Birthday Parties

I love to throw parties, I love to personlaize parties. You know, give it that little something extra that makes it stand out from the rest. I always say, "it is all about the presentation." I believe that is true. You don't have to spend a lot of money or buy tons of themed partyware. It is all in how you present it!

SpongeBob Luau-we had this party inside in early December, it was quite a success. We made invitations via the computer and personazlized them using Spongebob talk, referencing his blurbs to adapt to our theme. I bought Leis to give to each child upon arrival. We made a backdrop for pictures with the birthday girl. The backdrop was a plastic, blue, dollar store tablecloth we put on the wall using sticky tack (poster tack), you can also use tape. I bought clear balloons and a SpongeBob stand-up balloon, we added the number 8 (this was my daughters eighth birthday), and added little squigglys to make it look like Bikini Bottom. Each child at the party was photographed with my daughter, we sent the photographs in a thank you card to each child. The kids made SpongeBob foamie frames, I bought at Wal-mart. We played games such as a Hula Hoop contest, bubble blowing contest and hot pineapple (a take on Hot potato). I printed out various coloring pages and made a Happy Birthday sign with all the SpongeBob characters, each attendee signed it with a birthday message. Goldfish crackers to snack on before I made "Krabby Patties" (little hamburgers), and ordered the "plankton pizza" of course it would not have been complete without pineapple slices. You can find many additional luau items at your local party store, it just depends on how elaborate you want to be. The cake was a SpongeBob cake, made with a Rectangular pan, I just drew spongeBob on the cake. The ideas are endless.

School Spirit Ideas

Need ideas for a school or recreational sport. Personalize candy, make spirit bags, motivational messages, here are a few I have done. My daughters have played Volleyball for many years, I try to be as creative as I can coming up with new and different sayings for each game. Usually the first game I make a Bag, our colors are purple and white and we are the Tigers. I get purple and white lunch bags and put TIGERS, vertically on the front of the bags with a motivational sentence with the first letter being the T in Tiger and so forth, see my example:

TIGERS DOMINATE AND DEFEAT
IGNITE THAT TIGER SPIRIT
GEAR UP FOR VICTORY
EVERY PLAYER COUNTS
READY, SET, WIN
SCORE, SCORE, SCORE
Inside the bags I put a variety of candy, each standing for something. I usually add a motivational quote on a piece of paper with it also. I use clip art also, like tigers, paw prints anything that pertains to who they are or they might be playing.
Example:

“Never let the fear of striking out, keep you from playing the game.”
Three Musketeers- We’re all for one and one for all!
Starburst- To give you that extra burst of energy when you need it!
Laffy Taffy- Not only play the game, but have fun doing it!

Tootsie Pop- Pop ‘em up and Spike ‘em down!

Extra Gum-Give it extra effort!
!GO TIGERS!

Of course you can put your own twist to your own team. And it's not just for Volleyball. Cheerleaders, football, basketball, baseball, personalize it to your sport of choice.

Here are a few more spirit sayings "Crunch the CATS"-use crunch bars, "Rip the Raiders to Pieces"-Reeses Pieces, "Tigers Rock the House"- Pop Rocks, "Blast 'em to the Milky Way"-Milky Way bars, "Stick it to the Warriors"-gum, "Blow the Gales away"-Blow pops, "Tigers are Mighty & Mean"- M&M's, "Roll-over the Raiders"-Rolos or tootsie rolls, "Kiss the Celtics good-bye"-hershey kisses.

Halloween Costumes

Easy to make Halloween costumes-

Pippi Longstocking-The beloved children's character comes to life with this great kids costume idea. I went to the local children's resale store and picked up the denim dress, any type of dress would work and the brown shoes (they were a boys pair of shoes). I then gathered fabric scraps, which I sewed by hand onto the dress. We layered shirts, of various colors, under the dress. My daughter wore her baseball pants as bloomers. We picked up two sets of knee socks at the dollar store and mismatched them to make a mismatched pair. I weaved a strip of wire through her hair as I braided it (it spanned from one braid to the end of the other braid). I sprayed red hair paint in her hair, added a few freckles and finished it with her monkey Mr. Nilsson. She got raves on that costume all night long.

Leprechaun - I found a green outfit at Wal-mart, with knickers and a short blazer along with gold buttons. I added a white ruffled blouse, white knee socks, green hat, bow tie, a pipe and a pot o' gold to finish off the outfit. I added a red beard with sideburns using lip liner (you could use any makeup). The outfit looked great and it was very inexpensive.

Halloween

Halloween-have you booed your neighbor lately? In the past couple of years the act of "Boo-ing" your neighbor has become quite popular. If you have no idea what I am talking about please keep reading. This fun chain of events starts by simply gathering some fun-filled goodies/treats in a bag or container of your choice. The trick or treat pumpkins are cheap, they also sell many types of halloween treat bags that are just as amusing. I bought an eight pack of plastic bags at Hobby Lobby for $1.20, they had a cute little scared spider on them with the words BOO! (they also sold a set with ghosts on them). I filled each bag with pencils, water snakes (cheap Halloween ones I bought at Target) and added various Halloween candy. You can personalize them any way you want. Once you create a "Boo" bag/basket of goodies (make up at least 2 or 3) you need to print a Print a "Boo" gram (below). Find your unsuspecting target and make the "drop." Ring the doorbell and knock- RUN!!! -but don't get caught.

BOO!

To our good friends on our street;
Our location of our homes made us meet.
You now have been Boo’d, but who could we be?
We’ll never tell, it is a secret, you see.
We secretly placed these goodies for you and yours
Then we ran fast after knocking the door!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Place this Boo on your front door
And make sure you Boo two neighbors of yours!