Reptile Swamp Birthday Party

So I have decided that I have been a very bad blogger, as I have not had a post in quite sometime. Oh, how I wish that there were more hours in the day, but sadly there are not.  Thankfully I was inspired recently by our youngest to create an alligator/swamp birthday party so I can end this blogging drought.  He loves alligators and all things creepy, and absolutely loves The Wild Kratts...so naturally we had to create a swamp themed birthday party.  We had a Snake Egg Hunt, made swamp slime, created a reptile garden, and let the kids play in the backyard.  It was a perfect party in my book.

For the Snake Egg Hunt I was able to find some plastic Easter eggs after the holiday and spray painted them and then speckled them with acrylic paints.  The spray paint came out with a texture on some of the eggs which was completely not expected, but worked just fine for this project.

For the egg hunt I made little brown bags for the kids to decorate with some swamp (jungle) themed stamps our son had.  I printed their names on some cardstock for the handles...I have found it is always good to have everyone's things very well labeled...less likely to have any tears over misplaced items.  Not that I know this from experience.  :)

When having a swamp party there should definitely be some swamp slime!  We made our slime using the recipe from this blog...this recipe was perfect.  When adding the 4 ounces of water to the glue we just filled up the glue bottle, which was conveniently 4 ounces, and shook it and poured that into the bowl.  Super fun craft and I would say it was quite the hit.  We just packed it up in ziploc bags and sent it home with the boys.

We also made reptile gardens using glass candle holders from the dollar store, I just love the dollar store for party supplies!!!  The bottom layer is some river rocks from the dollar store, then some potting soil, a few chia seeds and a reptile of course. A perfect little reptile garden!

The alligator cake was absolutely adorable and I found my idea here, but truth be told...I will never be a professional cake decorator.  Anything that can go wrong with frosting will go wrong for me. Despite all of this the cake came out looking as it should despite a few mistakes here and there.  :)

There were also Chocolate Frog cupcakes.  I made the chocolate frogs using a candy mold that I found on Amazon and just placed them on top of the whipping cream frosting...super easy!

One of my favorite parts of this party were the party favors.  They were super fun to make and I hope all of the kids enjoyed them.  I know our little one has been enjoying his.  The favors included an Adventure Notebook which was found at the dollar store....surprise...surprise!  They were just perfect with the alligator/snake skin look.  I printed out labels and stuck them onto the notebooks. I included a pen to write in their notebooks.

There was an alligator brownie that I made using an alligator cookie cutter that I found on Amazon.

Our little adventure loving boy really loves these wish bracelets/necklaces that we made.  I found the adorable alligator charms on Etsy through the cutest little shop.  Absolutely loved the shop owner and loved the beads.  Just used some hemp twine and printed out the wish cards.  

There was also a  fruit roll-up, a bug container which held a little plastic lizard or frog, a nature scavenger hunt game which I found here.  I loved how these turned out and her printables were absolutely adorable!  I just printed them four to a page and used both of her designs to make them double sided.  We made the little Snake Egg labels for the TicTacs using a template from here.  I was quite pleased with how these turned out.

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to go home!

If you would like more ideas feel free to check out my Wild Kratt Birthday Party board on Pinterest.

This was a fun party to plan and enjoy with the boys.  While I do not love reptiles, I love how much our little creature lover does!  This was another super easy backyard party!  Hope you enjoyed stopping by! -Robyn

Fall Wedding Shower Gift

Greetings!  It has been awhile since I have posted anything, however now that the kids are back in school hopefully this will change.  Fall is around the corner and this is my absolute favorite time of year!  I wanted to share with you a wedding gift I put together for my brother and his beautiful wife.  They were married in the fall so naturally I wanted to go with this as the theme.  First stop...Home Goods, as I love any excuse to shop there.  The serving dishes, wooden utensils, and fall towels all were from there.  As well as the candy dish,  I filled that with the autumn holiday m&m's.  The bushel basket was from Hobby Lobby and I added a Paula Deen magazine....I just LOVE Paula! There were Keurig Apple Cider k-cups to enjoy on those crisp fall nights.  Then it was on to the nursery section of the hardware store for a pie pumpkin and a small mum.  I stenciled their initial on the pie pumpkin with acrylic paint and wrapped the mum in burlap fabric and tied it up with a bow.  I placed it all in the bushel basket with a fall bow.  I was so pleased with how this turned out and my sister-in-law loved it.

Hope you enjoyed stopping by to see what is new.

