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A Cowboy and Cowgirl Birthday Party

The twins turned 5 on Sunday. 5! I can hardly believe it.  Marisol wanted to ride a horse for her birthday (as she does most days).  So we decided to have a Cowboy and Cowgirl themed party.  Flynn tends to just go with the flow, he generally thinks everything is a great idea ... unless I'm taking him shopping of course, he tends to voice his opinion on that subject.

It didn't take me long to find a location for the party.  A quick google search of horse riding in San Diego took me to the Mega Arte Riding Academy.  By chance this wonderful place also hosts parties.  The party was split into three parts - horse riding, feeding the animals, and then party time.  Each portion lasted about an hour.

Before I share a ton of photographs though, here are the precious birthday kids.

Horse Riding

There were three instructors to look after the kids.  They took them around the ring, through cones, over small jumps, and some kids even trotted.  Flynn thought trotting was hysterical, he couldn't stop laughing as he bounced up and down around the ring.

Animal Feeding

The kids were each given a bucket of food for the animals (which needed to be topped up numerous times throughout our tour - the animals were very well fed).  There were pigs, roosters, horses, llama, peacocks, bunnies and goats to feed.

The Party

Activities

I had set up number of activities for the kids. 

There were wooden horses to throw hoops over, horseshoe toss, tin cans to knock down, and a playground with swings, a slide and toys to play on.

The wooden horse idea came from Growing Home (which I found via Ohdeedoh).  I contacted a friend (who was also a party guest) who's dad loves making things with wood and had him make a couple for me - you can contact them at Nana's Tutu Trunk.

We had the token mustache photo station which is popular at the moment.

I purchased the mustaches from Piccadilly Party Co on Etsy.  The frame I found at a thrift shop for $1.99 and I had my husband hang some rope from it.  I put the collection of mustaches in a silver bucket along with a bandanna for those wanting to use that in photographs too.

I lined all of the tables with brown paper and set out buckets of crayons for the kids to draw.  There was also a bucket of western themed coloring book and crayon packs (that the kids could also take home with him), and we had cookie decorating.

For the cookie decorating I had the Edelweiss Bakery I have been using for years make cowboy cookies for me with plain white icing.  I set out an assortment of Wilton Sparkle Gel and Edible Color markers in buckets for the kids to decorate their cowboys.

The Mini Western Activity Kits were purchased from Oriental Trading.

The Food and Drink

The twins are not allowed to have soda, so we decided to go with milk and water for the party.  For those who didn't want plain milk or water though I set out containers containing chocolate powder and crystal light to fancy their drinks up a bit.

I found the great idea for the personalized party straws on Pinterest, they were made by On To Baby.  I simply took large address labels, folded them (before peeling off the backing), used some mini western themed letters and stamped the names on, then cut a small triangle in the side of each, peeled the backing off and attached them to the straws. 

The milk bottles are actually wine carafs I purchased at World Market.  I was worried about bugs getting into the milk though so I made little covers for them.  I simply cut out a circle of oil cloth, turned it upside down and placed it over the top of the bottle.  Then I stitched a thin piece of elastic together to make a circle and slipped it over the top of the oil cloth and bottle.  While it was on the bottle I hand-stitched the elastic onto the oil cloth every centimeter or so.  Once stitched together I flipped it inside out and put it over the top of the bottle as a lid.

The biodegradable gray and white paper straws were purchased from Amazon.

The drink cups and lids, as well as the containers for the drink mixes were purchased from Smart & Final.

We order Subway for our guests for lunch.  Along with that there was plenty of candy, horseshoe shaped cookies, grapes, meringues, cupcakes, popcorn, pretzels, cowboy cookies, and dip with veggies.

The lollipops were purchased from Party City, you can customize your own labels for them.

The adorable farm house candy holders with little silver scoops were purchased from World Market.  They were filled with jelly lollies, jelly beans, M&M's and yogurt covered raisins.

The dip and veggie cups were very easy to make.  I put a spoonful of hummus, yogurt dip, or tzatziki dip in alternate souffle cups then popped a few green beans, celery sticks and cucumber sticks in each.

The Cupcakes

I made yummy chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and dunked each into a bowl of chocolate sprinkles.  Each cupcake was topped with a horse.  I found tubes of horses at Joann's.  Most places carried tubes of assorted farm animals so I was ecstatic when I found ones with just horses in them.

