hang an assortment of baby outfits, which were later given to the mother-to-be as a gift (forgot to take picture).

The buffet table was divided into savory foods, beverages & the candy and dessert buffet.
The savory menu included cheese & crackers, vegetables and dip, fruit and dip and chips & salsa.

In keeping with the color scheme, all of the candy and desserts were picked in pink or brown.

Here is pink cotton candy in customized cups. I pleated and glued pink crepe streamers to Wilton nut cups. Around the middle I glued a strip of scrapbook paper. The tags are brown cardstock circles with Martha Stewart "It's A Girl" transfers.

Hershey Bars wrapped in scrapbook paper:

An assortment of yummy candy:

These little favor boxes were used for guests to hold candy. They were purchased plain 12/$1 at Dollar Tree. They are decorated with ribbons and plastic baby carriages charms.

The water bottles were decorated with scrapbook paper, ribbon and plastic pacifier charms.

One of my favorite drinks is Sonic's Diet Cherry Limeade. I tried to recreate this with Sprite Zero, maraschino cherry flavoring (found in ice cream topping aisle of the grocery store), lime juice and lime slices for color. We also had a yummy punch made with Sprite, pineapple juice and pink sherbet.

Chinet cups were rimmed with lime juice and pink sanding sugar.

We played 3 games at the shower. One was the traditional "How Big is Mother's Belly." A second game played was "The Price Is Right."

Guests had to guess the price of 8 baby items. The guest with the most correct won a prize and all of the baby items were given to the Mother-To-Be.

The third game was "Bun In The Oven." I made felt dresses with a small slit cut into the back which allowed a cotton ball to be inserted into the dress (looks like a baby bump!). Guests were asked to take one dress. When everyone had a dress, they pulled out the cotton ball looking for the "bun" (made from my daughter's playdough and painted with white icing and glitter). The person who found the bun won a prize.

These favors were these little paper Mary Janes (find pattern here) filled with Dove chocolate eggs. The extra shoes were filled with raffia grass and flowers and used as decorations on the buffet table.

Here is the Mother-To-Be opening her gifts:

It was a wonderful shower spent with good friends!

Spring Topiary

2010-03-17T16:21:00.003-04:00

I stumbled upon these little beauties while surfing the web today. I want to incorporate a craft into the Mom's Spring Into Brunch House Party I am hosting next week and these are going to be just perfect!
You can find complete instructions over at Stitched Together With Love. They seem pretty easy to make and the estimated cost for each is under $1.50! Cute AND budget-friendly...LOVE IT!

Ready to House Party!

2010-03-12T19:37:00.002-05:00

I'm so excited! The party pack for my Spring Into Brunch House Party came today! Some of my mom friends thought it would be fun to start a monthly Moms Breakfast Club. We plan on rotating house and getting together for some good food and conversation.

My awesome party pack includes:

1 package of Velveeta
16 free Maxwell House coffee coupons for me & my guests
16 Velveeta coupons for me & my guests
1 Velveeta oven mitt (will make a great door prize)
16 Velveeta spatulas & recipe cards (perfect party favors)
Napkins & coffee cups

I've been searching the Internet for yummy Velveeta and Maxwell House recipes for a delicious brunch!

Movie Party ~ Decorations & Party Time!

2010-03-08T11:07:00.007-05:00

For my son's 10th birthday, we had a movie party. To keep costs down, the party was held at our house, the decorations were kept simple and I used lots of coupons to buy the food and goodies.

The front door was decorated with C7 Christmas lights to resemble a movie theater and a sign I made using 1/2 a foam board from Dollar Tree, scrap cardstock, paint & ribbon from my craft stash & the Cricut die-cut machine. The only cost was $1.07 for the foam board.
I painted a scalloped border with red craft paint and used Cricut cartridge Cuttin' Up for lettering and Mickey & Friends for the filmstrips.

Borrowed camp chairs made for the perfect theater seating - they were comfy, portable & each had their own cup holder.

My son cut a plastic tablecloth in half and hung it on either side of the TV to look like a theater.

The kitchen table became the theater's concession stand.

The other half of the foam board was used for the concession sign (Cricut Cuttin' Up cartridge lettering). The kids had a ball ordering all of the different foods.

The local GFS Supermarket has tons of empty boxes they let you take. Nathan & I found the right shaped boxes for the Popcorn Concession and Candy Counter.

I used a utility knife to cut "windows" from the four sides. Here is the Popcorn Concession box before:

I spray painted the box grey, taped clear cellophane to the cut-outs, leaving the back window open. I glued extra popcorn bags (from Michael's) to the front, added lettering and striped paper to the bottom. The plastic popcorn containers were 2/$1 from Dollar Tree.

The candy concession stand was made the same way as the popcorn, but I hot glued a cardboard shelf to the middle of the box.

The candy box was spray painted a glossy black and placed on an empty box wrapped in extra black tablecloth. The clear cellophane gave the appearance of glass and kept the boys from grabbing the candy. The only cost for the boxes was $1.07 for a roll of clear cellophane at Dollar Tree and $2.14 for 2 cans of spray paint from WalMart.

More party treats were placed on the desk in the kitchen. To get that fresh popped tasty popcorn, I purchased a few bags from the Publix deli.

Instead of cake, I served popcorn cupcakes. These were the hit of the party and so easy to make. The popcorn is actually mini marshmallows with the tops cut into an "X" with kitchen scissors. The frosting holds the marshmallows in place. A little Wilton yellow color spray gives the look of butter.

The holders are Wilton large nut cups colored with a red Sharpie and a popcorn label cut from extra popcorn bags.The food was served in shirt-sized gift boxes. The boxes became lap trays for the kids to hold their food.

The happy movie watchers.

There wasn't much fancy about this party, but the kids had a great time! You can see the Movie Party invitations here and the favors here.

Dr. Seuss Hats

2010-03-02T05:53:00.006-05:00

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday, I made some Cat in the Hat-style hats for my daughter's kindergarten class.

Materials Needed:

red poster board
white poster board
2 x 9" white paper plates
scissors, stapler, glue gun

Cut red poster board in half, set aside. Put 2 plates together, fold in half & cut out center along "bumpy" edge leaving just a "bumpy" brim.

2. Separate plates. Roll 1/2 sheet red poster board into a cylinder & place cylinder through center of 1 plate. Let cylinder expand to fit the center of the plate and staple poster board at top and bottom. Cut several slits at bottom of poster board, fold slits upward and glue to the bottom of the paper plate. Glue the 2nd paper plate to the underside of the 1st plate to hide the slits (this will give you a white brim on top & bottom).

Here is the hat before stripes are added:

3. Cut 2 x 2" strips from the white poster board & glue to red poster board.

In just a few minutes you have a fun Cat in the Hat - hat!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Movie Party ~ Favors

2010-02-23T06:21:00.001-05:00

Inspired by these plastic popcorn boxes found in Michaels' dollar section, the theme colors of Nathan's movie party became black, red & gold. The popcorn boxes were the perfect container for guest favors.
Once filled, I wrapped each container with clear cellophane and tied them with black, red & gold curling ribbon (also from Michaels). It is hard to see, but each little package is personalized with a gold star & the guest's name.

Inside the popcorn box was red shredded paper filler, bubble gum (left over from invitations), a full size Hershey bar, mini microwave movie butter popcorn, Mike & Ike's theater box candy, Admit One coaster (package of 8/$1 from Michaels), homemade chocolate star pop & dino Silly Bandz (for the movie theme Land of the Lost).

I'm not sure about your kids, but mine are CRAZY for Silly Bandz! I thought the dino bands would be perfect for the movie theme and purchased two packages of 24. I separated the bands into groups of six and created individual cello bags for each of the sets.

The cello bags are Wilton lollipop bags. I used 2 different colors of cardstock, a star punch & gold staples to create the header. With a silver glitter pen I wrote, "Thanks for a REEL fun time!" across the header.

The favors looked impressive, but with some coupon shopping, cost very little to make!

Movie Party ~ Invitations

2010-02-21T18:56:00.005-05:00

For Nathan's 10th birthday we decided to have a movie party with just a few friends. Since he is turning 10, it was a fine line between cool and too childish. I think these invitations fit the bill of a tween party!

The little black take-out boxes were purchased at Michaels. The outside was embellished with some scrapbook ribbon and a gold personalized star cut with my Cricut (George and Basic Shapes cartridge). My son hand-delivered all of the invitations.
Inside the mini box was a few little goodies:

I found the plastic clapboard picture frame key chains on clearance at Michael's for 33¢ each and used these for the information part of the invitation.

The front reads,

Admit One

Double Digit / Double Feature

Nathan is turning 10!

The back reads,

Date: Friday, February 19th

Showtime: 6 -9 pm

Theater: our address

RSVP: our phone number

*Complimentary concession stand will be

open for pizza & snacks

Included was a show schedule with the 1st Showing of 1974 TV's Land of the Lost followed by the Feature Presentation of the movie Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell. Also included was some bubble gum and a little plastic dinosaur (representing Land of the Lost!).

My son was thrilled with the invitations - he thought they were "really awesome" and "not at all babyish"!

Fairy Party ~ Welcome to Emma's Pixie Hollow!

2010-02-16T15:13:00.008-05:00

After days of rain, the day of the party brought cloudy skies, slightly chilly weather and a super muddy backyard. The party that was supposed to be outdoors was brought inside. Seventeen excited fairies and some of their parents made for quite a cramped, yet cozy party.

As each guest arrived, they were asked to pick a Tinkerbell foam puzzle piece out of a bag. I found the foam puzzles at Dollar Tree and was able to color-coordinate the pieces to match the fairy tutus & wings. This made it easy to split the girls into 3 different groups for crafts.

A blue puzzle piece meant your talent was a Water Fairy with a blue ensemble, a pink puzzle piece meant your talent was a Garden Fairy with a pink ensemble and purple meant your talent was Fast-Flying.

After the girls were dressed, they were taken to the "Pretty Pixie Salon." Here the grandmothers did nails, light glittery make-up, press-on earrings & glittery hair spray. Each girl also received a fairy crown. The crowns were easy to make with decorative wire garland from Dollar Tree formed into a crown and lots of curling ribbon tied to the back.
Once the girls were made-up, they had their pictures taken in the "Fairy Forest." We included a picture of each girl with the thank you notes.

While waiting to visit the Pretty Pixie Salon or after the photo, they decorated colorful handle bags with pictures of Tinkerbell, crayons, markers & stickers. The girls used the bags throughout the party to collect their crafts and treasures.

To be official fairies, everyone had to recite the Fairy Pledge and spin 3 times while saying "I believe in fairies!"

Each fairy received a magical flower fairy wand. The wands were made with wooden dowels from the Walmart craft section painted gold. I hot glued ribbon, tulle, a flower and jingle bell to the top of the dowel.

Following the Fairy Ceremony, the fairies were divided into 3 groups according to their talent (and color wings!). Since my daughter absolutely loves do do crafts, I created 3 different craft stations for groups rotate through.

Station #1 - Make Pixie Dust

Each fairy was given a plastic container to mix her very own pixie dust. The lidded containers were purchased 6/$1 at Dollar Tree and I hot glued a flower and leaf to the lid for decoration. The Pixie Dust ingredients included colored sand, iridescent glitter and special Tinkerbell confetti found only at the Disney theme parks.

Since this station didn't take very long, the girls listened to a Tinkerbell story until it was time to rotate.

Station #2 - Fairy Gardens

Before the party I glued small bamboo skewers into the bottom of unpainted wooden drawer knobs (from craft store). The knobs were painted red with white polka dots to resemble mushrooms and the lids of the baby food jars were also painted red. Directions for the mini terrariums can be found here.

Station #3 - Fairy Dolls

At this craft stop the girls assembled fairy dolls from clothespins. Instead of using wax paper wings, we used tie-dyed small coffee filters (color coffee filters with markers, lightly spray with water & let dry). All of the components were cut & painted prior to the party, so the girls just had to put them together.

