Skylanders Birthday Party

Hey, Leslie's back today with another fabulous birthday party!


My oldest son turned 9 this weekend!  He didn't want many "toys" for his birthday this year and when my husband and I were birthday shopping, I felt a little sad because I feel like he is nearing a new stage.  Why do they grow up so fast?  Ok, enough of my boobing! 

This year, we did a family birthday party but he still wanted a "theme" (really, I don't know where he gets it from ; )    Last year was Angry Birds, but this year he and his brother are really into a game called Skylanders, so Skylanders it was.  I didn't go all out, but I thought if there are others out there whose boys love this game as much as mine, they might like a few of the things we came up with.

For the decorations, I drew the all important Skylander elements on the coordinating colored balloons.  I printed off coloring sheets of some characters here and then colored them while I finished up watching the last season of Parenthood.  (I love that show!)

I made some little confetti and/or cupcake toppers of the elements.  You can use them as well!  Here is a link to my file.  (If you print it, it will be a little pixely.  I took a black Sharpie and traced the edges to sharpen them up a little). 

But then, my son requested root beer floats and ice cream sundaes for the party, so I used them on top of the floats, but forgot to get a good picture of all the floats lined up. You get the idea:

Next, we had Skylander trivia.  The parents were out of the loop on this game... but the kids enjoyed it.  And, to save you time from looking up random trivia and learning more than you probably ever wanted to know about Skylanders... here is the link to our trivia!  Feel free to use it.

One last game idea:  you could take down the balloons and say the name of a certain Skylander character.  The kids have to run to the correct element that particular Skylander coordinates with.  I included a list of these under the link for trivia above.

Last, I made a little favor for the cousins to take home. I made them using a similar technique as described here (I use Glossy Accents rather than Diamond Glaze). Also, rather than use scrabble tiles, I wanted something bigger, so my brother cut these wood squares for me, which measured about 1 1/2" x 1 1/2". I found the graphics online, copy and pasted them into Word, printed them off and glued a character on both sides of the wood. Then I screwed in the key chain parts that I purchased from JoAnns. (If you want more details on how to make them, just leave a comment or email).
And yes, Tinker Bell is not a member of Skylanders, but there are fairies... so I figured my niece would rather have Tink than Terrafin!

Hope this gives you some ideas for a birthday party or a fun summer activity if you have little ones that love this game like mine!  (Or are mine the only ones???)

Fire truck birthday party

My sister, Leslie, is back with another great party idea:

My youngest son is a big fan of police, rescue and fire truck vehicles.  We do daily "drive-bys" if we are anywhere near the vicinity of our town fire station (and even when we aren't we somehow manage to end up driving by).  So, today we celebrated his 4th birthday in true Fire Truck Party style!

I knew he would love a t-shirt with a fire truck, but I could not find one in stores and what I could find online was either cheesy and/or expensive.  So, I found an imagine online that I liked, printed it off, and cut fabric shapes mimicking the online image.  I used knit fabric which does not fray (I actually used old t-shirts).  Then I ironed the shapes onto fusible interfacing and then ironed them onto a basic black t-shirt.  From past experience, I knew I would need to sew around the edges, but my sewing machine was giving me problems that night, so I decided to use embroidery floss which actually turned out a lot cuter, (I think).

He was pretty excited about it.

The fire fighters were awesome and the kids LOVED the tour.

We gave them this before we left.

Here are some of the ideas for the party we had after our trip to the fire station:

I am soooo not a cake decorator.  However, I can print and cut : ) so I found pictures online of a fire station, hydrant, etc., added a new truck, and made them into a cake!

The guests each choose one of these on their way home. 

We had a beautiful day and had the party outside.

Do you have any spring birthdays coming up?  I will be back to post two more party ideas over the next few weeks:  Skylanders and Batman! 

Recap of Birthdays Past

Birthday season is rapidly approaching at our house.  5 of the 8 of us have birthday's within a couple weeks of each other.  When Cheyenne was just little, Bill and I decided not to do a big birthday party for the kid's every year - what can I say, we're cheap. :)  So we do a party when they turn 6 - now in school and they finally have friends to invite, and when they turn 8, 12, and 16 - those are all big years to us.  So lucky for us, no parties to plan this year.  While I do enjoy all the party planning and the idea of having a party, I tend to stress out a little the day of the party - it's all too crazy and chaotic. lol So I'll share a recap of parties we've done in the past and those my awesome sister, Leslie, who is the party queen, has shared with us.  Click on the links to see more of each party.

Army Party
For Billy's 8th birthday we had so much fun with an Army Party.  I think this was the only time Bill actually got involved much - and I think he had as much fun as the boys.  I still, a year later, have one of the boys who every time he sees me says, "That was the funnest party ever!"

