Madeline’s 4th Fairy Party

I’ll admit it.  I show my children love by throwing them fun, what my family would refer to as “over-the-top” parties.   I consider it over-the-top when you break the bank, and I really didn’t (for this one).  Heh.

We’re kicking it off with a fun birthday banner! 

The paper pack is from Stampin’ Up, and I used Cricut Cartridges (Storybook for “birthday” and CTMH’s cartridge for “Happy”).  What I was the most excited about is the background.  I saw it used in a display at Michael’s and immediately asked if they sell it.  They DO!  It’s bulletin board background found in the education section for teachers.  There are all kinds too.
On the table:  a fairy planter used to hold napkins, tissue paper lined clear bowls for goldfish and pretzels, fairy terrarium, extra goodies, and favors


I made these fairy cookies with royal icing ahead of time using flower, crown, and wand shaped cookie cutters.

No, sorry.  These aren’t cake pops.  They’re just marshmallows dipped in melted pink candies and sprinkled with different kinds of sprinkles.  I suggest covering your foam cone in aluminum foil and hot gluing it to a candle stand.

I used a cake stand to make a quick fairy terrarium with a little decorated wooden birdhouse my girls painted, a fairy figurine, and some clay mushrooms, all nestled on a nest of faux moss.

The drink station:  pink lemonade of course with extra wide color coordinated straws and decorated little water bottles.

The fairy stamps are from CTMH- Believe in Your Dreams, and Birthday Princess(?)

As each guest arrived (wearing her own tutu by request), she was turned into a fairy by my 8 year-old helper fairies.  Each guest received dollar store wings, and a tiny crown, the girls blew bubbles around her, sprinkled glitter on her, and gave her her fairy name (middle name + favorite flower).

My five year-old helpers were my “gift fairies.”  They took the gifts from arriving guests and put them in the appropriate place.

Inside we had a dress up station

a doll house

a face paint station

and a fairy lounge where several fairy-themed books were collected.  Note the painted toadstool where Madeline sat to open her presents.

After a little play time, the girls made fairy wands (dollar section at Michael’s) by decorating them with stick on jewels.

They needed their wands to play “What Time is it, Fairy Godmother?” 

After several group shots and fairy dancing

The birthday girl blew out her candles.

Target does a really good job with birthday cakes in our opinion.  For this one, I chose the Tinkerbell cake, but I asked them to use the topper and accessories from the Fairy Garden cake.  Voila!

Each fairy went home with a package of sparkly purple play dough (see recipe) and rotini noodles I dyed pink.  They’re just fun to use with the play dough.  Each package was tied with a little bottle of bubbles and a fairy thank-you tag.
Lavender Sparkly Fairy Dough
Mix:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups salt
2 TBS. cream of tartar
Add:
3 cups water
1/3 cup oil
3 TBS. food coloring (optional)
several drops of essential oil like lavender
a generous shaking of glitter
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture forms into a ball. Remove and knead until dough is soft and has lost its stickiness. Keeps well in a sealed container for a good long time. This recipe makes enough for sharing.
 
The most adorable fairy of all was our 11 week old puppy, Sunshine!

Enjoy!  : )

Hawaiian volcano island cake

Has it really been this long since I updated??  Well, there’s nothing like a relaxing two week Hawaiian vacation to get the creative juices flowing again.  We hit the ground running with two of my daughters’ birthday parties the week we returned.  Savannah wanted a Hawaiian pool party and this is her cake.

We forewent the dry ice eruption because the vendor closed Fri. evening and her party was Sunday night.  Oh, well.  We still had a sparkler in the shape of a 6 and 6 candles to blow out.

The island is two round cakes carved to hug the volcano, and the volcano is two chocolate chip bundt cakes, carved again to taper at the top.  The lava is actually orange and red vanilla pudding and the accessories are Play Mobil toys.  It’s not cheating!  It’s creative.  : )  Luckily they went through the dishwasher just fine.

And here’s the birthday girl with a fresh orchid lei she made on the cruise.  Happy 6th birthday, Savannah Banana!

Aaron’s 6th Mad Scientist Birthday Party

      Our friends Karen and Mike put their heart and soul into this AWESOME mad scientist birthday party for their son Aaron.   My Savannah had a blast!  (No pun intended.)



   This is the sign decorating the front entrance, and I guess it helps when you’re related to a professional illustrator.  (If you’ve ever visited the Pentagon in DC, you’ve probably seen his work.) 

The festivities kicked off with each child receiving his/her own personalized lab coat. 


It wouldn’t be a mad scientist party without some homemade flubber- many of them just called it goo or slime, or in one little girl’s case, making brownies, because she used every color of food coloring.   Ech!