Easter Treats

I am always looking for cute little ideas to share a little holiday treat with the littles in our life.  This past Easter I choose to make the same Peep pops that I used for the Easter Pizza Cookie Gift baskets and attach them to some bubbles.  Super cute and easy treat for the littles.  This could be altered to suit any holiday or special event.

Thanks for visiting.

Summer Birthday or Housewarming Gift

To celebrate my mother-in-laws milestone birthday this year we wanted to do something fun for her, not just the standard gift card.  So naturally I was drawn to Home Goods....they have the best stuff!  We found the white metal serving tray and built upon that theme.  We added an acrylic pitcher and matching glasses with some fun fruity drinks to enjoy on their deck this summer.  I just couldn't resist the adorable lantern with the battery operated candle.  Then we added some fun yellow and white kitchen towels.  This was a family affair with my husband and kids all adding their input...I think we made a pretty good team.

This is the gift all wrapped up in cellophane.  This idea could be used for birthday's, housewarming gifts, Mother's Day, engagement or wedding gifts.  Truly almost any occasion.

Thanks for stopping by to see what is new.  -Robyn

Birthday Party at the Park

Last year for our youngest's birthday party we decided on a picnic themed party at the park.  I cannot say enough good things about this party.  Very easy to plan and all the activities come with the location...little kids love the playground.  The party invitations read...

Meet us at the park

We'll swing, slide, and play

Please join us to celebrate

Child's Birthday

I found this adorable phrase on an invitation phrase site, not at all mine, but too cute not to share.  Our little one loves bugs, so the ants at a picnic was the perfect theme.  I made sack lunches for each of the kids using red paper sacks and used a circle punch to cut out the circles to make the ants.  I drew the antennae and legs with a Sharpie.  Finished them off with eyes punched from a hole punch.

Each lunch included a PB&J Uncrustable, goldfish crackers and an applesauce cup with the spoon and napkin.  I did ask if anyone had an allergies on the invitations.  Just in case I had a couple of Lunchables packed in the cooler.

I had a cooler packed with plenty of juice boxes and bottles of water for all of the littles after playing hard on the playground, thankfully as the weather was warm that day.  Also, I had a few snacks for the parents as well.  There were cupcakes and I just topped them with whip cream that I had packed in the cooler as well.  Super easy and they traveled well.

For the party favors I made little Lemonade stand baskets complete with plastic cups, water, and of course lemonade mix.  Included were bubbles, just because we love bubbles.

Here is a close up of the Lemonade mix in the party favor.

This was an incredibly easy party that was a lot of fun.  And the best part....all of the mess was left in the trash can at the park.  Love the preschool set as they are so very easy to entertain.

Thanks for stopping by.

-Robyn

Teen Graduation Gift Basket

When our niece graduated from middle school I was looking for a cute and creative gift idea online.  I searched Pinterest, but most gift baskets for graduation were for High School Graduation.  So I used some of those ideas and used a few of my own.  I thought this idea was absolutely adorable, what college student would love to receive one of these?  I decided to go with the colors and mascot for the High School she would be attending the following fall.  So, this is what I came up with...

I found a bunch of essentials for High School and a few fun items as well.  The blue bucket was purchased at the dollar store and the rest were found at either Target or Meijer.  The basket includes the following:

• Watermelon cup with lemonade singles packets
• Hand sanitizer with a tag that read "Just in case"
• Ibuprofen with a tag that read "For life's little headaches"
• Hershey's nuggets with the tag "Nuggets of Wisdom" which I saw here
• Paperclip bookmarks that we made
• Sticky notepad holder which I found here 
• Eraser with "oops" tag
• Pens
• Desk Planner
• Notebook
• Hairbands
• Gum
• Nail polish
• CapriSun

Here are the notebook, which we just tied on some coordinating ribbon, and the desk planner.

Then I just arranged all of it in the blue bucket and wrapped it in cellophane and tied it with ribbon.  I didn't take a picture with the cellophane as it is hard to see what is actually in the gift basket.  

Thanks for stopping by.

-Robyn

Art Gift Basket - Easter Basket

The weather is cold, but the sun is shining which makes me think of Spring.  It sure is taking it's sweet time coming to the Midwest this year.  All of this talk of Spring weather makes me think of Easter and all of the spring birthday's in our family.  This was a birthday gift for our nephew's 4th birthday, however it could very easily be given as an Easter basket to any little one who loves to be creative.  I purchased the plastic bucket at the dollar store and filled it up with all sorts of art supplies.