After crafts, it was time for a Fairy Picnic. The menu consisted of Fairy Juice (Sprite mixed with a little maraschino cherry syrup) and Fairy Salad (a last-minute mix of mini goldfish crackers, mini colored marshmallows and Tinkerbell fruit snacks). Believe it or not, the Fairy Salad was a huge hit!

Following snacks we sang "Happy Birthday" and gave out cake & ice cream. Instead of 1 large cake, I made small individual flower cakes for each guest. Each little cake had a Tinkerbell topper (made by Wilton & purchased at Michaels) and sat on a plastic plate (Dollar Tree) that I had hot glued silk flower petals to the bottom.

The last activity for the party was "Tinkerbell's Treasure Hunt." The girls were each given a list of items to find in the backyard. The items included 7 colored Easter eggs, a bottle of fairy kisses (miniature bottle of bubbles from Dollar Tree wedding section with a fairy sticker & bow) and a magical bird (feather bird from craft store).

The treasures inside the eggs included tiny glittered sea shells, plastic bird eggs, colorful feathers, Tinkerbell candy, Tinkerbell stickers, a blue moonstone (glass decorative pebble) and butterfly hair clips.

Each fairy left with her wings, tutu, crown, wand, crafts and treasures. Emma also handed out star lollipops that I made from pink candy melts and colorful sprinkles.

Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time! Most importantly, my daughter said it was her favorite party ever!

See more Fairy Party posts - invitations and decorations.

Fairy Party ~ Decorations

2010-02-11T15:16:00.004-05:00

Emma celebrated her 6th birthday with a fairy party. Here is Emma posing at the front door:
The tissue flowers lining the walkway are from Oriental Trading Company. The garland framing the door was easy to make with tulle, pink lights & decorations from Dollar Tree. All of the signs were made using the Cricut Tinkerbell cartridge.
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Wings and tutus all lined up and waiting for the fairies to arrive. The outfits were ordered from Halo Heaven - great quality & customer service with low prices.
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Martha pompoms and tissue flowers from OTC hung from the ceiling. The table was set up for the girls to decorate handle bags.

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The Pixie Dust station where the girls could mix up their very own fairy dust. The pixie dust ingredients were colored sand, Tinkerbell glitter and iridescent crystal glitter. The little plastic containers were from Dollar Tree (6/$1) and I hot glued a flower to the lid.

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The Fairy Garden station where the girls made little terrariums using recycled baby food jars. Get instructions here.

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Slider doors decorated with paper butterflies and a custom banner.
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More Martha pompoms.
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Glittery Tinkerbell tied to children's folding chairs (rented from local party supplier).
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The pictures just don't do justice to the centerpieces my mom made - they were so glittery & sparkly!

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To keep things fairy-sized, each place setting had a small petal placemat and mini tea set from Home Goods. I had tasting spoons, but they just weren't practical for the girls to eat with, so I opted for the regular-sized party spoons.

More fairy party pictures tomorrow!

Fairy Party ~ Invitations

2010-01-10T06:23:00.006-05:00

I really wanted the invitations to Emma's Fairy Party to be fun and whimsical. When I saw Whimsy Love's Tiny Party envelopes, I was completely inspired!

Since the smallest envelope would determine the size of the invitation, as well as the sizes of the larger envelopes, my first step was to find tiny envelopes. I lucked out in the Martha Stewart craft aisle at Michaels.
The smallest envelopes measure approximately 2 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches and are just too cute! To get the size just right, I made the rest of envelopes using clearanced scrapbook paper from Michaels and the Cricut Plantin School Book cartridge. I alternated plain & patterned cardstock and increased each envelope size by 1 inch.

From there, I created a tiny invitation in Word by printing in the smallest font size possible (font is A770-Roman) and printed directly on my cardstock.

I cut out the invitations & stamped a flower background using white pearlized ink. The purple scallop is cut using the Cricut A Child's Year cartridge and the Tink silhouette was punched from white glitter paper (punch purchased at Walt Disney World). The corners of the invitations were punched with a corner rounder & lightly inked in purple.

Since everyone knows just how tiny fairies write, I included plastic magnifying glasses tied with ribbon in each invitation. The magnifying glasses were found in the party section of Dollar Tree.

The invitation reads:

Please join us in Pixie Hollow

For a Fairy Celebration

In honor of Emma's 6th Birthday!

Saturday, October 17th

2 o'clock in the afternoon

(address)

Tinkerbell awaits your reply: (phone number)

Wear your fairy best, a leotard will do.

Your fairy wings & tutus will be given to you!

Each invitation was sealed with a Tinkerbell sticker and hand-delivered. I had so many mothers tell me how much the girls giggled as they opened one envelope only to find a smaller envelope inside - just the reaction I hoped for!

Snowman Party Treats

2009-12-05T04:39:00.004-05:00

The winter holiday season is finally here & I wanted to share an easy treat. The kids & I made these marshallow snowmen for a Christmas party we attended last week. They were a hit with everyone and the kids had so much fun making them.
Take a long lollipop stick (found in baking section of most craft stores) and stack 3 regular-sized marshmallows. Dip the marshmallows on the stick into melted white candy melts, white chocolate chips or almond bark (also found at craft stores, Walmart & Target) until fully coated. Allow excess chocolate to drip off - I found it easiest to gently twirl the stick above the bowl for a few seconds. Place on wax paper and decorate.

As far as decorating, anything goes! We made the top hats with mini peppermint patties and a Rolo candy "glued" with a little melted chocolate. You could also use a miniature Reeses cup, but we needed to keep this dessert peanut-free due to allergies.

We used mini chocolate chips for eyes, a fruit roll-up for the scarf, pretzel sticks for arms & assorted decorating sprinkles for the nose & buttons.

If your snowman hardens before you have a chance to decorate him, just adhere your decorations with a bit of the melted chocolate.

A super easy, fun & cute holiday treat that the whole family can enjoy!

Fairy Party ~ Placemats

2009-09-28T08:22:00.009-04:00

My Mom & I have been working like mad trying to get everything done for Emma's Fairy Birthday Party. Even though the party isn't for a few more weeks, I have so much going on in October that I really just wanted to at least have the fairy party prep complete.

I absolutely fell in love with these artificial grass & flower placemats from Butterfly Craze. The $6.99 price tag? I didn't love so much!
So, I then considered astro turf placemats. Astro Turf is reasonably priced, available at Home Depot and I could make 20 placemats for under $5.00 (you can find a tutorial here for making them). While budget friendly, the astro turf just didn't have the look I wanted.

Then I remembered these pretty petal placemats I saw from Party Wishes...

and Design Dazzle...

I searched for these online & locally, but turned up zilch. So, I thought, "I can make these!" I cut out the size placemat I wanted from cardboard gift boxes I had, purchased 4 bags of pink rose petals from the local Dollar Tree & got out my trusty hot glue gun.

Starting at the bottom of the placemat, I ran a single line of hot glue horizontally across the cardboard. Then, I just put down petals one by one, overlapping slightly. I continued this method until the entire cardboard was covered.

I'm thrilled with the way they turned out! Would I like the grass placemats instead? Ofcourse! But $5.00 for 20 placemats for a 6 year old's party makes so much more sense to me (& my wallet!) than $140! And besides, what would I do with all those grass placemats after the party?

DIY Place Cards

2009-09-08T08:07:00.002-04:00

I love these easy-to-make place cards/favors. Aren't they sweet?

Simply punch wood veneer cards with any punch you fancy.
You can find more information here at Alison Ulshoffer Events & Design.

Planning Upcoming Parties

2009-09-02T15:07:00.007-04:00

September seems to summon the busiest time of year for me. Summer is over and I have to start thinking about Emma's birthday, Witches Tea & Cookie Swap party. I've also added Daisy Craft Mom to my list of things to do. On top of everything else, I am trying to get my home completely organized and de-cluttered!

I've been surfing the web looking for ideas for my October parties. I found this card to use as inspiration for the Witches Tea invitations. It is from the latest edition of Paper Crafts Magazine.
I love the idea of making these shoes as favors for guests. You can find the template at Simple Dreams.

And isn't this "melted" witch tablescape fun?

Emma is having a fairy birthday party this year so I have been busy planning that too!

Back To School Party

2009-08-24T08:03:00.012-04:00

Back To School Bunco with my Moms group was a lot of fun. There are so many ways to celebrate the Back To School theme and all of them can be incorporated into a small celebration with your family to a big party with friends.

I made the wreath with items from the craft store and a hot glue gun. It is a wreath I can leave up all month and will take out year after year.
Each table had a school bus centerpiece with mini chalkboard, a colorful bowl of M&M's & a school themed piece of scrapbook paper.

Food was served on divided Styrofoam trays that resemble cafeteria trays. To stay on budget, I purchased the trays 10 for $1 at Dollar Tree. An alternative would be colorful re-usable hard plastic trays, but the least expensive ones I found were $1.27 each.

Water bottles were covered in school themed scrapbook paper.

My husband wrote out the menu board for me.

Mini Club Sandwiches topped with decorative picks.

Mini bags of chips.

Pretzel crayons served in a pencil box. I found this idea at Gourmet Mom On The Go.

I fell in love with these hamburger cupcakes & sugar cookie fries from Bakerella & knew they would be perfect for the Back To School theme! I served the cookie fries with a side of strawberry "ketchup" (strawberry jam).

For the Bunco prize I assembled a gift bag of grown-up school supplies (forgot to take a picture). I filled a school themed gift bag from Dollar Tree with decorative plaid pencils, notepad & mini notebook from the dollar section of Michaels & made a kitchen chalkboard with a silver tray & silver easel from Dollar Tree & chalkboard spray paint from Home Depot (directions here).

Back To School ~ Tallies & Score Sheets

2009-08-09T08:20:00.000-04:00

Since I couldn't find any Bunco tally sheets and score cards with a Back To School theme, I decided to print my own.

I used School Script Dashed font from dafont.com (downloaded free) and printed the tally sheets on notebook paper.

I found a back to school image I liked online and used it to make some colorful score cards.

I'll be back from vacation in one more week and will be back to regular posting then!

Back To School Decorative Toothpicks

2009-08-05T06:25:00.002-04:00

Using the Cricut Locker Talk Cartridge, I made these decorative toothpicks for Back To School Bunco Moms Night Out. I plan on sticking them in Mini Club Sandwiches.

Back To School Centerpiece

2009-08-03T08:10:00.001-04:00

My current party planning project is a Back To School Bunco Party for my Mom's Group. Since Bunco is played at several tables, I wanted to have cute themed centerpieces.

Inspired by Little Ant Designs, I made these school bus centerpieces. They are super easy to make.
The base of the centerpiece is an empty Crystal Light drink container. About 36 #2 pencils were attached to the container with a rubber band. The rubber band was then covered with ribbon & a bow.

Inside the container, I glued a small block of styrofoam (this will hold the ruler). I made the school bus using the Cricut Locker Talk cartridge, but you could even use those little wood cut-outs from craft stores. The bus was glued to a plastic ruler and the ruler is stuck into the styrofoam.

Add a couple of pieces of notebook paper & you have a cute centerpiece for under $4 (this time of year is the perfect time to buy school supplies at great discounts!). Since the pencils aren't glued, the centerpiece can be taken apart & the pencils used!

Vacation!

2009-07-31T22:12:00.002-04:00

The family & I are headed out for a two week vacation, but I've planned a few posts while I'm gone. Look for sneak peeks of my Back To School party prep next week!

Ice Cream Birthday Party

2009-07-29T07:52:00.007-04:00

Phillips Pfamily Mama threw an wonderful Ice Cream Party for her daughter's 3rd birthday. Everything about the party was absolutely adorable!

An ice cream invite

Ice cream cone balloon decorations
A Neapolitan birthday cake

Pin the Cherry on the Sundae Game

Ice Cream Cone Relay Race

Be sure to visit the Phillips Pfamily Pfive charming blog for more delightful party pictures!

