Pin Of The Week- Thinking 1st Birthday Party

Posted by on July 14, 2011 27 Comments

ALREADY? I know, I know, but hear me out. It’s less than 6 months away.

My baby is closer to turning one than to the day she was born. Crazy. Just crazy. (OH! And as of 3 hours ago, she has her first tooth!)

And so, since the last half of the year is most definitely the crazier half, always, I know I need to start planning for things like the holidays and a very special little girl’s first birthday. Don’t worry, I’m not to the psychotic stage of Party Planning Psychosis yet. Just in the planning stage, just collecting and pinning inspiration pictures (and putting them on their very own 1st birthday inspiration board).

I fell in love with rainbow themed parties when I blogged this on over at Party Like a Kid. Now, I think I would love to do a rainbow theme in the dead of winter, December 28th, because why not do something so cheerful and bright then? Of course, things could always change, and my ideas will evolve, but I’m toying with rainbow colors on lots of white, incorporating buttons somehow (they’re about as trendy on Pinterest right now as mason jars, so I may be annoyed by them come the end of the year… or maybe I’ll have mason jars full of buttons?).

I’ve always loved those multicolored layered cakes, but who am I kidding? I suck at making cakes. These cookies? I can do.


 

Heck, I may even try them this summer. I think Kendall will love them!

Have any other rainbow, winter, button-y ideas for me?

I think I have a couple people who posted last week still waiting for Pinterest invites. I’m off to take care of them now. If you’d like one, go ahead and leave your email in the comment section below. And thanks to those of you who’ve been helping me send everyone an invite/ Happy pinning!

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Filed Under: Pin Of The Week, Round 2 |Tagged With: , , , |27 Comments

Kendall’s 3rd Birthday Party or Why I’d Never Make it as a Wedding Planner

Posted by on May 12, 2011 22 Comments

Party Planning Psychosis was in full effect last weekend for Kendall’s 3rd birthday party. I’m only now getting to blog about it because I had to spend quality time with family following the episode to make up for my insanity and ensure that they will attend future celebrations under my rule.

The thing is, I have this website, Party Like A Kid, where my team and I spend all this time researching and featuring cool kid’s parties. I was actually inspired to start the site after planning Kendall’s 2nd birthday party. I see all these amazing ideas, fantastical parties, all seemingly pulled off effortlessly. The proud moms pose with perfect makeup, baby on their hip, in front of lush buffets and beautifully homemade cakes. The details are flawless. One may think that I, someone so passionate about sharing such events, would be able to pull one off on her own without morphing into Evil Mommy-wife-sista-child of Doom, but, as has already been established, I can’t.

Oh, I do still try, though.

So on Saturday, after many hours the days before and that morning of crafting and, well, not really cooking (cupcake pull-away cake from Super Target FOR THE WIN!), I arrived at In-Sync Exotics in Wylie, Texas (a seriously kick ass wild cat refuge in the Dallas area) for Kendall’s Animal Rescuer party. Of course, I also brought my trusty slave sidekick, my sister Kelly, who I don’t even want to know how many favors I owe when she gets around to having kids.

 

I made Kelly stay up until the wee hours putting these trail mix bags together with toppers designed for me by Charlotte from The Paper Cupcake.

Look how close you get to the cats there! The zoo is so boring after visiting this place. We've been going since Kendall was a year old.

 

I'll admit I was ticked these sack lunches would not stand in straight lines. They performed perfectly on my counter at home. Tiger bags had PB&J whole wheat tortilla roll-ups and leopard bags had cream cheese, honey and mashed banana tortilla roll-ups.

My desires to keep the party as eco-friendly as possible lost out to the convenience of Oriental Trading Company and the enthusiastic pleas of a nearly 3 year old set free in Party City. Also? Time and the bank account ganged up on me and made me give up my vision of reusable bamboo party ware and homemade cupcakes topped with fondant lion faces.

 

Rescue Pack favor bags full of cool stuff like headlamps, and crap like binoculars and bandaids.

To put it another way, I was SMART ENOUGH to recognize that I could spend all week making those adorable little lion faces to set atop cupcakes made from sugar-free hippy hair and fair trade organic nuts gathered by local squirels, but nothing would make my kid as happy as the high fructose corn syrup puddle of frosting poured over a pile of not so freshly baked cupcakes made to look like a jungle and savanna with freaking DIEGO on it. I would say I’ve successfully completed step one in the Party Planning Psychosis recovery program.

 

Possibly a gallon of frosting on this bad boy.