Items in the basket were:

• Construction paper
• Doodle paper
• Coloring book
• Crayola Paint Brush Pens
• Markers
• Crayons
• Sidewalk chalk
• Watercolor paints
• Play-doh
• Stickers
• Glue
• Glue sticks
• Tape
• Eraser

And a CapriSun for refreshments after all of that creating

Then I just arranged it all in the bucket/basket and wrapped it all up in clear cellophane (sorry I do not have a picture of it all wrapped up, but I think you get the idea).  Very easy and fun child's gift basket.

Thanks for stopping by to see what is new.

-Robyn

Happy St. Patrick's Day Gift Basket

Hello again...with St. Patrick's Day less than 2 weeks away I thought I would share a little "Luck 'O the Irish" basket I put together for my family.  I found this little basket at the dollar store to hold everything....love that it has a green band through it.  I filled it with little green (mostly green ;)) treats for everyone.  A green can of sour cream and onion Pringles, green mint gum, green Tic Tacs, Apple Cinnamon Nutri Grain Bars and some other goodies.  Little notebooks and pens for the boys and holiday socks and earrings for our daughter.  I set it out on the dining room table with a box of Lucky Charms for breakfast as a morning surprise.   Super sweet and easy little treat for St. Patrick's Day.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cake Decorating Birthday Party

Choosing a theme for our daughter's twelfth birthday party was much easier than I had thought it might be.  I perused Pinterest for themes that she might like and let her choose from three.  She ultimately choose the cake decorating party, probably since this one scared me the most as I have almost zero experience with decorating cakes.  Well, as they say, no time like the present to learn something new.  I will admit that I was nervous to take on this party, but I am happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised.  

The girls were at a fabulous age for this party theme.

I choose to make each girl their own 5" round cake (they looked so darn cute).  I was very inspired by this blogger's cake decorating party.  I do not own small round cake pans, so I choose to bake 13"x9" cakes and use a round cookie cutter to cut out round cakes.  To make 12 cakes I had to bake 5 cake mixes, each 13"x9" cake yielded 5 cake rounds.  I used one cake on the bottom, and then cut one cake in half width wise and used a half cake for the top tier.  So each cake was 1 & 1/2 rounds.  

I had read that you can freeze cakes which makes them easier to frost.  I am sorry to say that this was not the case for me.  The cake still crumbled while we (my mother was so kind to come save me from the icing debacle that ensued) iced them.  While this did cause some panic, they still did turn out pretty cute.  So sorry that I do not have a picture of them frosted.

A friend was kind enough to share her recipe for cream cheese buttercream icing.  This was a fantastic icing which I will absolutely use again in the future.  I placed each cake on a Wilton 8" cardboard cake round that I found in the cake decorating aisle.  I iced the cake with white icing and then divided the rest in half.  One half was tinted light blue, which actually looked more like green (oh well) and the other half was pink.  I used the Wilton disposable icing bags with a decorator tip, there were a variety for the girls to experiment with.  I had seen a tip on Pinterest to use a  twist-tie to seal the tops which helped, but we still had many an icing explosion.  I would have loved to have been able to share photos of the decorating, but I was busy cleaning up icing and sadly was not able to snap any.  However, the girls were very talented, and the cakes looked amazing, much better than anything I could have created.  Every girl had a bakery box with their name on it to take their creation home to share with their family.  I created the labels in Word and just printed them out.  I thought that they needed a little finishing touch so I made some cupcake wrapper flowers to dress the boxes up a little.

After they were done decorating their cakes the girls voted on their favorites in three categories; Most Colorful, Best Design and Most Creative.  The winners were awarded a cupcake wrapper ribbon award. 

  As the girls were arriving to the party we played a Name that Cake game that I found on Etsy.  I altered them so that they were not for a bridal shower, but rather a birthday party.  Again, the girls amazed me at how many of these that they guessed correctly.  The winner took home a sock cupcake prize.

After the cake decorating the girls played Bingo for prizes. I photocopied Bingo cards and then used leftover scrapbook paper from the Happy Birthday Banner that I had made to make them party worthy.

The Bingo prizes were baking themed and were made with baking bowls and utensils from the dollar store and baking mixes from the grocery store.  The girls were very excited to win a prize...the brownie bowl was the favorite.  To ensure no hurt feelings once a Bingo was called they drew a number and all the prizes were numbered with corresponding numbers.  If someone happened to wind Bingo more than once they could keep their prize or trade it in for another prize.

This basket included a mixing bowl, measuring cups, cupcake liners, sprinkles and a chocolate cake mix.

These were the cookie mixes with measuring spoons and a cookie cutter.

