Skylanders Party Planning - Part 7, THE PARTY!

At long last – I present to you... the summary of our Skylanders party. 

Yes, it has been over two months since said party took place, but better late than never, eh?

The activities went over really well.  The kids loved moving from station to station and acquiring crystals and gems to fill their customized pouches (tutorials on how to sew them and stencil them with fabric paint here).

The archery targets looked great and the flame arrows were really fun as well. 

Next time I would trim the flames down a bit to make it easier to nock the arrows.

The treasure hunt to find the treasure rocks went well.  And I was really pleased with how the treasure rocks turned out.  I used this tutorial:  Treasure Rocks.

The kids loved the ice orb smash and the tongue grabber game.

The wall of streamers was meh.  I ran out of time and wasn't able to put up as much as I wanted.  If it had been finished, I think it would have been fab.  Even incomplete, it added a nice pop to the yard.

I was very pleased with the rest of the décor. 

Streamers behind the food table provided a colorful focal point.

I was happy with my goofy centerpieces.  I used my elixir bottles and filled them with colorful beads for ballast.

I have to say that tissue tassels are definitely my new favorite thing.  After the party, I snipped the tassels off of the string, sorted by color, strung them on pipe cleaners, and hung them in the craft room to use for another time.

Sadly, the portal punch was a fail – I forgot that the pumpkin lights really only work in the dark.  Boo.  But the punch was good and the portal cardboard surround I made had a strong presence on the table.

We had too much food, as usual, but I don’t care – I love having the variety available.  Pizza, chips, water melon, and pineapple for lunch. 

The sweets table turned out really well, although we did end up moving it indoors to escape the oppressive humidity and voracious mosquitoes.  We made marshmallow pops dipped in pop rocks.  I displayed them in a diner-style shaker filled with pom-poms.

We also had chocolate dipped pretzels, a mini-cake with a simple buttercream stripe pattern topped with the logo on strwas, cupcakes with character and logo toppers, and my personal favorite - the Chompie Truffles.  I thought the red fangs made from candy cane jimmies (sorry – showing my Delaware roots – jimmies are sprinkles) were fun.

I was also excited to serve pre-scooped ice cream.  I bought mini-mason jars and put a scoop of vanilla bean in each the night before.  It was so easy to pull them out and stack them up on the sweets table.  I have a thing about sticky hands and drippy sticky containers, so I will be doing this from now on.  This little step easily reduced my stress level by several clicks.

For favors, we gave out silver take-out treat boxes.

They were filled with the same red and gold cello used for the flame arrows, which was very frugal of me, I think.

Inside we put:
Trigger Happy Chocolate Coins

Double Trouble Gumball Orbs (still leftover from Easter - will we never be done with these freaking gumballs?!?)

 Pop Fizz Pop Rocks (Dollar Tree)

 Zap's Sea Slime (Target Dollar Section)

 And Hex's Bone Erasers (no pic of those, unfortunately.  They were in the Target Dollar section with the grilling-themed stuff.)

Rock Climbing Party - Part 3, THE PARTY!

My daughter just celebrated her 10th birthday.  I know this is the ulitmate cliche, but where did the time go?  My beautiful little Gerber Baby has grown into a beautiful young lady, poised on the edge of tweendom, growing like a lovely sunflower - I love her to pieces and am so proud of the independent, smart, caring person she is becoming. 

We celebrated this milestone birthday with a joint birthday party with her dear friend, E.  Both girls turned 10 within a few days of one another (which is remarkable in our district, where tons of the kids are "red-shirted", i.e. parents opt to hold their kids back before starting kindergarten, which means that kids start school at 6 instead of 5.  A lot of the 4th graders in her class were 10 at the beginnging of the year.  I had never heard of choosing to hold your kids back before moving here...).  Anyhoo, both girls wanted a rock climbing party, so we doubled up on the fun with a duel party.  Their joint party was a great success.  The two birthday girls had an amazing time climbing and being feted by their friends.  Here are some of the highlights.

Pizza and drinks were included in the package, so our only food contribution was birthday cake.  For E., there were from-scratch cupcakes with Etsy flamingo toppers.  For my M., I made a kit-kat cake with peacock-colored M&M's on top.  I made the cake from a butter recipe mix, but amped up the fun by using my checkerboard pan.  I finished it off with a cardstock pennant and sound some cool Wilton candles with blue and green flames.  (I set the orange and red candles aside to use at the Skylanders party next month...)  To make the moment special for both girls, we sang to each one separately.

The cake table served as the focal point for decor.  It was topped with a (wrinkly!  boo!) white cloth (a thrift store sheet that I repurposed).  I wish it wasn't so wrinkly - how do you get linens to a destination without wrinkles?  The cloth was adorned with handmade name banners for each girl (denim triangles with iron-on letters sewn to seam binding). 

I made a little vignette with glittery initials, some sentimental baby pics, and a fun pic of both girls together with a birthday message added in Picasa.  The backdrop was made from my tissue paper garland mounted with zip ties from Dollar Tree.  I had planned to mount them on painted wooden dowels, but that didn't work.  I improvised and zip-tied them to the pipe railing instead - it looked awesome!

