Valentine's Day Crafts

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and I have been preparing a party for my 3 year old son and all his friends. My computer is down so I don't have access to all my step by step pictures, just pictures from my phone of the finished product. Hopefully my computer is up and running soon so I can post the good stuff :)

This is my sons crocodile Valentine's box. Please excuse the dishes in the background. Making this crocodile box was way more enjoyable then dealing with dirty dishes.

This is the craft I'm going to give the kids to do at the party. I bought some pre-cut heart shaped card stock, and pink sparkly yarn, both found at Michael's. I hole punched around the edges, tied the yarn to the heart, and started threading. Of course, this is just an example I came up with. The kids can thread their yarn however they please. I also wrapped a little tape around the end of the yarn to make it a little easier for the kids to thread.

These are heart flowers I made for decoration at the part. The foam heart are from the dollar store, and everything else I had (coffee can filled with rice, foam letters, and skewers)

More Valentine's Day crafts etc. Coming soon...

DIY Christmas Wreath

I've always wanted an extravagant Christmas wreath on display for the holidays. Well turns out the extravagant ones aren't cheap, and if it's real- forget about it. I chose the next best thing and made my own for only $10.00 with the exception of a gold bow I already owned. Micheal's pretty regularly has sales on all of their holiday products. I scored a medium sized wreath, and enough goodies to spiff up my wreath, all for half off. The different variations to decorate your wreath are endless with the amount of supplies Michael had to offer. I think that was the hardest part of this project was trying to choose all the little decorations. I must have been in that isle for about an hour. Ultimately I chose a traditional theme, and added simple things I liked that reminded me of Christmas. This project was super, super easy. I literally just fluffed my branches, organized my decorations how I wanted display them on my wreath then attached each item one by one. Some of them had wires that were easy to twist around branches, and some were hard plastic that required a little tweaking into the framework to make them stay. The great thing about this project is that nothing is permanent. If you decide you don't like something you can always take it out, or change your theme next year.  Happy holidays!

 I ended up taking out the silver holly and replacing it with some more pine cones. I thought the silver kind of stuck out like a sore thumb.

Kipper Picnic Birthday Party

My son's 3rd birthday party was last October. I let him pick his party theme, and he chose Kipper the dog. Kipper is a wholesome British cartoon about the many adventures of Kipper, and his friends. We just love the cartoon but there are no Kipper party supplies available in the US- that I could find. Even the UK only has a hand full of pricey Kipper party supplies. So I sought out Kipper parties on the web. I came across two blogs with Kipper parties. One was for a girl, and the other had really cute decor but nothing to do with Kipper except for one picture of Kipper. Needless to say I was on my own with this one,  and starting from scratch. If our children only knew what we do for them. Staying up until 2 a.m. making Kipper puppets, pinwheels, and trying to get the printer to work the way we want it to:) And I will gladly do it every year until he's to old for birthday parties. That will be a sad day for me. Just to see the joy and excitement on my son's face melts my heart and makes the whole party planning fiasco worth it. The funny thing is that it's only a couple months after his party and we haven't watched Kipper since. Wouldn't you know it :)

To limit the party from going in to many different directions I chose our favorite Kipper DVD ( Pools, Parks, and Picnics) and just pulled ideas from that. The added picnic theme worked to my advantage because my house is way to small to comfortably host a party for 20 people. We live in Washington so we were extremely lucky the weather held out until October. In fact it was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a picnic.

For the party decorations I used a blue checkered picnic pattern with ants, as well as a green one. I printed the pattern on card stock and made invitations, two banners, pinwheels, and a golf flag with the number three on it. I also made two blue and green balloon columns, and Kipper hand puppets.

For the food I picked out things that I would take on a picnic while also keeping the toddlers in mind. I ordered croissant  sandwiches from Costco, I had plastic shot glasses filled with ranch dip and veggies,  a lot of strawberries, a variety of flavored chips, and party popcorn. For drinks I kept it simple ( water, Capri sun, and lemonade).

