Angry Birds Birthday Party!

My son is obsessed with Angry Birds. It goes without saying that he wanted his party to have an angry birds theme. So, I started it all with this invitation. I found a blank invite online here and added my sons info onto it (altered for web safety) in photoshop. I added a photo of him as well with his angry birds hat on. The font that I used for the words was a free downloadable font found here.

Then came thinking of ideas for a goodie bag. I found these cute clear containers at the Dollarama and saw potential for making it fit the theme. I added red tissue paper inside to hide the contents, and to add the right colour I was looking for. I found some angry bird stickers at the dollar store for the final touch. Inside, I added a mini bag of cherry sours and stapled some cardstock to the bag saying "Angry Birds Eggs", two angry bird easter eggs with candy and stickers in them and then an angry bird tattoo. (For the sake of so much annoying repetition, I will just say AB in place of the word angy birds from this point on.) We also found some angry birds that were regularly $9.00 or so and they were on sale for $3.00, so we got one to add to all of the kids goodie bags. Gotta love a good deal!

I had lots of fun decorating (as usual). I used a red tablecloth as a background for the table. I got an angry birds calendar pretty inexpensive since it was past January when I bought it. I cut the characters out of the calendar and taped them to the background. For the TNT boxes, I just made those out of brown construction paper and drew on it with black permanent marker. The banner was made out of construction paper, permanent marker and ribbon to hang it on. Yes, I wrote Happy Bird-day! haha! Saw that one on pinterest and thought it was good for the theme!

For food we did the typical chips, and not so typical bird feed and bird beaks, haha!

For the cake, I just kept it really simple. Like "a child could have done it" simple. I bought one of those angry birds k'nex and put it on top of a very small cake. I wanted it to only be big enough to fit the decoration. Then I made a bunch of cupcakes and put angry bird eggs on them (mini eggs)

I wanted to make some rice krispie squares, but wanted them to fit the theme. So I decided to make them into the piggies. I added green food colouring to the marshmallow mix as it was melting on the stove so that the rice krispies would be green. I scooped the rice krispies into a greased muffin tin instead of a rectangle dish. This made the heads. I cut mini marshmallows in half and stuck them on for eyes. I used green icing (couldn't find any green gel at the store) to make the nose and mouth and the blue to dot the eyes. I later used one of the heads and pulled pieces off of it and put them on the other heads as ears. They stuck easily. While they turned out looking slightly creepy, they were still a hit.

I also decided to make the drinks piggy style! I bought some bottles of mountain dew and took the labels off of them. Then with my trusty permanent marker, I drew pig faces on them.

                                     

We even made his gifts angry bird themed. The funny part was when I added the yellow bird that I drew (isn't it beautiful? haha) my husband said it looked like Hitler. So apparently I just created a Hitler angry bird...nice!

 

GAMES:

For this game, we were on the piggies side. I taped green cups (with pig faces...that permanent marker came in so handy) to my coffee table, gave each child a straw and a cotton ball. They had 1 minute to get as many angry bird eggs (cottonballs) into the cup by blowing it across the table with the straw. A very simple but fun game for them.

Another game, was an egg hunt. They had to go hunt down these "angry birds" eggs, and whoever found the golden egg got a prize.

We also played a game that seems to be a family favourite done in different variations. For this party variation I decided to make all of the balloons green. I drew piggie faces on them and inserted a white paper egg in each balloon. We have a dart wall under the stairs of our house, and it is sooo perfect for doing this at parties since it already has so many holes in it. I pinned each balloon up and got the kids to line up to throw a dart and try to pop the balloon. (Don't worry, we were super careful with the darts) The idea was to save the eggs from the piggies and collect as many eggs as you can. The one with the most eggs saved, wins a prize.

I bought a few prizes from the dollar store, as well as some little red containers with some swedish berries in them (just add stickers, and you've got angry birds candy without the ridiculous price tag)

Another game we played had nothing to do with angry birds, but my son loves when we make lasers in the hallway to navigate through. He requested to do this for his party. We made it a timed event. I timed each child that went through, and whoever got it done quickest won the prize. I'm sure I could have made it fit the theme by placing challenges in it or adding eggs (represented by cottonballs) that they had to try not to knock over while going through, but they had fun enough with the way it was.

Overall, it was such a fun party.

