alphabet cupcake toppers

Free downloadable PDF for an alphabet party

I used these as cupcake toppers by cutting out the circles with a circle punch and gluing to a toothpick.


alphabet cupcake topper

Slumber Party

My daughter is 8 years old already. Since she is such a big girl we decided she could have her first slumber party! Check out the invites, inspired by www.tinyprints.com

tea party

The birthday girl 

My Toddler is now a young girl; she just turned 6 years old. Alivia wanted to have a tea party for her birthday so I found a cute little bistro, New Englund’s Bistro and Tea Room in here in Concord, CA. The tea party started off with a presentation about tea etiquette and what a “lump of sugar”  is. The girls enjoyed tea, lemonade, finger sandwiches, cupcakes, a story about a tea party and feeling all grown up in their pretty tea dresses.

The invitation to the birthday party was an adorable tea pot. I used a pattern from Unforgettable Invitations by Melissa Giles. My daughter chose several different papers and embellishments and helped with the assembly.

Here is a downloadable PDF pattern: teapotpattern for the tea pot, including a shopping guide for 12 invitations that I added.  The best part about this book is that there are so many different ideas, but your paper and embellishment choices and maybe combining some of her different ideas make your cards unique. It really will spark your imagination.

Tea Pot Invitation

from Unforgettable Invitations by Melissa Giles

MATERIALS

• Patterned Paper: 6 letter size sheets


• Solid Color Card Stock: 9 letter size sheets


• Vellum Paper: 3 sheets letter size


• Envelopes to fit 7˝ x 7˝ tea pot: 12


• Adhesive Glue Roller Applicator


• Scissors


• X-Acto Blade to cut tea pot inside handle


• decorative embellishments

INVITATION LAYOUT

Layout your invitation in your layout program. You can fit 4 per letter size paper.
The size of the invitation is 3˝x 3¾˝. The text area is approximately 2¾˝ x 3˝

1. Draw a box 3˝w x 3¾˝ h
   tip:  The box lines should be faint so that you can see them just enough to cut, but won’t be too noticeable if some of the line shows after cutting.


2. Start your text about ½˝ from the top to leave room for the lid which will cover that area
   Hint:  Leave space on the sides, you don’t want to accidentally cut any text off.


3. Once you have your invitation just right, Copy and Paste so that you have 4 invitations on your page.


4. Print on vellum paper

CUTTING

1. Cut 4 templates:
   
   
   
   • tea pot front (cut along the dotted line)
   
   
   • teapot back (do not cut along the dotted line)
   
   
   • lid
   
   
   • invitation back
   
   
   
   (You won’t be making a template for the invitation front piece because you printed it directly on the vellum.)
   Tip: Use an X-Acto blade to cut the inside of the tea pot handle


2. Trace templates on to back side of paper.
   
   
   
   • 2 tea pot fronts and 2 tea pot lids per patterned paper
   
   
   • 2 tea pot backs per solid paper
   
   
   • 4 invitation backs per solid paper
   
   
   • 4 invitation fronts per vellum paper
   
   
   
    


3. Cut all pieces.

ASSEMBLY

INVITATION

1. One line of glue on top  of  vellum invitation front, line up and attach to invitation back


2. Glue lid to invitation back placing over the invitation front

TEA POT

Glue only edges of front to the back leaving space in the center for the invitation to slide in and out.

FINISHING

Slide invitation into the tea pot and leave as is or finish with a pretty embellishment.

super hero party

These are the invites for my sons 3rd b-day party. They were the easiest I’ve made yet, and I think they are my favorites. I just laid out the invitation cover, saved it as a HiRes JPG photo size 4 x 6 and had them printed at Walgreens as photos for $0.19 a print. I then glued a black and white print of the invitation details on the back. How simple and inexpensive is that?

Now for the party:

Super Hudson showing off his super muscles in his bat cave

Now for the fun part, the party.

Every super hero needs a cape and mask to hide their identity so I made one for each super hero.

The masks are a simple oval shape with slits for the eyes. I used a black satiny fabric for the front, fast2fuse for the middle and a gold velvety fabric for the backing. I used  stretchy black elastic for the strap. I just sewed around the outside of the mask and eyes to hold it together and keep the strap on. I don’t think they look great but the kids thought the masks were cool. It just shows me that my work doesn’t have to be perfect for the kids to have a good time.

The capes look cool. I sort of traced a cape that my son already had  for the basic shape. I folded the sides in and sewed all around the outside edge of the cape to make a hem. I used velcro on the top to hold the cape on. You could put stars or the initial of each child on the back.

The bat cave. I made this out in our back yard. We have a gazebo in the center of our yard, so I covered the entire thing with outdoor black fabric netting and a big tarp. My husband spray painted a huge bat on the front of the tarp. I hung a bat in the middle inside the bat cave and put the capes and masks in there. The cave was really low tech but with a little imagination, it was real! Hudson was bringing all the guests into his bat cave to “fly” with him. He was so cute.

The party. We started with the super hero training camp which was an obstacle course. Once the heroes completed their training the kids drove Hudson’s bat mobile to the bat cave to get their super hero gear (capes and masks) and their crime fighting tools. batman balls and spider man silly string “webs”.  The kids went through the bat cave tunnels to get to the villain poster targets.

I think I had almost as much fun planning this party as the kids had at the party.

Party Perfect Halloween Party

This website has such pretty photography and the parties are really inspirational. I love the Halloween page.   http://www.saraspartyperfect.com/

crafty birthday gift idea

My daughter was going to a friend’s birthday party. I wanted her gift to be something fun and unique, not the same old Barbie doll. Alivia and I love to make crafts together, so I figured her friend likes to, also. I thought the Ready-to-Go! Indie File Box would be the perfect size box to fill with craft goodies.

I then discovered that the Ready-to-Go! 1 1/2″ blocks fit perfectly inside the file box and are a great surface for kids crafts. They’re also a great deal at $8.95 for 9 blocks! Alivia likes to draw pictures on each side of the block with pens. (I have to admit that I like to do this, too.)

The file box includes tab dividers, so we included several sheets of stickers and fancy paper. There was even enough room for a cute paper punch and some glittery pens!



To finish off the crafty gift, we wrapped it in beautiful pink fabric and topped it with a big ribbon!

My daughter was so proud to give this gift, a personalized present that she put so much thought into, like picking out the perfect stickers that she knew her friend would like, and decorating one of the blocks. It was really sweet.