This was the first year so far that I didn't make a birthday cake. I made cupcakes with ants carrying watermelons, and apple pies instead. I thought it went better with the theme. Although I was a little disappointed with how my cupcakes turned out the kids never seem to mind. Luckily I didn't get any close up shots of those ;)

I had games/activities for the kids that were all relevant to the Kipper Pools Parks and Picnics DVD. As the kids arrived they each got to pick a folded paper party hat to decorate and wear. I provided foam stickers, feathers, jewels, string, tape and glue dots. The first game we had to catch butterflies from a tree. I found butterfly coasters on clearance that were white and silver. I colored everyone in different patterns of colors, tied string to the branches on and scotch taped the butterflies on the end of the string. The person with the most butterflies got a prize as well as the person with the purple butterfly because that was the color of the butterfly Kipper catches. I would suggest giving the younger kids a head start if you have mixed ages. I didn't and the winner was the oldest with eleven butterflies, and most of the toddlers ended up with only one. For the second game everyone got to play par 3 putt putt golf. Everyone hit the ball until they got it in the hole then got a prize. We got the putting green with the hole and ball return at the Goodwill for a few bucks, and used the putter and balls from my sons plastic golf set. Last but not least we did a treasure hunt. I made all the clues to look like treasure maps and hid them accordingly. I even lucked out with a couple of the same hiding spots as the DVD. The clues led them to a DIY cardboard treasure chest where they found their loot bags. This game was a favorite with the kids.

I hope this is inspirational to all those parents planning a party for their little Kipper fan. Have fun.

 Invitations

 

I did a post card style invitation, mostly because my printer wasn't printing the way I wanted it to. I also had my son participate in stuffing the envelopes.  We added some bug foam stickers for the kids that were purchased from the Dollar Tree. A big thanks to my friend Katherine for putting all the images together for me so all I had to do was print :)

  

Patterns and Images

 

 

 I printed these patterns out on card stock to make my banners, pin wheels, a golf flag.  

I used this image to put on my mini brown paper bags full of party popcorn.

This image of Kipper was used for one of the banners and the loot bags.

Loot Bags 

The kids really liked their names in the big sparkly letters.

Balloon Columns

These were relativity easy to make. I used my husbands concrete tampers as my base, and structure. Here is a great You Tube video to learn how.
http://youtu.be/hQL5lJegmHc

DIY Kipper Puppets

I made these Kipper hand puppets with brown paper bags and construction paper. I got the idea from a web site but a template wasn't provided so everything was done freehand. Although these are hand puppets I used them as decoration to top off my balloon columns.

Cupcakes

These are not the actual cupcakes I made, but where the inspiration came from. I didn't get a close up shot of mine, and they weren't as nice as these ones. I used dark chocolate covered raisins on mine because the almonds were big enough to become a choking hazard for the tots. I had problems with the watermelons falling off, coloring the frosting for the legs, and applying it. 

Games and Activities

Decorate your own party hat activity.

Catch the butterflies game.

Treasure hunt.

The loot.

 Party!

Extras

I was going to use these images to make picket signs to put at each game and activity station but I never got around to it.

 

DIY Sock Bun Accessory and Hair Style

I've been seeing these fabulously messy but cute sock bun hair styles everywhere lately. I've seen a ton on Pinterest, in fassion magazines, and on the trendy teens at the mall. I had no idea until recintley that a sock was actually used to make a sock bun. I just thought your hair looked like a rolled up sock hens the name sock bun, and that you must have really thick hair.. That was until I came across this accessory for sale on one of my favorite wedding web sights. It was a sock bun  accessory! I took one good look at it and thought why on Earth would anyone pay for that when you can just make it yourself, and in literally a few minutes. I have to say, although I love this look, it is not for everyone. I can't pull it off however it looks darling on my mother. So after basking in my glory of my creation I find out that DIY sock bun tutorials are all over the internet already- figures. I thought I'd share my version.

My beautiful mother Cathlene was kind enough to let me play with her hair, and model for a few pictures for me. Thanks mom. OK, and here is how I made my sock bun...

-You will need an old sock, knee high and a pair of scissors. If you don't have a knee high cut a section out  of some old pantyhose. You won't need much.

-Cut the toes off the sock and the knee high.

-Roll the sock up, then feed the knee high through the sock and roll the knee high up around the sock. I used the knee high to hold the sock together tightly, and to camouflage the white. I have brunette hair and didn't want the white of the sock to show through. If you have lighter hair you can use a lighter colored stocking. Now you can get started on your sock bun hair style (below).

 How to ware it...

 Put you hair in a ponytail. I did a low ponytail on my mom because her hair is short and it made it easier for me to handle. If your doing your own hair a high ponytail will be the easiest. Just feed your hair through the sock, pull to the end of your ponytail and start rolling. Spread your hair out to cover the stocking as you roll.

 Pin any loose ends...And there you have your sock bun :)