In my defense, my Party Planning Psychosis tends to flare up when other people *cough* my husband *cough* don’t do what I tell them. Like bring the juice. I simply wanted the man to pack the damn car with everything I so thoughtfully purchased and made, everything part of  my master party plan. I just wanted him to GET IT TO THE PARTY.

Sigh.

Don’t worry, I forgave him. I will not, however, forget. Next year there will be procedures in place to prevent such a slip up.

At the end of the day, all was well. The party went great, the guests were only slightly parched and a touch sunburnt by the end of it. I, on the other hand, was completely drenched in sweat and dehydrated because I refused to drink any of the precious few water bottles we managed to bring with us so none of our guests would die of heat stroke. Naturally, that would be the perfect time for a family photo. Notice the healthy red glow I’m sporting from my brief exposure to the sun. There is vampire in my lineage, I’m sure of it.

Note to self- take family picture BEFORE the party next time. Ha! That's implying you actually get to the party early. Riiiighhht.

Kendall is 3 and Leyna is 4.5 months. Time to start planning her 1st birthday!

 

 

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Filed Under: Terrifying Threes |Tagged With: , , , , |22 Comments

DIY Inexpensive and Easy Cupcake Stand

Posted by on May 20, 2010 21 Comments

As promised, and of course, late- directions on how to whip up a super simple and inexpensive cupcake stand for any occaision. Let me just apologize in advance for not going all out and remaking one from start to finish. I just don’t have it in me right now. It is, however, super simple to make, so I fudged a bit and faked it out for the pictures, but I’m confident you’ll get the idea.

Materials:

Cardboard cake circles in varying sizes (I only used 2 sizes, but 3 sizes would be great, too). These come in 14″ down to 8″ at Hobby Lobby and cost anywhere from $2-$5/pack. You can make 2 levels out of each pack (with 6 circles to a pack and 3 circles to a level).

1 yard fabric

2-3 yards 1/2 inch grosgrain ribbon to coordinate

Tacky/craft glue and hot glue gun (the cheap one works fine)

2-3 sheets of 12×12 coordinating scrapbook paper

Clear tape or even double sided tape

A few cans from your pantry (you might want a couple of these to be extra wide for extra support)

First, stack and glue three cardboard circles on top of each other with a thin bead of hot glue swirled evenly across each circle. Do this for as many levels as you plan on having (I can’t say I’d recommend more than 4).

Next, swirl a thin bead of tacky glue from the inside all the way to the very outer edges of the top of the glued level and place it on top of your (pre pressed and wrinkle free) fabric. Let dry for a few minutes then cut around the edges. I like to do a rough cut a little larger than the circle and then do a more precise cut with less fabric to mess with.

Now line the edges of the cardboard with your grosgrain ribbon, slowly working around and adhering it with hot glue.

Let’s work on the cans. Grab your scrapbook paper and cut strips a little less than 4.5 inches wide, just a smidge (for standard height cans). You will need more than one piece for the extra wide cans, but the height will be the same. Wrap the paper around the can and secure with tape.

Put a finished level fabric side down, grab a can (the size you want responsible for holding up that level), find the middle of the circle and trace around the can. (Note- for mine, one of the levels did not have a can underneath it and rested directly on the table.)

Remove the can and apply a generous amount of hot glue to the outline. Also, run some hot glue around the top of the can (where it will meet the cardboard). Press the can onto the cardboard and let sit until it’s completely dry. The key is to have glue both inside and outside the lip of the can. And keep in mind that you’ll want to line up the back seams of your cans with the seams of your ribbon so that can be the “back” of the stand.

After you’ve done this for all the layers that will be elevated, you should end up with something like this.

Keep it like this until you get to where you can set it up. Then just stack it up and place your cupcakes on it.

When you’re finished, you can remove the cans pretty easily and the hot glue should peel off (it will tear some of the cardboard, but I wouldn’t stress about it), or you can just glue over it next time. Remove the paper from the cans and put them back in your pantry and save the layers for the next time you need it. It’s super simple to reassemble. (We used this one at Kendall’s 1st birthday last year and again at his 2nd birthday. I see a lot of life in it’s future.)

Hope that inspires you all! I think you can really take this concept and run with it, making lots of creative and cheap stands. Please share pictures if you do! And let me know if you have any questions in the comment section. Thanks!

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Filed Under: Crafty! |Tagged With: , , |21 Comments

Jump Around, Jump Around!