There was a very cheeky girl who somehow managed to sneak a second cupcake.

Party Favors

Each guest went home with a handmade hobby horse, cowboy hat and a bandanna on a stick to fill with decorated cookies, a horse from their cupcake, gifts from the 'pass the parcel' game, lollipops, and Mini Western Activity Kits.

The hobby horses ended up being a lot of fun for the kids to play with during the party too.

The Hobby Horses - my husband purchased the pre-cut sticks at Home Depot.  The horse heads were made out of socks.  I found the idea on Dandee however made a few changes.  I used regular buttons for eyes.  I used a combination of rope, grommets (found at Beverlys), and canvas straps (similar to what you would use for a bag handle).   The mane was made out of Lion Brand Wool-Ease in wheat.  I used leftover rope from the hula-hoops to wrap tightly attach the sock onto the stick (along with gorilla glue).

The bandannas on sticks - The sticks were the exact same ones we used for the hobby horses.  The bandannas were purchased from Amazon.

The cowboy hats were purchased from Oriental Trading.

Invitations were sent using Punchbowl.  They have a lovely horse invitation that has twin horses on it.

 

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Princess Adventure Story Book

At some stage during BlogHer I received this:

 

www.hellohanna.com

Hello Books: Princess Castle

Ages: 4+

rrp: $9.95

I have no idea where I was, or how I acquired it, but Marisol was over the moon when I showed it to her. 

We love to make our own books.  I feel that it encourages imagination, helps children's reading skills, as well as inspiring a love of books and crafting. 

The kit comes with an accordian style book, removable stickers and lots of ideas for fun things to create.  It's very simple for children to understand.  Marisol was able to look at the pictures and immediately choose the stickers she would need to re-create them in her book.  She also used her crayons to create things like a pond, clouds, grass and a mountain.

This is just one reason why I love attending conferences such as BlogHer.  I am introduced to fabulous companies such as this one.  If you haven't taken a look at the Hello Hanna website, I highly recommend it.  They have some lovely things for children that would make wonderful gifts such as paper dolls, books, and placemats. 

They also have edible cupcake toppers, cupcake stands, and wishing trees, as well as new items on the horizon.  Their books and placemats would also make lovely additions to birthday parties.  Take a look at their ideas gallery.  Such fabulous ideas and beautiful images.

X-TREME Bird Feeders

I was recently asked to host an Elmer's X-TREME craft party at my house.   My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to build bird houses using wood, and after I accepted my mission, I was advised that a mystery product also needed to be used, and I could choose glitter or buttons.

Pre-party I attempted to build a bird house for the first time out of popsicle sticks and an hour later still not being finished I realized that this plan had disaster written all over it.  Afterall, I had invited 4 and 5 year old children over.   Short attention spans coupled with fiddly work was not going to be a good mix for them.  So a quick revision of my plan and a quick 30 minute project later and this is what I came up with instead:

So once our plan was in place, Marisol and I hit the ground running for craft supplies and food for our party.

THE FOOD:

Sticking with the orange, white and blue theme of Elmer's, I had a blast coming up with food for the party:

• Peach Parfaits: 1 large tub of vanilla yogurt mixed with 1 tub of cool whip, alternate in a cup with peaches and top with granola.
• Jelly Oranges: Cook jelly according to the package directions.  Slice an orange in half and remove inside.  Fill with the jelly liquid.  Refrigerate until set.  Take a sharp knife and slice through the center again.
• Cupcakes:  Mini chocolate cupcakes with orange and blue icing piped on.
• Blueberry muffins
• Sandwiches: Cheese (cut with cookie cutters) for the kids, and roast beef, cheese and mango chutney for the adults.
• Jars filled with clementines, goldfish, Sun Chips, and blueberries (I put re-useable ice-cubes under the blueberries to keep them cold).
• Beverages: Orange juice, mango juice and a pitcher of iced water with orange slices, and mimosa's for the mums.

THE CRAFT PROJECT:

After lunch and playing outside, we settled indoors to do the craft project.  Hubby extended our new dining room table and we placed a plastic tablecloth down to protect it, hung the bird feeder that I had made from the light and then lined up lots of little gift boxes for all of the children containing all of the supplies they would need to make their project.

