Tempe's Mermaid Nature Party

My sweet oldest daughter turned 5 today!

To celebrate, we invited 7 of her friends (and her best friend and sister, Helena, of course!) to a Mermaid Nature party.

The birthday girl in mid-blow!

For the cake, I just made a white two layer cake with swirly white frosting and sprinkled the top liberally with edible golden glitter. Don't you love those tall curvy candles??

Gorgeous "treasure" box is from D.I.

I made mermaid dolls for all the little girls to take home--my wonderful mother-in-law embroidered the faces for me. They weren't the most fun thing I've ever made, but they turned out cute, and they were a hit when I handed them out!

I know treat tables are soooo cute and trendy, but as a mother, I just can't bring myself to serve a whole array of treats at a party. So instead we had lunch:

Sandy shells and pearls: seashell pasta with peas and toasted breadcrumbs

Mermaid fruit kabobs

Blue Jell-O with Swedish Fish

Crescent rolls (Tempe';s favorite food in the whole world)

Mermaid juice (Strawberry Kiwi)

My sisters-in-law Katelyn and Corinne came over to help with the activities. Katelyn was on Mermaid Manicure duty, complete with shimmery lotion and "Mermaid Mist" (scented glitter spray).

Corinne helped out at the ocean sensory bin, which was the nature component of the party. I filled a large, shallow plastic bin with water, blue glitter, seashells, driftwood, and pearls. I also provided a table with a conch shell, magnifying glasses, tongs, and a brush to dust off the glitter. The girls examined the seashells and then picked pearls out of the "ocean" to make their own mermaid bracelets. It was a hit! The table was always crowded with little girls looking at shells through magnifying glasses or feeling around in the glittery water for pearls.

I also had a small bubble machine that I got at Wal-Mart for $6 going while the girls ate lunch. It sprays out hundreds of bubbles every minute, so it was like being surrounded by bubbles in the ocean. The girls loved playing in the bubbles!

As always, I tried to get the maximum amount of cuteness for the minimum amount of money when I was planning this party. I estimate that I spent $35-$40 on this party, a big chunk of that going towards the dolls. Luckily, I already had a lot of the decorative items and I was able to find some more at D.I. Things like the bubble machine and nail polish will be used many, many more times at our house, so I don't count them in my party budget.

Sidewalk chalk festival

Hi! If you are visiting from Tip Junkie, welcome! What an honor to find my sidewalk chalk party posted there. You might notice that this blog has been inactive for quite a while. I decided to post my parties on my other blog, my kids eat off the floor, instead. I'd love to have some visitors over there!
Today we kicked off the summer with a fun party for the neighborhood kids.

It was actually 4 1/2 year old Tempe's idea. We went to a local chalk festival a few weeks ago and she has been asking me when we can have one of our own ever since. I thought the first week of summer vacation was the perfect occasion!
I kept it simple with store-bought popsicles (Scribblers--they are shaped like sidewalk chalk!), lemonade, and baskets of sidewalk chalk scattered around the driveway. The moms sat in the shade and chatted while the kids went crazy with the sidewalk chalk--and I was amazed by their creativity!
I made the invitation on Picnik and printed it on cardstock. I loooooove how it turned out!

We invited about 25 kids, ranging in age from 18 months to 11 years. This is the perfect party for a big range of ages. Toddlers to tweens love sidewalk chalk--actually, some of the moms were getting into it, too! We had a great time and I think it might become an annual tradition :)

{S'more Goodbye Party}

A good friend and her family are moving to Ohio in a few weeks, so a few friends and I planned a surprise goodbye party. The plan was to have a table set up outside with all the fixings, paper lanterns strung in the trees, and a few firepits going so everyone could mingle and make s'mores at their leisure.

Unfortunately, it was pouring rain and only about 50 degrees on party day, so we had to move everything inside. We yelled "Surprise!" when the family of honor came in, made s'mores in the oven, and enjoyed a fun evening reminiscing over the last two years.

I think this is the cutest invitation I have ever made. My witty husband came up with the s'mores saying--isn't he funny?

Our last-minute indoor s'mores setup.
We had regular, strawberry, and toasted coconut marsmallows. Our toppings were regular, dark, and caramel filled chocolate bars, peanut butter, strawberry slices, and banana slices. We also had ice cream and indoor s'mores cookies: Golden Grahams marshmallow-chocolate squares.

The top frame says "There is no distance too far between friends; for friendship gives wings to the heart." I gave it to my friend for a souvenier of the party. I was going to print out our neighborhood map and have everyone sign next to their house as a souvenier, but I just didn't get a chance to print it. Now I wish I had found time because I think it would have been a great gift for them!

The bottom frame says "Go ahead--have S'more!" and has a long list of different flavor combinations to try. My personal favorite was the Elvis: a regular marshmallow with dark chocolate, peanut butter, and banana slices. Yum!

Don't all those marshmallows just make you smile?

This was such a fun, easy party to throw. Besides opening packages, there is absolutely no preparation involved in making s'mores and it's even easier to do in the oven than it is over a fire! We pre-heated the oven to 350, filled a cookie sheet with s'mores, and baked them for about 5 minutes.

We'll miss the Zimmermans, but we are excited for them to move on to new things!

Helena's Wizard of Oz party

We celebrated my middle daughter Helena's birthday with a Wizard of Oz themed party. It was her first friend party and she had a blast (and I had a blast planning it!)

I created these invitations on our computer, then printed them out on normal paper and traced illustrations from a vintage copy of The Wizard of Oz (the book). Then I made copies on scrapbook paper and added sparkly red paint on Dorothy's shoes.

Here's our food table. almost all of the decorations are from DI, our local thrift store--the little red chair, the vintage book, the basket and Toto, the red box that the "Toto in a Blankets" are in. I made the cake stand out of a plate from Pier One and a pillar candle holder from Target.

The blue gingham cupcake wrappers are from Michael's. I made the cupcake toppers.

The birthday girl's cupcake needed a sparkly blue "3" candle, of course! I wanted to set it apart from the other cupcakes, but didn't have a cupcake stand, so I flipped this square glass vase over and set it on top, then added a blue gingham bow.

My mother-in-law let me borrow a Munchkin barbie. He was perfect to hold the "Over the Rainbow Fruit Salad" sign. The fruit salad was strawberries, oranges, bananas, kiwis, and blueberries layered in clear plastic cups to look like a rainbow.

Here is the book that inspired the party!

Helena was excited to dress up as Dorothy. The dress was a hand-me-down from a neighbor--it's Tommy Hilfiger. The shoes are from Wal-Mart.

One of our games was Pin the heart on the Tin Man. Simple, easy, and classic children's birthday party! We also played Wizard of Oz Says and did all Oz-themed things ("Click your heels together like Dorothy", "Melt like the Wicked Witch", "Spin like the twister", etc). Our arrival activity was painting little wooden house cutouts (from the unfinished wood section at Robert's) with sparkly red paint.

I was excited to find mini baskets at Michael's!

Inside the goody baskets were Glinda the Good Witch bubbles (inspired by the bubble that she came out of in Munchkinland), a handmade gingham hairbow, a strip of rainbow star stickers, and a few "bricks" from the Yellow Brick Road (yellow Starbursts).

This party was featured at U-Create Parties.