He LOVED it!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fairies and Everything Pink!

Yesterday we celebrated Maiya's 6th b-day. When I asked her a bit ago what type of party she wanted, she said "Fairies and everything pink" so that's what I did.

She made me feel so good, when she walked out in the morning and said "Wow, this is so beautiful Mom". Makes the work worth it.

I had purchased to big tissue paper pom poms, but after putting them together realized I could have easily made them myself. The "Happy Birthday" banner was made out of scrapbooking paper, cut into triangles  and then I printed off letter and cut them in circles. I hung the banner with twine.

I put a white tablecloth on the table. The pink tablecover is just wrapping paper draped down the middle. White wrapping paper on the wall and pink wrapping paper strip up the wall to match the table.

I decorated the cupcakes in pink and white and added some butterflies that I got from the dollarstore.

My favourite part of the cupcake display was my cute little bunny teapot.

We had some punch with "fancied up" glasses. I just put ribbon around the glasses and glued little butterflies to them. Oh, and pink straws, of course!

I made cones out of the same scrapbooking paper that I used for the banner. I filled those with popcorn. For the stand I used a shoe box, wrapped it in white wrapping paper and added a ribbon and a bow. I poked holes in the top so the cones could stand up in it.

Some of the treats:

I was lucky to get some easter candy on sale. It was 14cents/100g. The mini eggs were only 44 cents/100g. I put the candy in flower bowls, in a sugar bowl and my fave was the bird bath from the dollar store to put the mini eggs in.

I also made chocolate dipped strawberries and rolled them in heart sprinkles, and also had a bunch of fresh watermelon on a platter.

I had another little table set out with all of the fairy wings (each girl got one to wear at the party and keep)

as well as some flowers to make flower headbands (we ran out of time though and didn't get to do that activity)

All set up, and it was time for the party to start.

I decorated the entrance with just a few simple decorations.

After all of the girls arrived, I got a quick picture of Maiya with all of her guests.

They are all holding the wands I made for them. I did this by getting a flower top, an unsharpened pencil and some electrical tape. I would have used the green floral tape, but I couldn't find any for some reason and used the black tape instead. I also used some ribbons for some flare. I wrapped the black tape all the way up the pencil and around the ribbon and base of the flower.

The wands were on display here in the front entry. We used the wands for on of our games called "Fairy, Fairy, Fairy, Troll" (same as duck, duck goose). They would tap the wands lightly on each girls head as the called out fairy or troll.

We also played "freeze dance". Some of the girls were right into it, and some of them were too shy about it. They went on a fairy treasure hunt. I hid a bunch of chocolate coins in my treasure chest, and the clues were given in an "Eye Spy" style. We took those coins and added them to their treat bags.

I took the girls outside to take a picture of them to add to their goodie bags. I printed off the pictures and put them in pink frames (like the one displayed 2 pictures above).

Their treat bags consisted of the photo in a frame, their fairy wings, a bag with the fairy treasure (gold coins), a pink egg full of playdoh, the chocolate bars that I spoke about here, and a little tiara hairpiece.

Overall, it was a success. Maiya had a wonderful time with friends, fun food, games and got spoiled with gifts!

I am linking this up with:

Personalized Wrappers

I have been prepping for my daughters 6th birthday party lately, and thought I would show you a sneak peek of one of the details. The theme she wanted is fairy and all things pink.
Here is a candy bar wrapper that I made to put over a caramilk bar as one of the treat bag goodies!

So easy, but just the right touch. I took Maiya outside with her cute pink coat and gave her some pink balloons to hold to make it more "party-ish"

Then I took that picture into Photoshop and made it into a thank you label for on top of the chocolate bar.

I just cut the photo using an oval shape in PS and then added small paintbrush dots along the edge on a seperate layer for the "doily" effect. I did not do that perfectly, but good enough! Text in a cute party font, and it's ready for printing!

I took off the wrappers from the caramilk bars and measured them to some scrapbooking paper that I liked. I wrapped it around the caramilk bar and taped it on the back. Then I glued the label on top.

Super easy, and WAY cuter than the caramilk wrapper. You can do this for any chocolate bar that has foil underneath. Even Rolos :)

more to come for this party. Check back later! :)

Partying Mario Style!