This was the brownie basket which included a mixing bowl, spatula, cupcake liners, sprinkles and of course a box of brownie mix.

There were two of the bath poof cupcake prizes.  The bottom is a ramekin dish, and the bath poof is topped off with a lollipop.

These were the numbers for the drawing of the prizes.

I choose to keep the food simple since the party was after lunchtime.  We served little finger sandwiches that were either turkey & cheese or ham & cheese and were marked with little washi tape flags.

Then we served a veggie tray with ranch veggie dip and hummus and crackers & cheese.  Then of course we served cupcakes.

For drinks we had pink lemonade and chocolate milk...the pink lemonade was the big winner.

Here is a shot of our dining room with the tables all set up.

I made a Happy Birthday Banner using the free printables from this site.  I have used her site in the past and love how they turn out every time.

I also made these adorable tulle pom poms using this tutorial and absolutely love them.  They were perfect hanging from our dining room light fixture.  They are now hanging in my daughters room as they were just too cute to put away.

Since they had a lot to bring home I decided to make some cute bags to take everything home in.  I found these on Pinterest and thought they would be easy enough to whip up.  Well, yes they are easy, but took forever to do since I am such a master procrastinator.  In the end I am thrilled that I made them, but they did take the most amount of my time.

We made simple little party favors for each of her guests using a pack of gum and trendy little hairbands that I made using this tutorial.

After the party was over there were a couple of left over cakes for the boys to decorate which I was able to snap a few pictures of.  As you can see the cakes were frosted in white and the decorator bags with the blue/green and pink frosting.  They loved decorating the cakes just as much as the girls, truly this is a wonderful idea for any age group, just depends on how much mess you can handle.

Thanks for sticking with me this long, as I know this is a long post.  Hope you enjoyed reading along.  This was one of my favorite parties and so happy our daughter enjoyed every part of it.

Cute DIY Tween Girl Gift Basket

I have to admit I absolutely love making gift baskets for any and all occasions.  So when my kids are invited to a party I ask them for ideas and then we create a basket that their friend will love.  The kids love helping to find just the right items to stick with theme of the gift basket.  My daughter wanted to create a crafting/girls night in gift basket for her friend.  We started off with a popcorn bucket for the container that we found at the dollar store.  I have to say that that is the best place to find a variety of containers that will not eat up the entire gift budget.  She picked out a few boxes of movie theater candies, microwave popcorn, rubber bands for making the loom bracelets, charms for the bracelets, and a monogram note pad with matching pen.

We then filled the popcorn tub with tissue and paper shreds for basket making . We arranged all of the goodies and wrapped the entire basket in cellophane and tied it up with ribbon.  She was thrilled to give her friend a gift basket with all of the fun things that she picked out for her. I think they look so cute all wrapped up in such a fun way.

Thanks again for stopping by.

Cute DIY Blackhawks Tutu

So I decided that I wanted to make a birthday gift for my niece (think tutu) that her daddy would love too.  So naturally I thought SPORTS!!!  After much searching on Pinterest, I was inspired by this darling fabric tutu. Well, I wasn't crazy about a golf themed tutu (her daddy's favorite sport) so I decided to go with a Chicago Blackhawks theme.  I picked matching fabrics at the craft store and some coordinating tulle, as you cannot have a tutu without tulle.

In the tutorial it suggested 3" wide strips of fabric, however I thought that may be too wide for a 1 year old, so I decided to go with 2" wide.  Each strip was 20" long to create a finished tutu of 8" in length (I accommodated for the looped fabric).  I also cut a piece of elastic band to 18.5" long.  The large black and white polka dot fabric was left over from another project so I had only 8 strips of this and 10 each for the other two fabrics,  I doubled up on the tulle with two pieces together so I had a total of 10 each of those as well.

The only sewing that I did for this project was to sew the elastic ends together, just a few back and forth passes and voila a waistband.

I then began looping my fabric around the waistband, I found this method easier to ensure both halves of my fabric were the same length.  I folded the fabric in half and then looped the fabric through and tightened into a loose knot.  Be careful not to knot it too tight or it will change the size of the waistband (I had to go back and loosen my knots).

Continue looping fabric in any pattern you desire and in the end you should have a fabulous little tutu.

To make this a Blawkhawks outfit I choose to add little black leggings and a white t-shirt.  I found some cute little iron-on letters at the craft store and put Go Hawks on the front and her name and age on the back. 

 Then I made a little matching hairband with this tutorial.  I have to say I was quite pleased with the final product. 

 Hope you enjoyed and if you should have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.  

Thanks for stopping by.