Ice Skating Party

The Perfect Ice Skating Party any kid would love.

First the perfect invite. I found this cute little gem at Traylorpapers.com.

Next, design the perfect cake. I always have to do two tiers because it's just that much more fabulous. I found the little ice skating bear online and it's actually a Christmas ornament. Then I had the baker place it to where it looked like she was ice skating the words right on the ice. Ignore the fact that the bear actually had to skate backwards to write this, but hey, it's very talented bear. Details. No one but me even noticed.
The perfect outfit. She did have on a crown, but that quickly fell off due to her fast agile skating abilities. Ok ok, it actually fell off due to a near fatal crash, but hey I have the power to edit here.
Next, the perfect party favor. I like finding unique things that parents don't actually toss in the trash as soon as their little ones fall asleep on the way home or just aren't looking. Or quickly eat all candy that's left while their innocent one sleeps. All the while fibbing a little to them when they awake saying you must have eaten it all before you fell asleep, you just don't remember.
So I found these cute books on sale at Barnes and Noble. For about $4.00 each. They came with the little ice skate necklace that I still see her friends wearing. I simply added a tulle bow and tied a sucker and ribbon to make them pretty and voila. A very simple party favor that they are sure to enjoy for awhile.
We did have a few boys at the party so I found these cute books for them. I did the same thing by adding tulle around them with suckers attached.

Ps. you have to tie candy on to favors like these because some kids aren't as excited as the parents are to get books as their favors. So trick them by adding just a little sugar. Parents are happy that it's not a ton more sugar that they wind up having to eat so their already sugar overloaded (from the birthday cake) sweeties don't eat that much more on the way home.

A&J

Fancy Nancy Cake

How to make your own Fancy Nancy Cake.

First, I had a bakery make a simple two layer cake. I'm not a great baker so this saved me quite a bit of work. Plus, they don't charge you much at all so this is actually one of the cheaper cakes I've ever done. I really wanted three layers, but that's a lot of cake, so I stuck to two.

Next, I added ribbon. I simply placed the ribbon around the cake and taped it together in the back. I did two layers of ribbon to give extra pizazz. Of course adding a big fake diamond embellishment for extra bling.
I then added a feather boa around the bottom, and cut a little off to stick on the top. Added a fake crown to the top layer, then added the mesh butterflies. The 2 (below) is just made of stock paper. And.....Then the for the finale...I added the plume feathers on top and voila.

The fanciest cake on the block. A few tips. Make sure the cake is very cold. Since this cake turned out to be bigger than what my refrigerator could hold, I practiced the night before. Took a picture, then put it back together right before the party. When the cake is warm, the butterflies were wanting to droop and fall out.

A&J

Monkey Party

My daughter really likes monkeys, but it was a challenge to make a girly monkey theme. So I found these monkey invites at a local invitation store, but the background was all wrong, they were red. So I cut out the trees and stuck them on my own background cardstock creation. The monkey and string came with the original invite and I attached the appropriate coordinating bow to the tail.

The monkey cake....

The party favors were stuffed monkeys with pink bows tied around the neck. I also dressed the party girl in a pink top with matching animal print leggings.

A great place to have the perfect monkey party is your local bounce place so they can jump around and be the monkeys we already know they are.

A&J

Lady Bug Party

For all you ladybug fans, here's a few cute ideas for a ladybug birthday party. If you have a Katie, this is a must for at least one of her parties...This happened to be my Katie Bug's 1st.

The invite I found at Scraplesspress.com.

I personalized her shirt with an iron on transfer. I simply bought printable iron on transfer that can be found at any hobby store or even at Walmart in the sewing/craft section and printed her name on the transfer.

A family friend makes these "to die for" angel food cakes and this is the only shape she makes, so I turned it into a ladybug by adding my own touches. The black dots, eyes and mouth are fondant that I made and put on. Very easy intro to fondant because you simple roll it out and cut out circles. The antennas are piping that I bent and curled for the antennas. And of course topped with a cute coordinating bow. The party girl should have her own antenna as well, made with the same piping on a plain headband.

No ladybug party is complete without actual live ladybugs. Depending on the season, you can buy ladybugs at your local nurseries. Early spring. However, since this party was in August I had to find them online and have them shipped in. Beware, they come in big quantities. 1,200 and more. I found these cute bug containers at Dollar Tree. Added this cute saying, and gave these out as the party favor for the kiddos to "help their own gardens grow."

A&J

Boys Construction Party

Cute idea for boys construction or dump truck party. I purchased this large metal Tonka truck at Toys R Us and filled the back with brownie bites. Some were covered in sugar, some in powdered sugar and some just plain. Best part about it was that the birthday boy could have the truck to play with afterwards. It turned out great!

Small smash cake for the birthday boy was made to match. It had fondant construction cones on top with a big "2".

You can cover water bottles in coordinating paper to match.

The invite was found at Hobby Lobby and printed out. The back of the truck dumps out to show the party info.

A&J

Lowe's Birthday Party

Not many people know this, but you can take your kiddos to you local Lowe's or Home Depot for monthly workshops and some of them will actually do birthday parties. We had a birthday party at Lowe's this year and it was a hit!

The kids all received an apron to wear, hammer, goggles and a kit of their choice with all of the items and instructions inside to build it. And best of all, it was all free!

Invitation was created in Photoshop and printed out on cardstock to mail.
My boys aren't big fans of cake, so we came up with a few alternatives. The cake bites were a new thing I had tried to make (I'll post something on them later). Basically cake, covered in chocolate and on a stick. The toolbox was something my husband whipped out with some scrap pieces of wood and I painted it with some old red paint from the garage. It's filled with some brownie bites that I just picked up from the local grocery store (Albertsons bakery).

The kids showing off their projects.

For party favors, I bought these packages of Crayola paint pens for the kids to take home and paint their wooden project they had just made.

Update: Added a few more pics of the party....

A&J

Dinosaur Party

My son loves dinosaurs. For his 3rd birthday party we did a dinosaur theme. I had the cake made by someone, and the plastic dinosaurs and trees were a Target $1 spot find (great for party favor ideas as well). We had printed on the invitation for the kids to wear their camo to the birthday party to go along with the theme.

The t-shirts below were part of the party favors as well and the kids changed into them at the party. I downloaded some dinosaur clipart from the internet and added the kids names at the bottom (ex: Jaxon-O-Saurus) in MS Word. I grabbed a package of iron-on transfer paper and just printed the clipart and names on it. Iron them on a basic white t-shirt and you have custom shirts!

Davis-O-Saurus

Conley-O-Saurus

A&J