My sister, Chelsea, did a party for her sons 4th b-day! He LOVES "Mario", so she decided to make that the theme of the party.
It was meant to be an outdoor party, but it poured that day, so she ended up doing it inside. She made these cute invitations with cardstock and sheet foam:

She put colourful balloons, hung printouts of the mushrooms and Gumba characters.

I loved her coin boxes. Such a cute addition. Her original idea was to use the coin boxes for pinata's and hang them from trees.

She made up a "Yoshi Egg Hunt" which I thought was such a cute idea. She used easter eggs, and painted little white dots, and put little candies in them.

Here is a picture of her cupcakes she made to look like the mushrooms from the game.

She put white chocolate wafers on top.

She also made up a game of "Pin the moustache on Mario and Luigi"

 Her treat bags were simple, but bright and stayed with the theme.

It's Party Time!!

My 10 year old daughter just celebrated her 11th birthday. When deciding what to do for it, I asked her which she would rather have (My kids have 2 choices, they can either invite 2 friends to go somewhere (movies, dinner, laserquest, swimming, whatever...) or they can have a home party and invite 6 people). She chose home party this year. Now to come up with a theme....I was at a loss.
I thought on it a while, and about what she was into. She LOVES kickboxing, so I had thought of going with something themed towards martial arts, but then I ended up having expensive ideas, like taking all of the girls in for a class and such....my ideas got a little out of control financially speaking. Then I thought....McKenna LOVES boardgames. She is always asking for someone to play a game with her. So then I decided that I should do a board game themed party.
I started with how the invitation would look, and came up with this: (I had also thought of an invitation having dice and saying "Roll" on over to the party! (but I like this one better)

McKenna was so excited by the whole idea. We got her 2 board games for her birthday present this year. She really wanted the game "Sorry" and also "LIFE". So those fit in perfectly with the theme.
I then decided that I needed to come up with a life sized board game. I didn't want this to take forever, since I only had 6 days until her party (talk about last minute eh?!)

Life Sized Board Game:
Supplies Needed:
~ Cardstock (how many depends on how many squares you want to have in your game)
~ A box (I used a waffle box) and something to cover the box (I used shiny wrapping paper, so it wouldn't rip when it was being tossed around)
~ marker
~ Fake money (monopoly, or sometimes the dollar store has fake money)
~ Candy

How to Play:
~ Each square has something written on it.
(ie. do jumping jacks until your next turn, dance on the spot, clap your hands, sing happy birthday to the birthday girl, sit down, 10 push ups, piggyback another player around the room,  etc...) Whatever their square says, is the task that must be performed until their next turn comes.
~If they complete the task by doing it the whole time until their next turn, they get some  fake "money". They do not have to do the task, but if they don't then they won't receive the money for it.
~ The player who gets to the finish first, wins the trophy (bought at the dollar store with some chocolates in it)
~Everyone gets to count their money up, and bring it over to "Candyland".  Candyland is the spot where I have some jars of different candies. Each jar has prices on them. They get to use their money to fill up their goodie bags with the treats they would like.

The Cake:
I had good intentions to make some elaborate cake resembling one of her favourite gameboards, or an UNO card deck....but I had to be realistic. I am not a cake decorator, and thought I would go with something much simpler. So I went with a Dice Cake. I used this Marshmallow Fondant Recipe to do the outside. I altered the recipe to 2 cups of icing sugar instead of 4 and it worked better.
I baked the cakes in bread pans and cut them in half to make them square. Alas, I am not much of a cake decorator, so here is the final product:

Since it didn't work out as planned, and was small (I didn't make enough fondant, and didn't want to make more at this point) So I made cupcakes, and put dice on them to keep with the theme (how was that less time consuming than the fondant?)
The dice were in a pack of 10 at the dollar store, so that was perfect!

I also made chocolate covered rice krispie squares (you can make them yourself and shape them into different shapes, but for the sake of time, I already had mini squares in our "fun" treat stash, so I cut them in half to be smaller and coated them in chocolate. I sprinkled some, and drizzled some pink wafer chocolate on them. Then I got pink chocolate wrappers at the dollar store to put them in. (This was an idea that I got from another blog. I put the link in my valentine post)

The life sized board game took up most of the time, and they all had a blast. It was so much fun.
Afterwards it was present time, cake and treats time and then they played Twister (one of the gifts she got for her birthday). All in all, the party was a success!