Purplicious Book Club Party

2009-07-24T18:57:00.011-04:00

We just celebrated our 2nd Kids Book Club party and it was Purplicious fun! We read Purplicious by Victoria Kann & Elizabeth Kann. The girls all wore purple outfits.

They sat on the floor to listen to a reading of the story.

Next, the girls had craft time. They decorated goody bags with everything purple! Inside the bag was a purple journal, purple tootsie pop and purple swizzle sticks.

Lastly, the girls shared a Purplicious snack of Parfaits!

The Book Party is a fun treat and a great way to get the girls together!

Budget Party Planning

2009-07-21T10:03:00.005-04:00

Planning a birthday party for your child can be a daunting task. Combined with today's economy and it can be downright stressful! With a little planning and ingenuity, you will find you can throw a fabulous & memorable party on a tight budget.

1. Make a budget.
Before you party shop, make a budget & a list of supplies you need and make a pact with yourself to stick to it! A detailed shopping list with your budget written on it will help keep you focused & keep you from impulse buying.

2. Have the party at home or a neighborhood park.
Yes, Pump It Up is a great place to have a children's birthday party, but it will set you back $250. Parties at free locations can be just as fun.

3. Pick a theme.
Working with a theme that interests your child makes party planning so much easier. Suddenly your child's Star Wars action figures become cake toppers and mini pretzels become Fairy Wings. The Internet & party planning websites like Birthday Party Ideas are an amazing source of theme party ideas.

4. Shop your house.
Before you head out to the store, look around your house for cake candles leftover from previous parties or how about using a twin sheet for a tablecloth? Be creative and you will find that you have to buy less.

5. Balloons & Streamers go a long way.
A few dollars spent on a bag of latex balloons and rolls of streamers can have a big impact on your party. These colorful decorations are inexpensive and very festive. Instead of using helium, save money by blowing balloons up yourself the old-fashioned way (with your mouth!). Tape balloons to your walls & furniture or simply let them float on the float in a big pile. Kids love tossing around blown up balloons.

Use construction paper, markers, crayons & glitter to make a birthday banner. Your child will love helping and since most of us have those things around the house anyway, it doesn't cost a thing.

6. Make your own cake.
Homemade cakes taste great and cost a fraction of the cost of bakery cakes. Worried about time? Ask a friend or family member to make the cake for you. Consider it their gift to the birthday child.

7. Stay away from licensed partyware.
While the Transformer plates & napkins are really cool, they will totally blow your budget. Most kids won't even notice them anyway. Instead, buy 1 licensed item, such as napkins, and use solid partyware in coordinating colors for everything else. For example, at Wal-Mart you can purchase a package of 20 solid colored plates for $1.50 while a package of 8 Tinkerbell plates will cost $2.94.

8. Use your own utensils.
It is cheaper and better for the environment than buying plastic forks & spoons.

9. Scoop your own ice cream.
Sure, it is more convenient to buy those cute little ice cream cups at the grocery store. It will also cost you double. Instead, a day before the party scoop ice cream into cupcake liners, place them on a cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and stick in the freezer. The same convenience, but half the cost!

10. Play classic party games.
Games like Simon Says, Musical Chairs and Simon Says are all fun & FREE!

Kids are pretty easy to please and I think you will find that a little goes a long way! Happy party planning!

Carnival of Children's Parties!

2009-07-16T22:35:00.003-04:00

Kelly of Kelly's Korner is hosting a Carnival of Children's Parties! Head on over & check out some wonderful parties!

Bathing Beauties

2009-07-16T05:41:00.002-04:00

How great are these Chocolate-Gingerbread Bathing
Beauties? Once again, Martha comes to the rescue with something super cute & original!

I just love the Lifesaver umbrellas & stripped napkin beach towels! Find the recipe & How-To's on the Martha Stewart website.

Gingerbread Men (& Women!) are my absolute favorite decoration at Christmas and now I have the perfect excuse to bring them out this summer!

Happy Gummy Worm Day!

2009-07-14T23:37:00.011-04:00

According to the National Confectioner’s Association, July 15 is Gummy Worm Day! Here are some fun ways to celebrate:

Make Dirt Cake Cups with Gummy Worms! Deanna's Corner Cooking has the recipe here. Mmmmmm!
Read the book How To Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell with your kids.
Or watch the movie!
The adventurous can even make their own gummy worms - here is the recipe. Me? I'm off to the store to buy a bag!

Happy Gummy Worm Day!

Christmas In July ~ Food

2009-07-09T22:19:00.011-04:00

This post is all about the yummy food we had at Christmas in July Bunco. I used the bar as the buffet table for the food and my friend Karyn brought over a grass hula skirt to decorate the bar. It wasn't quite long enough to fit the entire bar, but it still looked festive!

In keeping with the theme, I pulled out all of my Christmas serving dishes and platters.

Inspired by Melissa's cookies, I made flip flop cookies with Nutter Butters, Betty Crocker can cupcake icing (this icing is so easy to work with - it is already colored in an aerosol can and comes with 4 different decorator tips) and mini red M&M's.

Some Fisher Fusions Snack Mix. This is the Ice Cream Sundae mix - I liked this because it has the dried banana chips which are very tropical!

Pictured here is the vege tray (all red & green veges, of course!) served with Ranch dressing, Snowman Cheeseball (recipe below) with Ritz crackers and Hot Bacon Swiss Dip with Corn Chips.

No party is complete without the perennial favorite - Chips & Dip!

I replaced the water bottle labels with Hawaiian print scrapbook paper.

SNOWMAN CHEESE BALL

1 8-ounce tub cream cheese spread

2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives or green onions

1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne), or to taste

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Whole black peppercorns

1 baby carrot, or the tip of a regular carrot

Rosemary branches, stripped of leaves - I used pretzel sticks

Mix cream cheese spread, Cheddar cheese, chives, almonds and red pepper until well blended; cover. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Divide mixture into 3 different-sized balls (1 small, 1 medium and 1 large). Coat with Parmesan cheese. Arrange on serving platter in a line to resemble a snowman lying down. (Largest ball should be at bottom of serving plate for base of snowman. Smallest ball should be at the top for head of snowman.)

Decorate with peppercorns for the eyes, mouth and buttons. Add carrot for the nose and rosemary branches for arms.Serve with crackers and cut-up fresh vegetable dippers, such as carrot sticks and celery sticks. Serves 16.

I apologize for not giving credit for the snowman cheeseball recipe. I found it online last December and forgot to add the URL to my recipe file!

Check out the decorations here!

Christmas In July ~ Decorations & Crafts

2009-07-09T08:09:00.013-04:00

Last night I hosted my Mom's Group monthly Bunco night-out. The theme was Christmas In July. It was so much fun coming up with decorating ideas that combined Christmas with Summer!

Here is the hall table:
I placed one of my Alpine Christmas trees in a red sand bucket. To stabilize the tree, I filled the bucket with red lava rocks. The garland is colorful leis that I cut and connected to make a continuous strand (leis from Dollar Tree 3/$1). I decorated the tree with paper umbrellas and tropical wood cut-outs hung with pieces of raffia hot-glued to the back. The cute cut-outs are from Joanns and were on sale for 33¢ each! The topper is a pretty shell.

Using the Cricut & scrapbook paper, I decorated another beach pail to hold players' money. Rather than give out a lot of prizes, my Bunco group splits the pot 60/40% between the 2 players with the most Wins. The person with the most losses gets to go home with their $10 and the Hostess provides a gift for the player with the most Buncos. To get a red & green sand pail, I just switched the handles & shovels at the store.

Everyone picked a red or green lei when they arrived.

Each table was decorated with a Christmas tablecloth, Christmas Bunco Scorecards, Christmas pencils and Christmas note paper to keep tallies.

All of the tables had centerpieces consisting of sand scrapbook paper cut to look like a flower, Mylar palm trees (Dollar Tree), table number tent sign & glass bowl.

The table # tent signs have Santa surfing (all made with Cricut) and the glass bowls are sitting on a Christmas berry wreath and filled with sand, 2 shells and a Christmas ball.

The rest of the decorations were kept pretty simple. I put a Christmas wreath on the front door, hung Christmas towels in the bathroom & put out a few Christmas decorations around the house. I didn't want to put too many Christmas decorations out because I knew it would all have to come down and be re-packed the next day!

Check out the party food here!

Christmas In July Invite

2009-07-06T10:22:00.013-04:00

This month is my turn to host my Mom's Group Bunco Night-Out. We usually don't have theme parties, but when one of the girls suggested Christmas in July, I thought it would be a lot of fun. I'm hoping everyone will want to have theme Bunco Night-Out from now on!

Here is the invitation I came up with using MyPunchbowl (I removed my address & phone from the invitation for the post). I know I've said it before, but I really do love using MyPunchbowl to send online invitations!
For this invitation, I wanted to combine Christmas with a summery-feel and this picture of Santa surfing was just perfect! The Hawaiian background and snowflake ribbon finished the look I wanted.

Tomorrow I'll show off some of the decorations I put together.

Book Club Party

2009-07-03T13:01:00.018-04:00

Emma and I hosted our first ever Kids Book Club Meeting/Party last week and it was so much fun! My idea was to get Emma and her girlfriends together once a month to read a book and do a craft or activity and have a snack related to the theme of the book. For our first meeting, we chose the books Fancy Nancy and Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy by Jane O'Connor.

Since the moms decided to take turns hosting the meetings at their houses, I really tried to keep everything simple and keep the cost low. I didn't want other mothers to feel pressured into anything elaborate. I didn't decorate (which goes against everything in me!) and made it a really easy party to put together.

Eight girls were able to attend and they all wore their fanciest assembles! One little girl even came dressed like Nancy (the costumes are available in the toy department of Target)!
I put a quilt on the floor for the girls to sit on during story time and snacks. While waiting for everyone to arrive, the girls sat on the quilt and thumbed through the books.

I went to Burger King and got free paper crowns. I used large foam stickers to cover the Burger King logo. In the Fancy Nancy books, Nancy and her family enjoy eating at the King's Crown restaurant where they are given crowns that look just like the Burger King ones.

I read the two books to the girls. They were all very attentive!

Next, each of the girls shared a "fancy" item they brought from home. Here is Emma sharing her jeweled tiara ~

After Show & Tell, we did crafts ~

Each of the girls decorated foam wands and had an activity book and plumed pen (that's fancy for a pen with a feather!) to take home. The wands and pens were purchased 3/$1 at Dollar Tree. I downloaded Fancy Nancy activity pages from the Harper Collins website (free) and made books using folders purchased on clearance at WalMart for 10¢ each. All of the decorations for the wands came from my craft stockpile.

All in all, I spent less than 80¢ a girl for the crafts!

Lastly, the girls all made their own parfaits (that's French for ice cream sundae ~ everything sounds fancier in French!)

Again, very simple. The toppings including sprinkles (Nancy's favorite), mini marshmallows, mini chocolate chips & gummy bears. I made a Parfait table sign with scrapbook paper and used napkins I had leftover from another party. I purchased the spoons and plastic tablecloths at the dollar store.

The girls had an absolutely wonderful time and I spent less than $20 doing it. Everyone is so excited for next month's Book Club meeting!

And The Winner Is...

2009-07-02T11:58:00.007-04:00

I thought it only fitting to choose the winners of the one-year Premium MyPunchbowl subscription from my punchbowl!

The kids each randomly picked a name...

This is so exciting....

The winners are (sorry for the fuzzy picture!)...

Jessica

and

L2L@ Love To Learn, Learn To Love

I'll be emailing you both with all of the details! Thanks to everyone who played along and an especially big thanks to all the wonderful people who read my blog!

Flip Flop Cookies

2009-06-30T14:37:00.004-04:00

I am completely in love with these adorable flip flop cookies. Aren't they fabulous? They look so easy to make too!