Invitation:

As they arrived, I gave them all dog tags I'd made them and let them fold/decorate/fly their own paper airplanes, while waiting for everyone to get here.  Then we moved on to a little calisthenics "Simon Says".  We set up a nerf gun shooting range upstairs in our bonus room, which was a huge hit!  They even shot at a few stuffed animals with target vests on them.  The last activity was a scavenger hunt "rescue mission" to find bags of army men for each of them.

Shooting range

 Carnival Party
Since this was the Triplets birthday party, I had to make it fun for both boys and girls and enough to keep 20 kids entertained.  Yes, we invited the whole kindergarten class.  Luckily only about half came, and we actually had as many helpers as we did kids. :)

Invitation:

As the kids arrived we gave them paper bags to decorate with markers and lots of stickers.  This is what they put their candy in from the pinata and we had carnival bags of popcorn and a few other things we added. We had 8 or 9 different stations set up and split the kids up into groups to rotate through them.  We had face painting, a milk can toss, a fish pond game, dropping clothes pins into jars, scoop the ducks blindfolded, a football toss through a hoop, golf putting, a bean bag toss, and then a photo booth of sorts.  This was so much fun!  I highly recommend getting lots of helpers.  We had enough help that I was able to just walk around and heard kids and take lots of pictures.  It was great!  We ended with a couple of group games and a pinata that would not break! lol  Another great tip, with the possibility of that many kids I split all the candy up into snack size bags and wrote their names on each bag.  That way everyone got plenty of candy and they didn't kill each other to get it. :)

Lego Party
We did just basic party games - pin the door on the lego house, drop the lego into a jar, and a couple others.  I know there are a million lego party ideas out there, so I'll just share the best part of ours.  We gave the kids each a little lego vehicle set like this:
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They each built one and then we raced them over and over again.  They also took the cars home as their favor (along with some candy.) The boys had a blast! 

Cooking/Pizza Party
This was back before I blogged at all, actually before I'd even heard of blogs, but it was really fun so I'll share it now.  For Natalie's 7th birthday she wanted a cooking party.  We had the girls bring an apron, or we had a few for those that didn't.  While they arrived they decorated bands that we made into chef hats (stapled tissue paper inside.)  Then they made their own pizzas.  We gave them the dough and let them roll it out, and top it with whatever kinds of toppings they wanted.  While the pizzas cooked, the girls went outside and played.  Then they ate the pizza for lunch, opened presents, and that was about it.  A little more prep work making the dough and stuff, but probably the easiest party I've done.

Wow, how these girls have changed in 7 years! :)

Now for Leslie's amazingness:
Angry Birds Party
Go click on the link.  Leslie gives great details of her super fun party.  Every time my kids see these pictures they say with a big sigh, "I wish we could live by Aunt Leslie and go to their parties."  My favorite part is the larger than life Angry Birds game.

The kids threw balls with angry bird faces on them at the tower of boxes.  It was my brother's job to restack it each time. lol

And aren't these the coolest?! My boys would LOVE these for their backpacks.  Leslie made one of these for each of the kids.

Disney Cars Party
Leslie floors me with her artistic ability.  I have trouble with stick people.  Check out the cars she made out of cardboard boxes.

The kids got to race IN the boxes!

Where the Wild Things Are

This was such a fun idea.  She even let the kids have a wild rumpus!  However, the best part is her decorations.  They are amazing!!!  Are those pictures the cutest things or what?!  Go check out the cupcakes she made, too.



Well, I hope that gives you some ideas for your next birthday party and makes planning that perfect party just a little easier.  Leslie is also entering her month of birthdays as well (all three of her boys have birthdays within weeks of each other), so hopefully she'll be back soon with more great birthday ideas.

Where the Wild Things Are Birthday Party

Do you have any "wild things" in your home?  My sister, Leslie, is back today with another great birthday party idea.


We did this party when my youngest turned 2.  He has always been a bit of a "wild thing" so this was a fitting theme, plus our family loves this book.

The decorations were really fun to make.

The cupcake idea came from here.

To make these personalized illustrations, I found images from the book online and printed them (you could also scan pages from the book).  Then, I copy and pasted pictures of the birthday boy into Microsoft Word.  I sized them down to fit the illustrations, and then printed and cut out his picture.  Then, I glued them on to the illustration print outs.

I still laugh when I see these.  We still have some hanging in his room.  

For the party guests, I made these fancy crowns (with help from the B.K. employee who said we could have six : ), using the same method listed above.  The kids loved to see their pictures in place of "Max."  They also received their own copy of the book.

The wild guests, looking quite docile at the moment.