The gift boxes contained:

• 50 popsicle sticks
• 1 large popsicle stick (tongue depresser)
• 1 bag of bird seed
• 1 tub of outdoor paint
• 2 long pieces of hemp cord to hang their bird feeder
• 1 Elmer's X-TREME glue
• 2 glitter glue sticks

To make the bird feeder:

• Line up 12 popsicle sticks.  Glue 2 sticks across them.  Turn it over.
• Do a second row of popsicle sticks going in the opposite direction to strengthen the base (I actually did this at the end because it was a last minute decision, but doing it at the beginning will give it more support as you build).
• Alternate popsicle sticks around the frame once.
• Glue down to the tongue depresser.
• Continue alternating popsicle sticks around the outside until you have 6 rows, gluing each popsicle stick down as you go.  Set aside to dry.
• Let the kids paint their bird feeder, and set aside to dry.
• Parents: using a hot glue gun, attach the hemp cord to the underside of the bird feeder.
• Thread the cord underneath the top round of popsicle sticks (as shown above) and again, glue using a hot glue gun.

All of our little friends took their bird feeders home to paint them and fill with seed.  Marisol and Flynn finished theirs after the party but they are yet to be hung outside.  First I need to track down that outdoor varnish.  Let the unpacking of more boxes proceed ....

AS SEEN ON:

Detroit Mommies

Disclosure: This project has been compensated as part of a craft recipe project using Elmer's #collectivebias #xtremeschoolglue #gluenglitter

Bunny Ear Headbands

We had a pot-luck style Easter party today that was organized by one of our friends.  My contribution to the party was not cake (because my fabulous cake decorating girlfriend was supposed to be there and my cake decorating skills are shameful compared to her), but instead it was a craft project for the kids. 

I saw these fun bunny ear headbands at (a fellow military wife) Candace Lindemann's blog Naturally Educational and thought these would be fabulous for the party, especially with the various age ranges that would be attending.

I left a tape dispenser out and found that the older kids were more than happy to tape their bunny ears to the headband themselves, but for the little ones I quickly stapled them on as I noticed any new crafters sitting down at the table.  I also set out two different types of glue, the Elmer's School Glue for attaching pom poms and the Elmer's Glue Sticks for attaching the colored section of the ear to the white background.  The kids had alphabet foam stickers, assorted Easter themed foam stickers, glitter glue, pom poms and crayons to decorate their headbands.

Homemade Bubbles

Bubble blowing is huge at our house.  The kids love getting outside and blowing bubbles and trying to catch them.  I always keep a little bubble blower in my handbag for when we are waiting for an outdoor event to start or are running early for an appointment and want to entertain the kids for a few minutes. Let's not forget the never ending assortment of bubble blowers we receive at children's birthday parties and events. 

As the kids have used up the bubbles though I have hated throwing away all of the empty containers and bubble wands so I've been hoarding some of them, just waiting for the perfect solution.  And let's not forget the cost of buying bubble solution on a regular basis.  Then I saw it, a recipe for making bubble solution, on where else, but Martha Stewart.   Although I didn't make the wand, because I have so many I lost count, but the bubble solution recipe was fantastic and so easy to make, I only wish I'd seen it earlier - just think water, dishwashing liquid and corn syrup.

Her recipe filled 2 juice bottles perfectly, so now we have plenty of bubbles to refill the smaller containers as needed, plus the little bottles I keep in my handbag and to pour directly into their larger bubble wand containers. 

This proved to be quite an interesting experiment for the kids too.  They tried out a lot of the different bubble blowers in the tub to see which ones blew the most bubbles, the biggest, and the smallest bubbles.

Easter Checkers

Looking for an Easter craft to do with all of those egg cartons that you hoard?  I have just the thing.

Easter Checkers.

This is what you will need to make this fun Easter game for the kids:

• 1 16x16" thick ply wood
• Paint:  Pink (matte & metallic), Yellow (matte & metallic), green and blue
• Egg cartons (24 egg cups)
• Card stock: orange, yellow glitter, pink glitter (2 shades)
• White pom poms
• Elmer's glue spots: thin mini and pop-up medium
• Wiggly eyes
• Black marker
• X-Acto knife, scissors, ruler and paint brushes.

To make the bunnies:

Paint the egg cups with the matte pink, once dry, paint a second coat using the metallic paint.  Cut out ears from the glitter card stock, attach the center using the mini glue spots. Poke a hole in the top of the egg cup with the X-Acto knife and insert the ears, attach to the inside of the egg cup using the mini glue spots.  Attach the pom pom tail using the medium glue spots and the wiggly eyes using the mini glue spots.  Draw on the rest of the facial features using a permanent marker.