Melissa at A Little Loveliness came up with these little cuties. Check out Melissa's blog for directions on making Ballet Slipper Cookies & Soccer Cleat Cookies.

A Giveaway!

2009-06-22T14:15:00.010-04:00

*6/30/09 - Today is the last day to leave a comment for the MyPunchbowl giveaway! Visit 5M4M for lots of great tackles!

One of my favorite new ways of sending out invitations to casual events is MyPunchbowl. MyPunchbowl is an online site that provides everything you need to organize and plan a fabulous event. You can create your own online invitations, poll guests for the ideal date, easily import guests lists and manage RSVPs, design personalized candy favors, and more.This is the invitation I designed for my first Kids Book Club meeting. Since our theme is Fancy Nancy, I uploaded a picture of Nancy to use on the invitation. Using MyPunchbowl I was also able to customize the colors, background and font. Another MyPunchbowl feature I used for this party was the Date Decider. I was able to poll my guests with dates and times that would be best for first our meeting.

I've also been working on an invitation for my Bunco Club. July is my month to host and our group decided it would be fun to have a "Christmas in July" theme. Since the invitation design is all personalized, I was able to choose a Hawaiian card, change the background to blue and upload a picture of Santa surfing! For this invitation, I added the Potluck List which enables me to list items I would like people to bring.

One of my favorite features of MyPunchbowl is the instant gratification of knowing when your invitation was viewed and the ability of your guest to give an immediate electronic RSVP. I also love the message board you can create with your invitation that allows your guests to communicate with each other.

***I could go on and on about MyPunchbowl, but why don't you check it out for yourself! It is free and so easy to use and navigate. As a special treat, MyPunchbowl has graciously offered a complimentary one-year MyPunchbowl Premium membership (a $49.95 value!) to 2 of my readers! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. I will pick 2 winners on July 1st.

Kids Book Club

2009-06-09T09:06:00.006-04:00

One of the new loves in our house is the Fancy Nancy series of books by Jane O'Connor. For those of you that haven't met Nancy yet, she is a vivacious (that's a fancy word for lively) little girl who believes that more is ALWAYS better when it comes to being fancy. Nancy loves all things sparkly and French and just adores fancy words!

I thought a Fancy Nancy party would be so much fun to plan and host. Since Emma has already decided on a Fairy party for her 6th birthday, I needed to come up with an excuse to throw a Fancy party.

Voila (that's a French word for behold - everything sounds so much fancier in French), I had an idea - a Book Club with a few of Emma's friends. My plan is to meet monthly at a member's home, read a children's book and then have a snack and craft/game/activity related to the book.

I polled the moms by email and got a terrific response. Our first meeting will have 10 kids! I think it is a great way to get the girls and moms together on a budget (plus, I get to plan a mini Fancy Nancy get-together!)

More to come on my Fancy Nancy party Book Club Meeting!

Tip Junkie's Birthday Party Bash

2009-06-04T16:03:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year again! Tip Junkie is showing off great birthday parties. Today is all things girly, including a fairy party, slumber party & a Nancy Drew party.

Check Tip Junkie all week for lots of super party ideas!

Preschool Graduation

2009-06-01T05:30:00.006-04:00

Emma has officially graduated from preschool! Although her school doesn't put-on a graduation ceremony, a few of the moms got together to make a special graduation snack for the kids.

These are graduation sugar cookies with royal icing. To save time, I actually used a Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix rather than make them homemade (shhh...don't tell!).
Inspired by Family Fun, we also made these cute diploma sandwich roll-ups. Since one of the children is allergic to peanut butter, we filled the inside of a tortilla with cream cheese and strawberry jam. Roll up the tortilla and tie off with a fruit by the foot or fruit roll-up (do not under any circumstances use Airheads Extreme Sour Belt Candy. It disintegrates overnight in the fridge - I learned the hard way!)

Of course I can't resist throwing in a picture of my little cutie!

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Since the school doesn't have a graduation ceremony, a few moms purchased graduation caps from the party store for all of the kids. We wrapped them up and sent them home in the kids' school bags.

And you just know that it was another opportunity for me to use the Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up Cartridge (the cap was made using the Locker Talk cartridge)! The diploma was made with a small rolled up piece of white paper tied with gold ribbon. I made each paper doll to match the child. On the back of the tag I printed a preschool graduation poem found on the web.

Enchanted Paper Doll Princess Movie Party!

2009-05-27T15:26:00.010-04:00

I recently discovered the Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge and I've been going crazy making little dolls ever since! Since Emma's preschool is over and the elementary school is still in session, I decided to have a few of Emma's friends over for a little party. The party started at 10:30 in the morning and lasted just long enough for the moms to make it home for their older kids.

For the invitations, I made a paper doll to look like Giselle from Enchanted and let Emma draw the face. Using the Cricut Locker Talk cartridge, I made movie tickets and inserted them into the invitations. My printer is broken, so I just hand wrote the invitations. Six of Emma's girlfriends were invited over to make paper dolls, eat princess snacks and watch the movie Enchanted.
I set up a craft table with markers, glue, and scrapbook paper placemats. A few days before, I cut out all of the pieces to the dolls and bagged them up. Each girl received a set of pieces to assemble.

I made samples of each of the dolls for the girls to follow. I also glued a craft stick on the back of each doll to make them easier to play with later.

The girls made Tinkerbell, Jasmine and Ariel.

There was also a knight, pirate and prince.Here are some of the girls getting crafty!

After crafts, the girls made plates of food and settled down to watch the movie. The menu included chicken salad and grilled cheese sandwiches, Goldfish crackers, Rice Krispie treats, mini marshmallows, strawberry Oreos and veges with ranch dip.

I cut the grilled cheese sandwiches out with a butterfly cookie cutter. I made these about 20 minutes before the party and then put them on a cookie sheet in the oven on 170° to stay warm.

The Wishing Well Punch (inspired by Enchanted) was super simple - raspberry sherbet and a 2-litre of Sprite.

I made the Rice Krispie treats using strawberry marshmallows (to make them pink), added star sprinkles and cut them out with a star cookie cutter. To make a wand, I just inserted a colorful plastic straw into the middle.

These are Royal Jell-o cups topped with strawberry Cool Whip and pink colored sugar. The plastic wine glasses came from Dollar Tree and I hot glued sequins to the sides. To make the Cool Whip swirly, I used a piping bag with flower tip. I put blankets and quilts on the floor in front of the TV and the girls ate their lunch picnic-style while watching the movie. For a favor, I made each of the girls an Enchanted Soundtrack CD (checked out the CD free from my local library).

The girls had a great time and it was an easy and inexpensive party to throw.

Water Fun Party

2009-04-27T11:49:00.006-04:00

Here in Florida, temperatures have already been going into the upper 80°s. Over the weekend, Emma was invited to a Water Balloon party. The kids had such a fun time and there really wasn't much money spent or prep work involved.

Held in the backyard of Emma's friend, the party was all about water and summer fun. First, the girls had a water balloon toss.

After water balloons, the kids played in the sprinkler and on the swing set. Another easy idea is a Slip & Slide or a couple of baby pools filled with water and beach balls.

Refreshments included cookies, chips, Popsicles and a make-your-own sundae. At a previous party, the hostess set up a lemonade stand, which would have been just perfect at this party too.

To make the lemonade stand, the mom simply set up a card table covered in a plastic tablecloth and taped 2 wood poles to the two front corners of the table. She made a colorful sign and hung it between the two poles above the table. A cooler with push spout was filled with lemonade and set on the table, along with Dixie cups. Throughout the party the kids were able to serve themselves. It was a huge hit that my daughter still talks about.

This water fun party just goes to show you that you don't always need fancy decorations and activities for a fun party. A small budget and a little creativity made for a memorable time!

My Punchbowl Contest

2009-04-15T14:46:00.003-04:00

Want to win a $25 Amazon.com gift card? All you have to do is post your awesome party ideas to MyPunchbowl.com's new user forums before Wednesday, April 15 and you could win! OK, I know that is today, but you still have time! The winner will be chosen at random.

Gifts on a Budget

2009-04-06T14:00:00.009-04:00

My kids get invited to a lot of birthday parties, sometimes we have 2 parties in one weekend. The pressure to give a "nice" gift coupled with the expense of gift giving can be stressful. One of my favorite solutions to this dilemma is theme gifts.

The first thing I do is shop for toys on sale after holidays and seasons. This is a great time to stock up on brand name toys at bargain prices. I keep a box in my closet where I store all of extra toys I buy throughout the year and have a master list on my computer for quick reference.

I also keep any leftover party favors from my own children's parties - you never know when you can use them again. Stock up on colored galvanized buckets, sand pails and Chinese-style take-out boxes.

Below is an example of a gift my daughter gave at a party last week for a little boy. Separately, the contents of the bucket aren't impressive, but when combined into a theme package, it becomes a nice gift. A pretty package makes even the cheapest gift special - something little by itself becomes more significant when paired with like items.

I purchased the sand pail at Dollar Tree for, yes, you guessed it, $1.00! I wrote the birthday boy's name with a red Sharpie and filled the bottom of the bucket with red crinkle filler ($1.00). I decorated the bucket with road sign stickers from my scrapbook collection.

The theme of this bucket was Hot Wheels cars. I only spent about $5.85 putting this all together.

The contents of the bucket include:

6 Hot Wheels cars - free with coupons at Christmas
Bubble Playset - free with CVS Extra Care Bucks, plus this was a leftover from Emma's Strawberry Shortcake party favors
Hot Wheels coloring book - $1.00 from Dollar Tree
Crayola Crayons - leftover from Strawberry Shortcake party favors
Giant Lollipop - $1.00 from WalMart
Personalized license plate - $1.47 from WalMart

Putting together a theme gift tells the recipient that you really put some thought into the gift. The Hot Wheels bucket was a hit and didn't break the bank!

My 9 nine year old recently went to a party where he gave a movie theme gift. I purchased a plastic popcorn container from Target's Dollar Spot and filled it with a $5.00 movie from WalMart (the Looney Tunes movie with Brendan Frasier), some movie type boxed candy (88¢ each from WalMart) and a couple of packages of microwave popcorn from our pantry. You could also do the same thing with a video rental gift card.

Here are some other ideas:

Art supplies - Shop the school supply sales in the fall for great deals on crayons, markers, construction paper, etc. Put everything into a galvanized bucket personalized with the child's name.
Bugs - Fill a bucket with a bug box, butterfly net, plastic bugs, gummy worms and a bug coloring book (all can be found at Dollar Tree)
Gardening - Fill a pretty pot or watering can with child sized gardening gloves & tools, seeds, book of flowers and gummy worms
Summer - Fill a sand pail with sidewalk chalk, bubbles, jump rope, kite, Sun Chips, pinwheel and sand toys (all can be found at Dollar Tree)
Camping - Fill a galvanized bucket with smores ingredients, flashlight and a book about the outdoors
Teen Girl - Use a pretty bucket or cosmetic bag to hold nail polish, toe separators, nail files and a teen magazine
Book - pair a popular book like Give A Moose A Muffin with a muffin mix, whisk, mini muffin tin and child apron

The possibilities are really endless and they are so much fun to put together. Plus, you know that you are giving a unique and thoughtful gift that goes beyond a price tag!

I'm A Winner!

2009-04-01T10:01:00.007-04:00

It is always nice to be recognized, but even nicer when you win money for it! One of my favorite places to find party inspiration is Birthday Party Ideas. It is so much fun to read about real parties thrown by real people, not just professional party planners. Don't get me wrong, I get tons of inspiration from the professionals too!

I was just notified that my Mad Scientist Party won a Runner Up award for this month and a $20 prize check is on its way! While $20 might not seem like a lot, when you plan on a budget, it really can stretch a long way! If you ever get stumped planning a party, I promise you will find great ideas at this site!

Magical Tablescape

2009-03-30T07:07:00.005-04:00

I recently stumbled across this Fairy Tea Party tablescape over at Design Dazzle. Isn't it lovely? I am already planning for Emma's 6th birthday Fairy Party - even though it isn't until October!