After my husband read the book to the kids, we gave them sixty seconds to "Let the wild rumpus start." They yelled, screamed, and ran around like crazy...actually, now that I think of it, it seems like it was only my boys running around like crazy, and their cousins staring at them in panic. Thank goodness it was only sixty seconds!

  A few days after the party, when the fun of tearing through the house in their "Max" crowns wore off, I cut out the pictures from the crowns and glued them inside our copy of Where the Wild Things Are, so I can always remember my three wild things at this age. 

(OK, let's be honest, there are plenty of days when I'd like to forget their daily wild antics, but again, they love to see the pictures and relive their day as "Max")

Thanks Leslie!  Isn't that such a cute idea?!  I love her kids' pictures in the illustrations.

Cheyenne's Birthday

 

My baby just turned 16!!  My sweet little girl is getting all grown up!  Where has the time gone?  Seems like yesterday she was this little.

Now she'll be dating and next month she'll have her driver's license.  Oh, and she's waiting for a phone call to see if she'll have a job through the holidays, too.  I don't think I'm ready for this.  Can I be this old?  Wasn't I just turning 16? (Sigh...)  The fun part of her getting older is we have a lot of fun together.  She's my scrapbooking and jewelry making buddy.  We had so much fun going to basketball games together last year.  She's my fashion consultant.  She's my friend.  I sure love you, Cheyenne!

Before I get too, mushy, I'll share with you the card I made for her.  Here's my philosophy on card making.  I like cards to be quick, easy, and not make people guilty for throwing them away.  :)  I don't want to be the reason for someone's hoarding, someone's overflowing box of cards they can't bear to throw away because someone went to a lot of work making them. lol  So here it is, simple, easy, yet cute.

Step 1: I cut an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of brown cardstock in half the short way.  That leaves you with two card bases sized 4 1/4"x 5 1/2", also known as an A2 size card.  Then I tore the numbered sheet of paper slightly smaller.  I have a few of these embossed paper packs that have different colored cores so when you tear or sand the other color shows through.  Really fun for cards or scrapbooking.

Step 2:  I sanded all the 1s and 6s for 16, ya know. Glued that onto the brown base.

Step 3:  With my cricut I cut the "sweet" from the Graphically Speaking cartridge, and "16" from Doodletype.  Glued those on with my Zig 2 Way Glue - it's like gluing with a ball-point pen, awesome! Finally, grabbed some ribbon and miraculously managed to tie a decent bow on the first try.  Yes, I have a love/hate relationship with bows.  I think I'm a little bow-tying handicapped, they just never come out right.  So when they do turn out right, I'm thrilled!

That's it! Quick and easy.

Come back tomorrow when I share more birthday fun and a fabulous upgrade of a box cake mix!

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Disney Cars Birthday Party

If your kids are in love with Mator, McQueen and the rest of the gang, this post is for you.  Leslie is back today with another super fun birthday party, just as all the fun of Cars 2 comes to your house!

My 3-year-old loves cars, trucks, trains, tractors- you name it.  He is the only person I know who gets excited when we hit construction while driving (which seems to be everywhere in Utah County right now)!  To me it's a little truck or a big truck but he corrects me on the specifics: pumper, grader, paver, roller etc.  (I'm sure the fact that we are constantly renewing the Mighty Machines DVDs from the library has encouraged this fascination).

Anyway, he also loves the Disney Cars characters so when he turned three last April, that was the theme of choice. 

I was very inspired by the party featured here on the How Does She website.  I love seeing other blogger's party ideas for inspiration. I thought these cars looked so fun!  So, I went to work.  First, I (and every friend and neighbor I could ask) collected cardboard boxes.  Then, I tried to follow this tutorial but ended up with my own trial and error models.  Last, I got out the paint and my son's car collection and had fun recreating the details.

I'm glad a took a few pictures the day before because party day was rainy and cold and we didn't get to race around for long.  However, the cars were used all summer long and we still have one as a decoration in his room.

The decorations were simple.  I made a runner and racing flags from the checkered fabric (we had to be able to wave them and say, "Gentlemen start your engines" before they began to race around), and a pennant banner with the birthday boy's name (which is still hanging in his Cars room). 

I am not a great cook or cake decorator.  (Sometime I should post the pictures of the melting Lego block cake that was never meant to be).  But, this was easy enough and for the 2-year old and friends there were sufficient ohhhs and ahhhs.  (The Oreo racetrack helped).

The treat bags were also quite simple.  I searched for cars images online, copy and pasted them into Word, and inserted the guests names on the images.

Then we raced in between rain showers.

This little one and Sally could hold their own against all those boys!

Now that Cars 2 was released on DVD, I've got to remember that for a certain someone's stocking stuffer!  Thanks for reading!

Thanks Leslie, that is one super fun party! Kachow!

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