To make the chicks:

As per the instructions for the bunnies.  Substitute pink paint for yellow.  Attach the wings using the medium glue spots and the fuzzy top exactly the same way as you did the bunny ears.  Fold a piece of orange card stock in half, cut out small triangles (beak) and attach using mini glue spots.

Now play, play, PLAY!

AS SEEN ON:

All Free Holiday Crafts

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Disclosure: This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for #collectivebias ( #gluenglitter )

A Bears and Bees Birthday Party

Our twins turned 4 on Saturday.  4!!!!  I can hardly believe it. 

We celebrated with a Teddy Bear Picnic. 

The twins had a marvellous day and were on such a high for the remainder of the weekend.

THE INVITATIONS

Instructions to make these invitations can be found here.

THE PARTY HATS

Instructions to make the Bumble Bee Headbands can be found here.  I will be posting instructions for the Teddy Bear Headbands in the next day or two.

A produce box from the market turned upside down, painted and holes punched into it proved to be the perfect way to stand the headbands up.

THE CAKE

I loved how it turned out.  I had my head stuck in the refrigerator for a day as I iced it because the house was so warm and I needed to keep it cool, but the kids loved it, and that is all that matters.

DECORATIONS

Decorations were kept fairly simple.  There were lots of balloons, red and white check cloths on the ground with matching cushions, plain white table cloths, a handmade banner above the cake table and picnic themed tableware.

THE FOOD

For the kids:

Snack cups: (pictured above) containing cheese sticks, popcorn and pretzels.

Teddy bear sandwiches: assorted whole wheat and white bread cut into the shape of teddy bears.  Half were filled with cheese, the other half with nutella.

Assorted snacks: Candy, Sun Chips and Teddy Grahams.

For the adults:

Peach and Brie Quesadillas: Flour tortillas filled with peach and brie slices, with honey on the side for drizzling.

Sausage Rolls: A typical Australian party food - see here (and served with tomato sauce ketchup)

Tea Sandwiches: Assorted whole wheat and white bread filled with roast beef and mango chutney

Salsa and Corn Chips: Homemade corn and black bean salsa with corn chips for scooping.

Produce: A bowl of fresh red and yellow cherry tomatoes and another with peaches.

Beverages:

Lemonade, Chocolate Milk, and bottles of water both large (for adults) and pop-top (for the kids).

As you can see above to help reduce spills, we put out plastic cups with lids and straws.

ENTERTAINMENT

Teddy Bears:  It was a Teddy Bear Picnic afterall, so each guest brought their favorite bear with them.

Balloons: we took 2 Balloon Time helium balloon kits with us so my husband was able to blow up balloons on request.  We took extra balloons in the party colors and scattered them in a large empty room.  The kids loved that.

Photo Boards:  Here are the instructions for the Bumble Bee photo board.  I sketched and had my son paint a Teddy Bear one the morning of the party too.

Craft Table: Coloring pages and a couple of small craft projects.

Bee Movie:  We lay red and white checked cloths and pillows on the grass and played the Bee movie while the kids ate their lunch.  It was a big hit. And it was only $5 at Target. 

Playground: There was a playground at the location we had hired.  Thankfully there was also a large tree to provide shade on what turned out to be one of our hottest days.

Grass area: There was also a large grass area where the kids could run, where we lay out the cloths and pillows for the movie and also where we put out some extra large balls for the kids to kick around.  We also had a couple of bumble bee flying toys.

Music:  We played Marisol's favorite CD - the one she listens to (almost) daily in her bedroom while she hosts tea parties for her dolls, and that the kids listen to outside when they are splashing in their little pools.

TREAT BAGS

After scouring various stores for a couple of weeks, I came up with quite a collection of bee and bear themed gifts for the kids, ranging from: stuffed toys, jigsaw puzzles, sticker sheets, craft activities, books, and bags of Teddy Grahams to name a few.  Each gift was wrapped in paper and tied with yarn and placed in a large picnic basket.  As the little guests left they were able to choose a gift from the 'lucky dip'.  Bags were also provided to hold gifts, craft projects and headbands and to tie balloons so it would be easier for the kids to take their goodies home.