See the little birdbath? It's filled with Pop Rocks for the guests to add to their pink lemonade (it turns it into Fairy Tea, you know!). And each teacup was filled with cotton candy for guests to enjoy before beverages were served.

One of the best things about this tablescape was that it was created with a budget in mind. Many of the items featured on the table were purchased at a dollar store and glittered up a bit. Ah, a girl after my own heart!

Check out more party details and pictures here and here.

Spring Tea Party

2009-03-27T14:02:00.009-04:00

Emma and I had a wonderful time hosting our Celebrate Spring Tea Party on Monday. We invited all of the girls and moms from Emma's pre-school class.

Here is a picture of the kids' table. I so wish I had chairs other than card table chairs, but I use what I have. To help the girls feel like they were at a real grown-up tea party, I set the table with fabric tablecloths, glass plates, silver spoons and china tea cups. I made flower placemats using cardstock and the Walk In My Garden cartridge from Cricut. Each place setting also had a mini silver tray with sugar cubes - a definite hit at the party! My very versatile tissue paper topiaries were used as table centerpieces.

The moms sat at the dining room table in the adjacent room.

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The menu for the kids included Fairy Flower Sandwiches (Cream cheese & strawberry jam sandwiches cut with a flower cookie cutter. I cut a center hole in the top layer of bread so that the pretty red jam showed through).

The girls drank Fairy Tea (Sprite and frozen raspberry lemonade concentrate).

Fairy Wing Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Flower Cookies and pink waffer cookies

Miniature bunny marshmallows (available at Target in the Easter section) and pastel jelly beans

The adult menu included 3 tea sandwiches - chicken salad, ham, apricot & cream cheese and cucumber. I served sweet and unsweet tea and ice water.

I made these little flower bites using Ritz crackers, pepperoni, Colby Jack cheese cut with a mini flower cookie cutter (Sargento also sells packages of cheese pre-cut to look like flowers) and 1/2 grape. These treats are so easy to make, look pretty on a platter and always get eaten!

Tanya from Shin-dig-it emailed me some great scone recipes, but I ended up going with a strawberry scone. Since strawberries are in season and we live near the Winter Strawberry Capital, I thought strawberry scones would be perfect!

Desserts included chocolate covered strawberries, brownie bites and lemon straw cookies.

The flower fairies (and one buzzing bumble bee) enjoy tea!

Miss Emma eating her sugar cubes. The kids were all so well behaved and polite!The moms enjoy lunch.

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After tea, the girls decorated fairy houses. Inspired by Simply Lovely's Woodland Fairy Party, I purchased small peat pots (so inexpensive - only $1.97 for 24 at Lowe's) and cut a small doorway in the side. I set out pompoms, sequins, glitter glue, flowers, glass beads, green felt and foam flower & insect stickers for decorations.

I told the girls that the shinier they made their houses, the more fairies they would attract (because everyone knows that fairies love shiny objects!).

I got more styrofoam meat trays from my local grocery store to use as the house base. Green felt was glued on the styrofoam as grass.

Emma left her fairy house on her nightstand and the next morning, there was a little note from a lovely fairy!

This party was such a treat to plan and throw! I already had my Spring & Easter decorations up around the house, so I didn't have to decorate for the party. Since it wasn't for a birthday, we didn't play any games. We kept the invitations & favors simple. All in all, it was an absolutely lovely afternoon!

Spring Tea Party Favors

2009-03-24T11:58:00.008-04:00

Since the budget was tight for our Celebrate Spring Tea Party, I was hoping to come up with favors for under $10. I was very excited to come in way under budget! For $5.06, our guests went home with simple, yet cute favors!

The adults received a decorated packet of seeds:

Seeds - 10 for $1 at Dollar Tree
Ribbon - 33¢ for spool on sale at Michael's
Flowers - 99¢ for bunch at Old Time Pottery

Total cost with tax - $2.48

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Each girl received a small velour bag filled with a few goodies (I apologize for the poor photo - I forgot to take a better picture before we handed them all out):Velour bag - $0 (I purchased these bags on clearance after Easter a few years ago, so I didn't count them in this party budget. If I added the cost, it would only be an additional $2.41 - still under budget!)
Marshmallow Rope Twists - 10 for $1 at Dollar Tree
Pastel Lifesavers - $0 (paid $1.66 with Target gift card received from prescription transfer coupon)
Flower Bracelet - 14 for $1 at Michael's
Tootsie Pop Flower - 44¢ (the Tootsie Pops were free with the Target gift card & foam was 41¢ with coupon at Joann's).

Total cost with tax for girls' favors - $2.58

-----------------------------------------------As I posted last week, each girl received a flower headband when they arrived. These adorable headbands came from the Dollar Spot at Target and were $1 each. I used another Target gift card to pay for these, so it was $0 for nine headbands.

I found out the evening before the tea that one boy from Emma's class would be coming to the tea. Since all of the favors were very girly, I had to come up with something different. Luckily, I was able to find things in my craft stash!

I made a Bumblebee Antennae Headband with a black headband, yellow pipe cleaners & two styrofoam balls. I painted the styrofoam balls yellow & used a black Sharpie to add stripes. For the favor bag, I used a small white cardboard box with handles (leftover from another party) and filled it with Lifesavers, Tootsie Pop Flower & a bug in slime test tube leftover from my son's Mad Scientist party.

Check back for more tea party pictures!

I'm Featured!

2009-03-19T07:45:00.002-04:00

Evite.com has featured me! I am so excited! I love using evite.com to send out quick and easy invitation. Check it out here.

Spice Drop Cookies

2009-03-16T11:29:00.008-04:00

I have been searching the Internet, cookbooks & my brain for easy & clever food to serve at Emma's Celebrate Spring Tea Party. While I was wandering the cookie aisles at my local grocery store, I came across flower shaped butter cookies and an idea was born!
The cookies are pretty and flavorful on their own, but not very colorful. I bought a bag of spice drops and inserted one spice drop into the center of each cookie. The results are just too cute! For under $3.00 and about 10 minutes of my time, I created bright & yummy cookies to serve at the party.

Originally, I thought about making stained glass sugar cookies cut out with a flower cookie cutter. I was going to cut out the center of the cookie with a mini circle cutter and bake them with crushed pastel life savers (available in the Easter section). But then I thought, why not make this as easy as possible??!!

More than half the guests are 5 years old and younger & I'm sure it won't matter to them if I baked the cookies from scratch or simply assembled them. I do plan on making several homemade goodies and this is just one less thing to worry about!

Flower Headband

2009-03-10T16:00:00.010-04:00

I have been having such a fun time planning our Celebrate Spring Tea Party. Spring is such a broad theme to work with and all of the stores have lovely pastel items out right now.

To keep the budget down, I trying to keep this party as simple as possible. At first, Emma decided she wanted to give all her friends fairy wands, wings & crowns to wear at the party and take home as favors.

I found wands for $1 each at Michaels, but the tops were stars and I really wanted something with a flower or butterfly. Then, I looked everywhere for fairy wings. I usually find cute ones at the dollar store, but apparently they only carry them around Halloween. I found very cute & reasonable priced ($20 per dozen) wings at Halo Heaven, but they were still more than I wanted to spend for an un-birthday party.

Following the tutorial at Such Pretty Things, I started making hair wreaths.
To save money, I used less flowers and added tulle to the wreath. I think it turned out well, but I also thought they were more suited to the Fairy Party we are planning for Emma's 6th birthday in October (I'm planning early, I know, but Spring is the very best time to find flowery, girly things on sale).

BINGO! I found these adorable flower headbands at Target's Dollar Spot today:

I absolutely love them! We bought pink, yellow & lavender and they are going to look so cute on the girls! I don't think I could have made anything near this cute for a $1 each.

I'm going to finish up the fairy wreaths and put them away until October. Of course, by October I'll probably have thought of something completely different!

Celebrate Spring Tea Party

2009-03-09T09:58:00.007-04:00

When I first started browsing the web looking for ideas for Emma's Alice in Wonderland Tea Party, I ran across Risa, The ParTea Planner. If you ever have a chance, take a look at Risa's photo gallery. Her parties are an absolute delight to look at!

Since visiting her first Tea Room last week, Emma has been anxious to have another tea party of her very own. Inspired by the ParTea Planner's Spring Fling Tea Party & Party Wishes Welcome Spring Tea, I decided to have a Celebrate Spring Tea Party and invite the girls in Emma's pre-school class.

My husband's eyes just glazed over when he heard I was planning another party. I told him that this was more of a lunch playdate with some of Emma's friends. His response was, "If you've invited more than 5 people, it's a party!" OK, so it is a party!

To keep things simple, I sent email invitations from Evite.com. I love using Evite because it keeps track of who has read their invitation, who is able to make the party and allows guests to leave comments. I'm all about the instant gratification!

My goal to to keep the budget around $60, but I am notorious for going way over my budgets! I planned out my basic menu, decor, activities & favors. Since one of the girls invited has severe peanut allergies, I've had to keep PB & J's and Fluffernutters (Emma's favorite) off the menu. I'm also going to try my hand at making scones (mmmm...think I'll start practicing today!).

This week I am working on fairy crowns for the girls to wear and I'll post pictures when I'm finished.

Mad Scientist Party Part 3

2009-03-08T06:59:00.006-04:00

The party pics!

Tower Building with toothpicks & mini marshmallows.

First Place Winner for Tallest Structure
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Rocket Blasts with film canisters, water & Alka-Seltzer

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Pizza time!

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Before entering The Lab, each scientist was given an Experiment Bag. The stickers on bags identified the experiment teams and coordinated with the experiment rotation. Inside the bags were latex gloves & the boys used the bags to collect all of their experiments.
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Soap Puff experiment
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Making oobleck

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The Birthday Boy & his Grandfather at the Balloon Blast Station

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Making Lava Lamps

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The boys examined their fingerprints with magnifying glasses. I was pleasantly surprised that these plastic magnifying glasses found at the dollar party store (6 for $1.00) actually worked!

Fingerprints

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Happy Scientists

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This volcano cake was so easy to make. I layered a bundt cake, 9" round, dome cake & jumbo cupcake for the top. For the dry ice effect, I placed a drinking glass in the center of the bundt cake & hollowed out the center of the other cakes. The hollowed cupcake was placed on top after the dry ice was added. The red lava was made by melting hard candy & drizzling it on foil.

The Birthday Boy blows out his candles.

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The last experiment of the party was the Mentos & Diet Coke Geysers. These were a HUGE hit!Each boy received a roll of Mentos & a 2-liter bottle of diet soda (store brand worked perfectly and was a fraction of the cost of Diet Coke). I had 3 geyser tube launchers, so the boys took turns setting off their explosive soda.

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Here are links to early posts with lots more party pictures:

Mad Scientist Party Decorations Part 2

2009-03-05T05:27:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I posted the house decorations for our Mad Scientist Party & today it is all about The Lab! Since it was a mad scientist party, I really wanted The Lab (our garage) to have a dark & creepy feel.

My husband covered the three walls of the garage with black plastic tarp. I added the awesome Design-A-Room lab decorations I purchased from Oriental Trading. To resemble stainless steel, I covered the tables with plastic silver tablecloths (except when I was one tablecloth short & improvised with a white sheet!).
I set up a little lab prop table that the boys would see as they first walked in. I had jars filled with food colored water, bugs, rubber eyeballs and a growing brain & snake (the kind that are really little and expand when placed in water). The jars are just glass food jars that I've been collecting & spray painted the lids orange. After the picture was taken I also added 3 styrofoam meat trays that I had used T-pins to pin down a giant gummy hand, rat & lizard - they looked just like dissection trays!

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The first two experiments we did as a group & then I broke the kids into pairs to rotate through 5 more experiment stations.