You (birthday boy) start with 1/2 cup of Elmer’s glue


And add water, then food coloring, and finally borox to get it really gooey.  I forget the exact measurements, but the recipe is easily googled.

This is where the kids had to abandon their spoons and get messy.  Squeezing out the extra water is important.


And the end result is some fabulous albeit messy flubber!  I don’t envy the dishes Karen had to do after this one.


The next fun experiment was alka seltzer rockets!  Woot!  The kids used what looked like 35mm film canisters, but they were white plastic and the lids didn’t go on quite as tight.  I’m guessing that’s key. 

Basically, you fill it just less than halfway with water, drop in half or a whole tablet of alka seltzer, replace the lid,


stand it on the ground- lid down, and get out of the way.


This all has to be done pretty quickly because you only have about 2-8 seconds before….LIFT OFF! 


By then the kids were ready for snacks, and oh my!  Check out this party table!



Eyeball cupcakes, beakers full of who knows what, worms, drinking cups that are actually beakers with eyeballs in the bottom, and where the HECK do you get dry ice?



All the kids wanted to touch the “smoke” from the dry ice, obviously.  I highly recommend the strawberry/apple/banana/sugar and cinnamon salsa with cinnamon pita chips.  Mmm-hmm!

And just when we thought the party was over, there’s more!  Homemade lava lamps!



We all saw what the alka seltzer did in water, but would it bubble in vegetable oil?  Good question…

This was another easy experiment that still guaranteed to blow your mind.  Fill an empty water bottle 3/4 full with vegetable oil.  Top it off with water.  Drop in 10 drops of your favorite color food coloring, and add an alka seltzer.  Voila!  Insta-hippie!


This party is definitely going down as one of my favorites.  Good job, Karen and Mike!

 

Wishful Thinking Layout

Here is one of the layouts I did for Lexi’s half sleepover birthday party this past summer.  Having 15 girls here ranging in age from 3-8 made Simon (my nephew) feel like a rooster in a hen house.  He appropriately used the floor to ceiling mirror in our basement to get himself pumped for the occasion.  However, it didn’t even phase him that he didn’t get to stay for the party.  Heading to the movies and pounding a giant bucket of popcorn with Uncle Rich was just as good…

Dora Explorer Birthday party

Let me just get this out of the way…I hate Dora!  And I don’t mean roll my eyes at the sound of her voice hate her, but seriously loathe everything about her: the way she screeches, her too-big head, and how her clashing neon ensemble burns into my corneas so that I continue to see it when I look away.  However, Madeline is smitten, so if it’s a Dora party she wants…

Her backpack party invitations opened to reveal a map (who has an equally nauseating voice) with the party information.

It was a gorgeous, albeit windy October afternoon, and the guests arrived to play on the playset, our entire collection of Little Tikes, and our moon bounce ($100 at a yardsale, half the price of renting.)

I read the kids one of Madeline’s favorite books, Dora’s Spooky Halloween adventure- basically Swiper swipes their candy and they go on an adventure to find it.  So….

this is where it came in really handy having land.  I was able to recreate the story by setting up a spooky forest, a pumpkin patch where they each got to pick a pumpkin, and a haunted house- our Little Tikes climbing gym decorated like a haunted house where they eventually found the candy (the pinata).

We’re also lucky to have a willing and tolerant 7 year-old sister to play Swiper.  I’ve never heard little ones scream, “Swiper, no swiping!!” with such conviction.
Of course the party couldn’t be perfect because la pinata plan back-fired just a tad.  The stupid Dora pinata only allowed you to fill the body with treats.  How silly is that when her head could easily hold another 5 lbs?  So I filled the head too.  I’m hoping the decapitation is long forgotten by now, but I still giggle when I see this pic of Madeline’s reaction.

And finally, we came back to the porch to paint the pumpkins and have cake and ice cream.  Hopefully, this full and fun-filled day was enough to fill her Dora love-tank for a long time (read: forever).

Lexi’s Half Sleepover!

 
Kickin’ it off with her invitations I made from CTMH’s Cherry-O paper.  I hope you can tell they’re supposed to be sleeping bags.  The pillows are cut from white felt.  And you can’t see it well, but the cherry stem on the tag provides the backslash in the fraction for 1/2.  You pull her head and the party information comes out like a book mark.

So a half sleepover runs just like a regular sleepover….
1.  The girls show up in pajamas at 6:00

2.  Bring a sleeping bag for games like “piggy-piggy” and musical sleeping bags

3.  Decorate pillow cases

4.  Do the whole cake/presents bit

5.  Hunt for glo-sticks in the dark backyard

6.  Include glo-sticks in a rockin’ dance party

7.  And my favorite part-  THEY GO HOME AT 9 PM!! 

It also helps if you have an amazing sister to help put it all together.