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As seen on:

Catch My Party ...  Bird Crafts ... 10marifet.org ... Everyday Celebrating 

A Bumble Bee Photo Station

The twins 4th birthday is only a month away and I've been madly starting the party planning process.

Here's one of the projects I've been working on.

Now to keep it away from them for the next month so it doesn't get broken, painted on or crushed.  Does anybody have a couple of little straight jackets in a size 6T?

Products required:

• Elmer's large tri-fold foam display board
• Elmer's foam display board
• X-Acto knife
• Elmer's glue spots
• Cardboard (I used a side from an old box)
• Paint and brushes

To make:

The image was sketched directly onto the large tri-fold display board and then painted.

Wings and a flower were drawn onto the scrap cardboard, cut-out, painted and then attached to the foam board using Elmer's glue dots.

The legs (to add a little extra support to the board) were cut out of a regular Elmer's foam display board, painted, and slots were cut in that and the main tri-fold board.

You may remember that I made a similar board for Halloween a couple of years ago.

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Disclosure: This memory keeping craft project and shop using Elmer's and X-Acto products was sponsored by Collective Bias

USMC Family Picnic

I am a member of the Marine Officers' Spouses' Club for the area where I live.  We regularly host events for the wives.  Yesterday we hosted a picnic for the Marine Corps families.  We had such a fantastic turn-out.  We held it in a great space that has a large lawn area, a sand volleyball court and a large shaded area with Roman style columns.

We planned a lot of activities for the kids: 2 bounce houses, a ping pong table, arts & crafts station, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, balls, and we turned the sand volleyball court into a giant sandpit. 

It was a potluck lunch, however we provided the sandwiches (giant subs) and beverages.

Here are a few photographs from the event:

The cupcakes I made. 

The flags were made by printing sheets of mini flags with a 5mm gap between two flags and using an Elmer's glue stick to attach them around a lollipop stick.

I put together an arts and crafts area for the kids.

The activities they could do were:

Necklaces:

I dyed pasta in blue and red (the theme of the day) and yellow and red (the colors of the USMC flag).   White rexlace was pre-cut and knotted at one end prior to the event to make it easier for little ones to start threading pasta immediately. For instructions on how to dye pasta see here.  

Coloring pages:

I found various free coloring pages on the internet that were California, military and USMC themed.  Crayons were put on the work table for the kids to use which were placed into jam jars and tied with red ric rac.

Party Hats:

I used this tutorial from Martha Stewart to make the paper hats from regular poster board.  I attached blue and red ribbons to the sides of each hat and put out various items for the kids to decorate them: feathers, pom poms, felt stickers, butterfly and heart gems, foam letters, streamers, markers, crayons and rub-ons.  To stick the feathers, pom poms, streamers, and gems onto the hats I put out sheets of Glue Dots, which meant a lot less mess on the activity table - the Glue Dots were provided as part of Twittermoms Summer Bonding Campaign . 

Tip:  After searching at various locations for poster board Target came up the cheapest at only 39 cents a sheet as opposed to 89 cents or 99 cents, or even higher at other places.

Greeting cards:

Blank cards and matching envelopes were put on the table for the kids to decorate using any of the items provided (listed above for the hats).

Face plates:

Paper plates were turned upside down and the kids got creative and made faces on them either by attaching the dyed pasta or hand-drawing and then attaching streamers around the rim.

Support ribbons:

Yellow foam support ribbons were decorated with the various foam letters and pictures that were provided.

Don't the subs in the photograph above look amazing.  They tasted even better. We purchased them from Campagno's Maket & Deli.  And this was only half of them. 

For our 'information and name tag table's I used salsa jars, filled them with sand and placed American and USMC flags in them and tied them with the same red ric rac as the crayon jars.

I loved these red and white checked table cloths too.  I picked up bags and bags of them in the $1 section at Target ages ago to put in storage for an upcoming party I'm planning, but thought they would be perfect to give our tables a 'picnic' feel.  They are wipe-clean, so perfect for me to re-use.

Here are a few photos of my little ones enjoying the event:

* Disclosure:  “I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Glue Dots blogging contest to be eligible to receive a $30 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

Please join the Glue Dots Facebook fan page

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FACE PAINTING

I’ve always had a fascination with face painting.  I would LOVE to be talented enough and have such a steady hand that I could create a masterpiece that makes a little one smile.

At the Monterey County Fair last week Marisol asked to have her face fainted.

Can you believe this was done in 5 minutes.