Snow Puff Experiment & Insta Snow
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Fingerprinting
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Labeled containers of Insta-Snow

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Oobleck Experiment

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Balloon Blast Experiment

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Slimed Experiment

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Lava Lamp Experiment

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The best advice I can give is to test all of your experiments a few days before the party & to prepare everything ahead of time. When the boys entered the lab, each table had individual bottles & containers necessary to complete each experiment. All of the items were labeled with the boys' names, making it so easy to keep track of everyone's experiments.

Tomorrow I will post pictures from the actual party!

Mad Scientist Party Decorations Part 1

2009-03-04T07:41:00.012-05:00

Finally! I was finally able to get the Mad Scientist pictures loaded to my computer! Since I have so many pictures, I am going to post a few at a time. This Mad Scientist Party was for my son's 9th birthday. The party was divided between the house and The Lab (garage). I wanted to keep the mood in the house light so all of the decorations were done in bright neon colors. The Lab was done in all black & silver.
This is what greeted the boys as they arrived. The caution tape is left over from Halloween. I made all of the signs in the party with poster board, my mother's Cricut die cut machine (cartidges used - Everyday Paper Dolls, Plantin School Book & Locker Talk), cardstock & a science themed bulletin board border I found at the local teacher supply store. At the last minute my son added a Top Secret sign to the door.
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This is a picture taken from the front door. All Scientists had to check-in before entering the lab!

The check-in desk was decorated with my son's lava lamp. I had two helpers manning the desk. As each boy arrived, he was asked his name. One helper checked the Doctor's name off the check-in list and preformed a "Retinal Scan." This was actually a glow stick that was passed in front of the boy's eyes!

Meanwhile, the second helper entered the guest's name into the laptop. I found a website online that says whatever you type in a funky voice. At the end of the Retinal Scan, the computer would say, "Dr. ____ is confirmed. You may now enter the laboratory." The boys absolutely loved this!

After check-in, the boys were each given a disposable lab coat (found on Ebay) and safety goggles (Harbor Freight).

On the long wall of the foyer I hung a Command Hook for each guest. ID Badges were pinned to each lab coat. The coats & goggles were a HUGE hit and I am so happy that I made the extra effort to locate them.

Above each hook was a name label with Dr. _____. Before the party, I printed enough name stickers to label everything at the party. This made it easy for the boys to keep track of their party items & experiments.

A close up of the ID Badges. I made these with a Microsoft template and had them printed at Office Depot. Everyone's name was preceded with the title Dr. and a job title. The ID number is the date of the party. To save money, I inserted the badges into trading card holders that my son already had and attached safety pins to the back (I was origianlly going to either laminate the badges or purchases badge holders).

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The Engineering Department was the second stop of the party. This was an activity to keep the kids busy until all of the guests arrived. Each place was set up with a styrofoam meat tray (free from the meat department of my local grocery store - just ask!) labeled with a name sticker. In the center of the table were bowls filled with toothpicks & mini marshmallows. The kids had to construct a freestanding structure using the toothpicks & marshmallows. The tallest 2 structures won a prize (I found 3-D plastic anatomy models of the human body & a frog at the dollar store to give out as prizes).

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I purchased a plastic painter's drop cloth from the dollar store, hung it in the archway & cut it into strips to resemble the barriers found in labs. The kids loved walking through it and it was only a $1.00 for lots of drama! It also served as a divider between the activity and food areas.

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The family room was decorated with balloons & cardstock spirals - very simple & inexpensive. This is where the kids ate dinner and dessert. I had a Bill Nye the Science guy DVD (borrowed free from the library) playing in the background. Each place at the table had a lime napkin & crazy straw tied with a neon pipe cleaner.
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This is the "Cafeteria" table. The pizza went in the center of the table. The table has more of the science bulletin board border. The windows are decorated with science shapes made with the Cricut die cut machine, the mad scientist picture from the invitations & id badges and the anatomy of the gummy bear that I found online.

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I found this great hologram picture after Halloween. It is a photo of a scientist that turns into a mad monster scientist! The flasks are filled with moon sand.

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I blew up latex medical gloves and attached them to the chandelier.

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After the experiments, the kids came back into the house for cake and an "Invent A Sundae" bar. The kids got to make their own sundaes with gummy body parts, nerds, maraschino cherries, green M&M's, gummy bears, chocolate chips, sprinkles, colored sugars & syrups, whipped cream, hot fudge, and caramel, chocolate & strawberry sauce.

Tomorrow I will post Part 2 of the party decorations - the Lab! You can the invitations here & here & the goody bags here.

Mad Science Goody Bags

2009-02-27T16:46:00.006-05:00

I have all of the Mad Science party pictures saved on disk & I can't get the disk to open! So, here is my one lonely picture of the goody bags.

The red biohazard bags held the following goodies:

gummy worm
gummy body parts
eyeball ring
pop rocks
candy specimen slide
powdered candy test tube
slime & bug test tube
stink bag (very boy appropriate - you squeeze the bag to cause a chemical reaction which causes the pouch to expand, pop & emit a stinky sulfur smell!)
poison sticker
2 Alka-Seltzer tablet packs (to do more party experiments at home)
an experiment manual of all the experiments we did at the party

The cost of all of this was minimal (you know me, I'm all about the bargain!). All of the candy & slime test tube was purchased after Halloween on clearance. Just make sure to check the expiration dates on all perishables you are saving for a future party. I was able to print the manuals at my husband's office, the Alka-Seltzer was free with coupons and the biohazard bags were free from my grandmother's nursing home. Each goody bag cost me less than $1.00 to put together!

I hope to have the actual party pictures up this weekend!

2009-02-27T16:33:00.002-05:00

Lisa from Personally You Parties gave me this great award - thanks Lisa! I am always so flattered when someone thinks my blog is worthy of an award!

I am passing this award to My Insanity, Sweet Mady's Paper and Most Likely Late - these are all party blogs I enjoy reading!

Experiment Fun

2009-02-17T09:25:00.003-05:00

I've planned lots of fun experiments for Nathan's Mad Scientist Party and today I've been trying them all out to make sure they are do-able and that I have the ratios correct. This experiment is so cool - even the grown ups were ohhing & ahhing!
This white cloud is actually a bar of Ivory soap that was nuked in the microwave on High for 2 minutes! You can read about how & why it works here.

When Good Cakes Go Bad

2009-02-12T06:26:00.003-05:00

I recently ran across the funniest blog & had to share it with you. It is called Cake Wrecks and its motto is "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong."

Here is just a tease of some of the lovely cakes you will see:

A green Super Bowl cake! Just cut the Roman Numerals off last year's cake topper, slap on frosting numbers & you're good to go!
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Awww! A Darth Vader baby cake. Look - it's a girl!

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This last one might actually be for a very large person & not a misspelling, but I'm just speculating.
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Visiting Cake Wrecks promises lots of laughter & fun! The commentary is just as funny as the cake pictures!

Beautiful Banners

2009-02-11T09:21:00.002-05:00

Lorie from Be Different...Act Normal is offering an awesome giveaway. You can enter to win one of the many beautiful banners made by emmi cakes. Hurry over to Lorie's blog...you only have until February 12th to enter!

Thank You, Amy!

2009-02-09T11:01:00.003-05:00

I just wanted shout out a great big "Thank You" to Amy over at Living Locurto. She created these great "Open With Caution" tags & invitations and then shared them with everyone!
I printed the caution tags (can also be made into stickers) at Office Depot on glossy paper and used them to seal my Mad Scientist party invitation envelopes!

Here are Amy's links if you want to print them up for yourself:

Open With Caution and Science Party Invitations

Amy is such a talented graphic artist and always has wonderful freebies to download on her blog. You should definitely check it out!

Mad Scientist Invitations Part 2

2009-02-07T07:28:00.006-05:00

I showed the front of the Mad Science party invitations here & below is a picture of the inside:

Inside the invitation reads:

Come for Cool Chemical Reactions, Wacky Experiments & Explosive Fun!

Testing Begins: Saturday, Feb 21st At 5pm

Lab Location: our address

Lab Director: Brenda xxx-xxx Please RSVP

*The Lab Cafeteria will be serving dinner
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The notecards are pre-made from Michaels. One of the things that bothers me about buying the pre-made notecards is that they are white on the inside. I'm sure no one will notice & it is a non-issue - it is just my little pet peeve! The price for pre-made notecards just can't be beat. They were $4.99 for a package of 20 blank notecards & envelopes and I used a 50% off coupon from the Sunday Michaels sales flyer. So, only $2.67 with tax - what a bargain!

The mad scientist picture was found online & I had them printed at Office Depot on glossy photo paper - that runs about 60¢ a sheet and I fit 3 pictures on each page. All of the colored cardstock came from Joanns when they were running a scrapbook paper sale 6/96¢. The cost of the invitations was minimal, but they were time consuming to make. I love how they turned out and I enjoy papercrafting, so the time spent making is well worth it.

Science Party Invitation

2009-02-06T16:12:00.014-05:00

I finally finished the invitations for Nathan's Mad Science Birthday party. It took me awhile to come up with the invitations. I knew I wanted something bright and interactive, but just couldn't come up with a concept that I was happy with. Then I remembered shakers that I used to make for scrapbooking.

You can find lots of online tutorials for shaker cards here. Basically, it is two pieces of cardstock & clear acetate sandwiched with foam tape. The interior of this shaker is filled with seed beads, but you can also use glitter, sequins or anything with a low profile. When you move the card, the beads slide around inside the test tube.

I used blank notecards & envelopes from Michaels. The wavy orange border was made with the Creative Memories 12" Decorative Trimmer & the bubbles are clear epoxy stickers made by EK Success (from Joanns).

I have planned lots of fun experiments, food & an "Invent Your Own Sundae" bar loaded with lots of yummy toppings.

You can see inside the invitation here.

More Madness!

2009-02-02T07:46:00.007-05:00

Last week I posted on my everyday blog the difficulty I've had in finding disposable lab coats for Natha's upcoming Mad Scientist Party. I really want all of the boys to have their own lab coat to wear during the party & take home.

To keep costs down, I thought disposable lab coats were the way to go. Unfortunately, I couldn't find them locally & only found one store online that sold them individually (most places only sell them as a case of 30 & I only need 10) and that store wanted to charge almost $26 for shipping!

Hoping to find new listings, I checked Ebay everyday and found these coats:

I was going to pass because I had it in my head that the coats needed to be white. Nathan saw these & thought they were the coolest ever, so blue it is! I was able to get 10 coats + shipping for $17, a price I was very happy with & had in the budget.

I also got these gallon-sized biohazard bags to use as goody bags. These were free from my grandmother's nursing home. I just love them! Yes, I am a party planning nerd!

One Lump Or Two?

2009-01-26T20:49:00.009-05:00

When Maryjane of The Beehive Cottage posted these pictures of her granddaughter's 7th birthday party, I just knew I had to help show it off!

Isn't this little tea party darling? I love the heart doilies on the backs of the chairs! The tablecloth and dishes make a lovely tea party table.

Little heart shaped sandwiches, goldfish & grapes make the perfect tea party food!

This little pink metallic tree centerpiece is just right!

Here's the birthday girl, Miss Hailey Mae. Now that is a big cupcake!

Visit Maryjane at her charming blog The Beehive Cottage. She has lots more pictures of Hailey's birthday and pictures of her darling trailer!

Pooh Birthday Cake

2009-01-26T16:04:00.005-05:00

I made two birthday cakes for Henry's (BFF Karyn's son) 1st birthday over the weekend. It was fun because I used the same cake pans that I did for my son's 1st birthday almost 8 years ago!
Here's Henry's little smash cake:

When it comes to birthday parties, Karyn's family has a really neat tradition. Once a month they gather at a different family member's home to celebrate all of the birthdays in that particular month. Finger food, drinks & of course cake & ice are served. It is a fun and informal family get-together.

This month there were two birthdays to celebrate and some months they can have as many as 5. A decorated birthday box is set out on a table for each person who is celebrating a birthday and throughout the party anonymous monetary gifts are put into the box. This allows family members to give as they are able and not feel pressured into giving a gift.