Posted by on May 5, 2010 151 Comments

I began planning Kendall’s 2nd birthday party a couple months ago when he learned the word “house.” Not as in the “house” we live in, but like BOUNCE “house.” He begs me to go to the “house” every day. I’ve been taking him to a local Pump It Up Jr. almost every week since last summer, and it’s the perfect, nearly 100% toddler proofed play escape. He doesn’t so much bounce in the bounce house as he does run around, try to play with the blowers, and fight with other kids for the lone Cozy Coupe, but he still loves it. And lately he’s been doing a lot of bouncing and hopping and, ultimately, falling at home, so the bounce house seemed like a logical place to confine  him and a multitude of toddlers and exhausted parents for his party (and you can see why the huge ass trampoline seemed like a good idea at the time, too). Screw the park this year. The park is too much freaking work. I don’t have the energy to host a party and hover below my child as he peers precariously over the side of a metal slide.

The invitations I found at TinyPrints.com were PERFECT! The colors matched the decor already provided by PIU Jr. and I loved how playful they are.

I honestly didn’t put too much effort into this party, but I still think it turned out great. I owe a lot to the excellent staff at Pump It Up Jr. Everything went very smoothly. They helped set up and we didn’t even have to clean up. I tell you, I was crazy to do it all on our own at the park last year. I also loved the peace of mind that came from knowing it didn’t matter if it rained. Last year I thought we’d have to abandon the party altogether to start building an ark, and the day of the party we ended up with a puddle the size of a small lake in the middle of the park pavilion.

Kendall was dying to get inside the entire 15 minutes before the party started. It was everything we could do to keep him from breaking in. Oh, and how amazing is that shirt?! CafePress.com totally hooked us up with that, and you’ll want to stay tuned because I’m going to announce a sweet little giveaway at the bottom of this post.

I wish I had more pictures to document the fun, but trying to capture toddlers on film is about as challenging as photographing the Loch Ness Monster.  All I’ve got are blurs and shadows of what may or may not be a kid running by.

I did manage to snag this beauty at the end of the bouncing portion, though. I will love it and cherish it and use it’s powers possibly for evil when Kendall is a teenager.

He is always digging around in there these days. I don’t know what to do to make him stop. He thinks it hilarious, no matter how I react. And, “You’re going to get made fun of for that!” just doesn’t seem to make sense to him yet.

After the bouncing came to an end, we headed to the party room, which was just fantastic. I didn’t have to spend any money on table cloths or fancy plates and cups. The room was cute as-is, and I had leftover plates from last year. They provided cutlery and napkins. I did bring the banner I made for Kendall’s birthday last year. I hope to hang it every year until he voices his disgust for it.

I also reused the homemade cupcake stand from last year. (I hope to get a tutorial up for that soon. It’s super easy and inexpensive.)  And, running with the ball theme from the invites, I made Oreo Truffle Balls, dipped in Wilton colored candy melts to make red, green and yellow balls to sit on top of the cupcakes, which were a Cake Mix Doctor recipe for red-velvet with Bakerella cream cheese frosting. Not entirely homemade, and not entirely aesthetically pleasing, but they were a huge hit, especially with the birthday boy.

Pure cupcake bliss!

The favors were one of the best parts of the party. BornFree hooked me up with enough of their newly released, BPA free Twist n Pop straw cups for all the kids! I had them waiting, full of ice water, next to their pizza when they filed in. A HUGE thanks to BornFree. They were such a hit.

So after all of that, when the herd of toddlers cleared the room and the last Oreo ball was demolished, we were left with nothing but a 2 year old. Yay us for 2 whole years as parents!

I know you stuck around to the end of the post because you really loved seeing all my terribly grainy and blurry pictures (I keep telling my husband that grown up bloggers have MUCH nicer cameras), not at all to hear about the kick ass giveaway CafePress.com is hosting, right? But hey, you’re here anyway, so I might as well tell you about it.  So, if you don’t know already, you can get TONS of cool personalized gifts at CafePress. They hooked me up with an organic cotton t-shirt for myself and Kendall, and I got to peruse through all the fantastic designs to find the two that suited us the best.

Kendall’s “Danger, 2 year old” shirt could not be more appropriate since he’s quite the running wrecking ball these days, and I think “Keep Calm And Carry On” should be every toddler mom’s mantra. The quality of the shirts is excellent (American Apparel), but I will say they run super small. Kendall’s rocking a 4T and I’m in a large. That’s a size up from what we both normally wear.

Cafe Press is giving away an organic kid’s shirt and organic adult shirt (total value approx. $52) to one lucky commenter. You can choose from any of the designs they have. Nothing special you have to do here, just comment below. I’ll draw a random winner next Monday, May 10th.

Thanks for sticking around for all the birthday fun!

Contest is closed! Winner is comment #34, as chose by Random.org. Congrats, Jill!

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Filed Under: Terrific Terrorist Twos |Tagged With: , , , , , |151 Comments
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