Blog Award

2009-01-22T13:53:00.002-05:00

Donna at Party Wishes gave me this lovely award and I passed it on to a few of my favorite party blogs.

You can read more about it at my other blog

Party Madness

2009-01-21T13:17:00.007-05:00

I just came from Living Locurto where Amy has blogged about the Mad Scientist party she threw for her son's 6th Birthday. I love everything she did, especially the amazing cupcakes! Aren't they to die for??? I just love looking at how creative other people are with theme parties.

I started planning my son's 9th Mad Scientist Birthday Party in October when I was able to find so many cool props and goodies on clearance after Halloween.

The contents of the goody bags are done & now I just have to decide if the goody bags will be red BioHazard bags like you find in the medical field or a big black heavy-duty latex glove (like a Mad Scientist would wear). Your thoughts?

This has been one of the hardest parties I've planned for one of my kids. The theme is really easy to work with and I have tons of ideas - the problem is the "cool" factor. As my son turns 9, he is very conscience of wanting a birthday party, but of not having anything "babyish" or "uncool" at the party (that's a direct quote from the Birthday Boy himself!)

I have all of the experiments, decor and food planned out for the party. This week I've been working on the invitations. The invitations that Amy designed are so great. Be sure to check back to Amys' blog tomorrow when she will blog about the experiments the kids did at the party!

Carnival of Parties!

2009-01-15T05:43:00.003-05:00

In honor of her one year Blogaversary, Kendra over at My Insanity is hosting a carnival of great parties. Stop by and check out her daughter's cool Kim Possible party. While you are there, scroll through her blog to see all of her other AMAZING party pics. You can also link up to other moms who throw equally spectacular parties for their families & friends.

It's not a party unless you are there, so let's go!

Let the Planning Begin!

2009-01-13T11:39:00.005-05:00

I mentioned back in November that I was planning on a Mad Scientist party for my son's 9th birthday. Since his birthday is at the end of February, I decided it was time to get the party planning in full gear!

I first ran across these great scenes at BrucesWork.com. Bruce is actually a Senior Concept Artist for Oriental Trading Company and designed these. For those not familiar, Design-A-Rooms (also called Scene Setters by another company) are decorated plastic sheets that you attach to walls & doors with tape or tacky stick-stuff (not the technical name!). These decorations can instantly change the look of a space. In my case, I plan to use these Mad Scientist Lab Design-A-Rooms to decorate for Coco's party.

This scene will appear on the front door as the boys arrive:
Here's a picture of all the elements:

This picture is from Bruce's Works website and really gives you a feel for just how big these decorations are:

The best part is that they are actually Halloween decorations, so Oriental Trading has them on sale right now! I think 9 year old boys are going to love this!

Holiday Cookie Swap Invitations

2009-01-09T04:57:00.005-05:00

Here are pictures of the invitations I made for my Holiday Cookie Swap. You never know where you will find inspiration - I actually got the idea from a bridal shower idea book!

The recipe card slides right into the pocket of the apron. I used holiday scrapbook paper mounted to pre-cut blank invitations (purchased in a set with matching envelopes at Michael's) for the apron and added eyelets & cording accents. The pocket of the apron also has a button glued on (used shank remover to cut button shank on back).

Since the invitations had a few 3-D elements, I hand delivered all but one of the invitations.

I made the aprons before the recipe cards - big mistake! I just could not find a holiday recipe card template that had pastel colors, so colors don't exactly match. I found the recipe card template for free in a google search and had them printed at Office Max. What a difference professional printing makes and it only cost @ 30¢ a card!

I'll post pictures of the recipe book favors soon!

Holiday Cookie Swap

2009-01-06T10:34:00.008-05:00

The Holidays have come and gone & I feel like my life is finally getting back to order. In December I hosted my first ever Cookie Swap. The party was so much fun and everyone was excited to exchange cookies. I found so many great ideas for the swap at a website devoted strictly to cookie swap parties: Cookie-Exchange.com.

After reading the forums over at Cookie-Exchange.com, I decided to include a few of the suggested "rules" in my invitation. I asked that everyone bring 6 dozen homemade cookies with flour as the main ingredient (I didn't want someone spending hours making a yummy cookie while another person dipped Nutter Butters in melted chocolate).

I'll post a picture of the invitations later in the week. The invitation was worded like a recipe and was printed on a recipe card. The recipe card was then inserted into an apron I made from cardstock and eyelets.

Before the party I asked everyone to email their cookie recipe to me. Getting the recipes in advance allowed me to make sure we didn't have duplicates and to prepare a recipe book favor with all of the cookies recipes. Actually, my intention was to give out recipe books, but I procrastinated and didn't have them finished in time for the party! Just think what a nice surprise it will be when the girls receive their books in the middle of January LOL!
As each guest arrived, they put their platter of cookies on the cookie table. Then we socialized and munched on an appetizer buffet that I had prepared. About an hour into the party, I handed everyone a Christmas coat box lined with wax paper and we lined up. Everyone walked around the table and took 4 cookies from each platter (we had 19 different cookies in all!). After everyone went through the line once, they went back and picked 4 more cookies to equal the 6 dozen cookies they brought to swap.

Here's a picture of the swap:

Some of my lovely guests:

Here's Ronda (in the blue) from Ronda's Rants:

This is a party that definitely become an annual event!

Tissue Flower Topiary

2008-11-20T05:49:00.007-05:00

I've had a few people ask about the tissue flower topiaries in many of my party pictures, so I thought I'd tell you more about them. They were really easy to make - unfortunately, DIY has taken the tutorial off of their website.

First, purchase a Styrofoam topiary frame & floral picks from your local craft store and several rolls of party streamers. Cut your streamers into 20 inch strips and fold like an accordion fan. Then take the wire on the floral pick and wrap it around the middle and twist tightly all the way to the end of the wire. Spread the streamer out to resemble a flower & stick into the foam topiary ball. The "stem" of the topiary was simply covered in green streamers.
My mom & I originally made all of the topiaries for my daughter's Alice In Wonderland Tea Party last year. Since then, I have displayed them at a baby shower, Easter, my grandmother's 93rd birthday party, Emma's Strawberry Shortcake party and my daughter's pre-school even borrowed them for their annual Mother's Day Tea. The red and green topiaries make pretty Valentine's Day centerpieces.

The pots were handpainted with craft paint, foam brushes & rubber stamps.

After Halloween Sale

2008-11-06T18:05:00.005-05:00

I just love after holiday clearance sales! I was able to pick up a couple of things for Coco's birthday party & next year's Witches Tea.

Coco is going to celebrate his 9th birthday with a Mad Scientist Party. I'm planning lots of fun experiments for Coco and 8 of his friends. I was so excited to find these test tubes filled with slime and specimens at Walgreens. They were only 24¢ each and will make great goody bag fillers.
Here's another Mad Scientist goody bag filler I found - Candy specimen slides. I got these at Target for 44¢ each and I plan on giving one slide per bag. Coco's party isn't until February, but the expiration date on the candy isn't until July 2009.

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Here are a couple of things for next year's Witches Tea Party. I found these spooky goblets at Walgreens for 25¢ each & grabbed all 16 of them! They are going to look so good on the table next year!

I have been looking at these brooms since they came out, but just couldn't stomach paying $2.50 each for them. Today I got them at 75% at WalMart - only 63¢ each! I'm thinking I'll either use them for the invitations or as a party favor (Karyn & I have a whole year to think about it!)

I also picked up a few decorations like a 4 foot black lighted Halloween tree & a witch inflatable. Did I mention that I love clearance sales??!!

Early Preparation

2008-11-03T05:37:00.005-05:00

One of the best tips for successful entertaining came from my mother. Two days before a party, my mother always sets her table and buffet. To keep dust off place settings, she will place a clean sheet over the entire table. While I am not quite that organized, I do set my tables the night before a shindig.
This is a picture of my Witches Tea buffet the night before the party. Once I've chosen all of my serving pieces, I give them a quick wash - although the pieces are put away clean, some pieces only get used a couple of time a year and can get dusty. Next, I set out all of my serve ware, decorations & utensils. Lastly, I label each serving piece with a post-it note marked with the intended food. I also set out any store-bought food being served at the party. This method is so helpful for a few reasons:

Allows me to make sure I have the right utensils & platters for all of the food. It also gives me time to borrow or buy anything that I don't have.
Keeps me from running around the day of the party looking for platters. The day of a party can be hectic and stressful and a set table & buffet is one less thing to do.
Makes it easy for someone to help you set up. Karyn & I were lucky to have some extra help on the morning of the Tea. My friend Kelly was able to look at the post-it notes and quickly set out the food without having to ask.

More Witch Tea Party Pictures

2008-11-02T16:33:00.005-05:00

Here are a few more pictures from the Witches Tea Party last week. I've already been hitting the after Halloween sales looking for things for next year's party!

Here I am with my Mom, Aunt & 93 year old Grandmother

These witch hat cookies were super easy to make and looked really cute. You can find directions to make these cookies here.

Witches Tea Party

2008-10-30T13:17:00.013-04:00

Inspired by Donna at Party Wishes, Karyn & I hosted a Witches Tea Party. We invited all of our favorite "witches" and asked them to wear their very best witch hats.

The invitation:
The invitations were labor intensive, but really simple to make. My favorite part is the picture of the witches at tea!
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Yard Sign: Made this sign using a Cricut die-cut machine (Jasmine cartridge) and cardboard. We put it outside to greet guests as they arrived.
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Spell Table & Spell Book:

Easy decorations using empty bottles, food colored water & labels printed in Word. The spell book is an old book I had that I glued in a couple of spell pages, made a paper bag cover for & distressed. I think I'll put out my spell table every year!

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Tablescape:

Each place setting had a die-cut spider web (made with Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge), plastic spider glue dotted to plate (wash spiders first in case they come in contact with food) & a cauldron favor. It is hard to tell in the picture, but the stem of each goblet has a glittered spider ring attached. The glittered spiders were so easy & fun to make - I just bought a bag of $1.00 spider rings from Walmart & glittered them using Martha Stewart glitter. I hung the spiders on dowels secured to styrofoam to let the rings dry after glittering.

The centerpiece has another die-cut spider web, Dollar Tree raven, glittered pumpkin (made the same way as the spider rings) and silk roses I spray painted black. The purple candles are also glittered! Lanterns hung over the table. They were purchased at Walmart & Dollar Tree.

I wrapped each chair in 2 yards of tulle and tied it in a square knot. I love the look of the tulle - it gives a festive look and helps to unify the mismatched chairs. Plus, it is only 77¢ a yard!

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The Menu: I printed up a menu of our buffet making up spooky names for all of the food. I then distressed the paper by ripping it & inking the edges & glued it to a styrofoam tombstone. Both the tombstone & black plate holder were purchased at Dollar Tree - I told you I party on a budget!

I printed one of the invitation pictures , matted it on Halloween striped paper & placed it in a black frame. I love how it turned out!

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Name tags: My awesome mom made cauldron name tags using her Cricut (Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge).

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The Buffet: Since the Tea was at 9:30 in the morning, we served brunch type food such as breakfast casserole, mini quiche, danish & croissants, deviled eggs, fruit salad & bacon & sausage. We had coffee, tea, hot chocolate, OJ & ice water to drink.

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Let's Party!

Here's Ronda from Ronda's Rants & her daughter Rachel:

Some more witches:

Here's my 93 year old grandmother - doesn't she look just like one of the lovely witches pictured on the invitations?

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Favors: Karyn & I sent everyone home with a mini cauldron filled with a witch finger, glittered witch hat magnet (easy to make using a wood hat cut-out from Joann's that I glittered, glued a ribbon & glittered spider to and glued a magnet to the back) & spider ring.

Every witch took home a cd of classical Halloween music.

And a witch finger pretzel finger made with the Wilton candy mold.

The party was a great success and I think it is unanimous that it become an annual event!

Ice Cream Cone Treats

2008-10-20T13:26:00.004-04:00

I made these to send in for Emma's class on her birthday. Her pre-school asks for 2 small snacks - 1 sweet & 1 salty. I remember seeing a version of this in a magazine a long time ago, but ofcourse I couldn't find the article, so I improvised from memory.

First, I placed pretzel sticks in the bottom of colored ice cream cones.
Then I filled a napkin with 35 mini colored marshmallows, tied the bottom with a pipe cleaner and trimmed the excess napkin.I used Zots (scrapbook adhesive) to attach a pom pom cherry to the top and placed the napkin into the ice cream cone.
I placed the finished cone and a marshmallow candy cone into a clear cello bag tied with a twist tie (normally I would have used ribbon on the bag, but I wanted the snack to be easy for the kids to open).
A lot of impact for very little time & money!

Let's Party in Strawberry Land!

2008-10-18T08:22:00.011-04:00

Since there are so many pictures, I divided the party into different posts. Here's more party pictures: invitations, favors, cake & decorations, games & prizes.

The Birthday Girl parties!
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Let's get a tattoo!
So many choices!

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Let's paint!

Finished masterpieces!
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All Mixed Up!

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Strawberry Patch Picnic! Mmmm...berry yummy!
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Who has the rotten orange?

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Frisbee Toss!

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Fishing, anyone?

Gotcha!
Look what I caught!
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Let's bowl!
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Wanna race?

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Blowing out the candles!
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Opening presents! It was so hot outside (almost 90°!) that we moved the party inside to open the presents.

The party exceeded my expectations and Emma was so happy! She's already thinking of next of next year's theme!

Berry Festive Decorations

2008-10-17T14:03:00.019-04:00

The theme of my daughter's 5th Birthday was Strawberry Shortcake. I set the party up like a mini carnival with games, activities & prizes. Each station was named & decorated after a character from Strawberry Shortcake.

The front door was decorated with a Strawberry Shortcake poster (Dollar Tree), homemade strawberry plants and cut-outs. The strawberry plants were so easy to make: I just spray painted paint stir sticks green, attached 2 balloons with green pipe cleaners & clear tape & dotted the balloons with a black sharpie to look like seeds.

The strawberry cut-outs (seen in the door side windows) were cut out of cardstock, dotted with a Bingo game stamper and glued green tissue paper leaves. I also taped these to the floor in the house to create a path from the backyard where the party was held to the bathroom.

The "Welcome to Strawberry Land" is one of 10 signs we made for the party. The candy striped poles were a free find, the foam board was purchased at Dollar Tree & cut in half for each sign and the letters were made with my Cricut die-cut machine and scrapbook paper from my collection. We printed the character images from the Internet & my daughter colored them.
The cost of each sign was 53¢!

As the kids arrived, they were given a name tag with a Strawberry Shortcake sticker & a handle bag to collect their goodies. To save money, I used red lunch sacks from Target and stapled on cardstock handles. Big mistake! The humidity of the day and weight of the contents caused most of the bags to break! Luckily, I had plenty of extra bags. Next time I will splurge and purchase the sturdier handle bags.
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We held the party in our backyard and screened lanai. All of the games were in the yard and the cake & ice cream was served under the screen. My mother made the beautiful birthday banner from scrapbook paper, her Cricut, glitter & ribbon. The Strawberry Shortcake beach balls were purchased at Dollar Tree.

My mom & I made the topiaries last year for Lulu's Alice In Wonderland Tea Party. Michelle from Sweet Mady's Paper asked how they were made & I promise to post instructions soon!

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The Cake Table: The kids ate homemade decorated cupcakes and I served the large strawberry cake to the parents. The strawberry cake was made from 2 heart shaped cake pans. The night before the party I scooped ice cream into cupcake liners, placed them on a cookie tray, covered with plastic wrap & placed them into the freezer. This made serving ice cream a breeze at the party and the cost was way less than buying individual ice cream cups from the store. The table centerpiece was made with more strawberry plants stuck into a decorated coffee can and the posters came from Dollar Tree. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snack Table: I set out a vege tray and chips & salsa for the adults to snack on during the party. I made the Strawberry Shortcake hat for Emma from a hat leftover from her Alice party last year, ribbon purchased for a $1.00 at Michael's and plastic strawberries. The plastic strawberries were found a local dollar store and are actually clips. They were packaged 10/$1.00 and by simply pulling the spring mechanism from the center of the clip, I was left with 2 darling strawberry embellishments! For $3.21, I had enough of these strawberries to decorate the invitations, berry baskets, crayon boxes & hat - and I still have some leftover! -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are some pictures of the backyard. My husband strung fishing line from the lanai to the trees in the center of the yard to form a V shape. We hung paper lanterns & homemade hard candy from the string to give the yard a whimsical look. The hard candies are made from plastic plant pot saucers glued together, covered in colored cellophane & tied with curling ribbon on the sides. If you click on the pictures, they will show up larger and you can see the hard candy decorations better.

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Raspberry Torte Tattoos: Kids got to chose a Strawberry Shortcake tattoo or a bug tattoo (I didn't think the boys would want Strawberry Shortcake!).

The cost for this station was $7.63 ($5.50 tattoos + S&H from Ebay, $1.06 for tablecloth & $1.07 for sponges used to apply tattoos).

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Angel Cake Art: Each child painted Strawberry Shortcake themed suncathcers. I was upset when I opened the tablecloth because I thought I had purchased the round tablecloth, not the rectangle. It was too late to run out and buy a new one, plus I don't think the kids even noticed! I decorated empty baby food jars with scrapbook paper & yellow ribbon and filled them with water for the kids to clean off their paint brushes. I had Wet Ones wipes for quick clean up and name stickers to put on the back of the sun catchers. The kids left their masterpieces on the table to dry and collected them at the end of the party.

The cost of this station was $7.23 ($5.35 for sun catchers at Dollar Tree, 54¢ for paint brushes on clearance at Target, $1.34 for tablecloth). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Purple Pie Man Mix Up: The Purple Pie Man is the bad guy in Strawberry Land & I told the kids he mixed up all of the puzzle pieces and I needed their help to put them back together. Before the party, I colored pictures of 6 characters (torn from Strawberry Shortcake coloring books purchased at Dollar Tree), laminated them and cut the pictures into 5-6 puzzle pieces. The kids had to put together 1 puzzle character to win a prize. The prize was a homemade coloring book & box of crayons (see details here).

The cost of this station was $11.07 ($1.06 tablecloth, $3.53 crayons, $1.93 folders, $4.28 coloring books & 27¢ ribbon) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strawberry Patch Picnic: Kids ate a picnic snack of frosted animal crackers, strawberry Whoppers, strawberry Jell-O popcorn & strawberry fruit snacks (Target brand) & berry juice boxes. The snack was served in decorated pint-size strawberry baskets.

I staked a tarp with plastic picnic tablecloths into the ground and decorated the area with more strawberry plants. The cost was minimal (not including food) - $4.29 ($3.75 tarp & 54¢ for picnic clothes purchased on clearance at Big Lots). --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Orange Blossom's Rotten Orange: A game of "Hot Potato" played with a plastic orange and a Strawberry Shortcake music cd. Each child received a jar of homemade Orange Kool-Aid play dough as a prize.

The cost of this station was less than $1.00 (57¢ for the plastic orange & 43¢ for ribbon & scrapbook paper).----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blueberry Muffin Disk Toss: Strung a hula hoop between tree branches & the kids threw mini Strawberry Shortcake frisbees threw the hoop. Each child received a Strawberry Shortcake cello bag of bubbles and bubble blowers.

The cost of this station was $4.28 ($2.14 Strawberry Shortcake cello bags purchased on clearance at Party City & $2.14 for Strawberry Shortcake mini discs purchased at Dollar Tree). I already had the hula hoop & the bubble kits were purchased on clearance at CVS using a gift card, so nothing out of pocket!
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Huckleberry Pie Fishing: Kiddie blow-up pool filled with water & foam fish. The fish were cut out of craft foam and hardware washers were glued as the fish eyes. The fishing poles were made from brand new Scotch Brite handles, white string & a paper clip with a magnet hot glued to the clip. The kids had so much fun with this game! They each caught 5 fish and were able to take their fish & poles with them so that they could play the game at home. Everyone received a Happy Birthday Jingle Buddy for playing (mini bells with a resin clown topper).

Total cost of game: $17.25 ($3.21 pool on clearance at WalMart, $3.84 magnet circles, $4.23 craft foam, $5.97 washers). The Jingle Buddies were given to me by my mother from retail business that she no longer owns. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainbow Sherbet Bowling: Simple bowling game with empty 2 liter soda bottles and whiffle balls. I had originally filled the bottles part-way with colored water, but this made the bottles too heavy to be knocked over by the plastic balls. The alley is a piece of scrap plywood covered with a plastic tablecloth. Each child received a candy necklace as a prize.

The cost of this game was $2.13 ($1.07 for wiffle balls at Dollar Tree & $1.06 for the plastic tablecloth). My husband had the plywood in the garage, the soda bottles were collected by family & friends & the candy necklaces were purchased on clearance at CVS with Extra Care Bucks.

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Honey Pie Pony Race: The kids raced stick ponies around candy striped poles. Everyone won a marshmallow ice cream cone candy.

The cost of this game was $2.14 (stick ponies purchased at Dollar Tree). The ice cream candies were purchased at CVS with Extra Care Bucks. I'll post more party pictures tomorrow.

Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Cake

2008-10-15T07:02:00.006-04:00

Here are some more pictures from Emma's Strawberry Shortcake party. Each child received their own homemade cupcake. The cupcake liners & pick are Strawberry Shortcake.
Here's the cake before the Strawberry Shortcake candle and writing were put on. The bottom cake is a 9 x 13 sheet cake and the strawberry was made from 2 heart shaped pans. The little strawberry "seeds" are red Hershey Kissable candies.
Here's the Birthday Girl blowing out her candles. Sorry for the shadowy picture.

Crafty Party Favors

2008-10-14T13:33:00.010-04:00

Here are some of the party favors I made for Emma's Strawberry Shortcake party last weekend.

Berry Basket Picnic:
I purchased berry baskets from a local produce stand for 25¢ each. Since ribbon can be expensive, I purchased 1/2 yard of gingham fabric ($1.12 from WalMart), cut it into strips and wove it through the basket slots. I tied the fabric in a bow and hot glued a plastic strawberry to the center. The handle is 1 white & 1 red pipe cleaner twisted together. I used these baskets to put the kids snack and juice box in.
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Homemade Play Dough:

I made homemade Kool-Aid play dough using orange Kool-Aid (the Kool-Aid makes the dough smell yummy & gives it the orange color). The empty baby food jars were covered in scrapbook paper cut with decorative scissors. I spray painted the lids orange, tied an orange bow and glued on a label that reads, "Homemade Play Dough ~ Love, Orange Blossom." These were given to the kids as a prize at the Rotten Orange (played like Hot Potato) game.

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Coloring Books & Crayons: I tore 20 pages from Strawberry Shortcake coloring books purchased at Dollar Tree, hole punched the sides and attached the pages with ribbon to a red school folder (purchased during the back to school sales for 9¢ each). Instant coloring books!

The crayons were also purchased during the back to school sales at WalMart for 22¢ each. I added some inexpensive ribbon and a plastic strawberry to the front. The coloring books and crayons were prizes at another one of the party games.

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"Goody Bags":

At the end of the party, each guest went home with one of these containers. They are actually Crystal Light Drink containers that I altered with scrapbook paper, ric rack, and a mini straw hat spray painted pink. I love these containers because the kids can use them to hold treasures or a slit can be cut in the top and they can be used as penny banks.

Inside the containers were Strawberry Shortcake Band-Aids, stickers, fruit snacks and party blower.

I'll post more pictures of the party later in the week.