Scattered on the table were the various favors - a water bottle and free climbing coupon provided by the facility, little cello bags filled with shimmer gumballs (last minute addition when I remembered that we had a ton leftover from Easter) stapled with a scrapbook paper topper, and monogrammed favor bags filled with pop rocks, a carabineer, and a little thank you note mounted on pretty scrapbook paper.  The note read "Thank you for your generous donation.  We're so glad that you were able to help us celebrate our 10th birthdays.  E and M".  We went with a generic thank you since there was no way to know who gave what to the birthday girls.  This was because our girls opted to not receive gifts and instead asked guests to consider bringing an item to donate to their chosen charities - a local food cupboard for M. and local animal shelter for E.  This really warms my heart.  Once upon a time, I was one of those poor kids RECEIVING food from food cupboards like this one, so it makes me so happy that our family can give back and also that my child WANTS to give back.  Not every kid would be willing to pass up birthday presents like this, so kudos to you, E. and M.!  To make transport easy, we brought plastic bins to serve as the donation receptacle.  Each birthday girl made a sign for their charity to add to the bin.

Checkerboard Kit-Kat Cake

As I've mentioned before, I am cake-challenged.  When I need a cake, I try to put a lot of thought into the plans to make sure that it's something I can do successfully.  My oh-so-practical daughter helps me to stay humble on track.  We'll look at cakes online and she'll say, "Do you REALLY think you can make that, Mommy?  Remember the castle cake..."  She'll totally discourage me from trying something if she thinks it's too ambitious.  She is wise beyond her years.

So for this birthday, I wanted to do something that was fun and likely to be a hit with a group of kids, but most importantly, was within the scope of my abilities.  I saw something called a Kit-Kat Cake on Pinterest and thought that with a few tweaks (making a checkerboard cake and swapping the regular M&M's for specialty ones in her fave colors of aqua, lime, teal, and purple), it would fit the bill.

As mentioned before, I always like to do a demo cake if I can.  Once again, it was well worth the trouble and expense.  I realized many things...  1st that 1 box of cake mix was not enough to yield cake layers tall enough to match up with the Kit-Kat sticks.  I also ran out of blue batter and it was very hard to match the hue later with only a small amount of batter (see the dark greenish bit in the center - that was trying to be blue). 

I also did not have enough Kit-Kats!  For the demo, I purchased 4 of the king-size ones and was short several sticks.  Doh!

Learnings here - this cake needs 2 boxes of mix to yield taller layers.  One box-worth of batter should be tinted green and the other box tinted blue.  2 cans of frosting would be good as well.  And 5 king-size Kit-Kats are definitely be in order.  The amount of M&M's was good - about a pound.

I also learned that I should not do the frosting and Kit-Katting too far in advance.  The demo cake was made a day before eating and even though it was stored in a sealed cake carrier, the Kit-Kats definitely had a stale taste to them.  For the real cake, I baked it a day before, let cool overnight, and frosted and added Kit-Kats just a little before.

To achieve the checkerboard effect, I used my handy-dandy checkerboard cake kit.  I received it as gift from my hubby for our 1st Christmas as husband and wife - aww!  It consists of three round pans, each with a detachable plastic insert that looks like a 3-ring bulls eye.  The idea is to alternate the layers of color - 2 pans should have the same pattern and the third should be the opposite.  So if 2 pans are blue green blue, the third should be green blue green.  You add the batter, remove the inserts, and bake normally.  When assembling, put blue green blue on the bottom, then green blue green, then top with blue green blue.  When the cake is cut, it looks checkered.  My tip for adding the colored batter...  spoon your batter into a large ziploc baggie, snip off a end (make a deep snip - about an inch), and pipe it in.  It's much easier than trying to spoon or pour the batter into the rings.  Another tip is to choose a recipe that makes a fairly thick batter - the ring inserts are not attached to the bottom of the pan, so a really runny batter would seep under the inserts and ruin the effect.  I made this with Pillsbury Butter recipe mix (don't judge!), which yields a really nice, thick batter and a sturdy, dense cake.

Here's the finished product.

I was very pleased with it!  After baking and cooling overnight, the assembly of the cake only took about 30 minutes.  That let a little time to pop it in the fridge before leaving for the party (it was 94oF and HUMID on the day, so we wanted to chill it a bit as a preemptive strike against melty fosting.) 
The checkerboard effect was very cool - I love my checkerboard cake pan!  I wish that I had taken a close-up of the inside of the cake, but as I mentioned, it was 94oF and HUMID and - surprise!  The facility wasn't airconditioned.  So I was a little off my game with heat delirium.  Sorry!  You can sort of see it here...

And lastly, I topped the cake with a homemade pennant.  I used twine and scrapbook paper to make it.  I wanted to spell out my daughter's name, but she insisted on "10" and "M" only.  This being my 1st go-round with a cake pennant, they ended up a little wonky.  I wasn't sure that the straws would stay up unsupported, so I threaded bamboo skewers through the straws for extra oomph.  Unfortunately, the skewers I brought were longer than the straws, so I had to deeply angle them to not show.  Next time - shorter or no skewers are the way to go.

This cake was a HUGE hit with kids AND adults.  I'm adding this to my easy showstopper arsenal...  Kit Kat Cake, meet Rose Cake!

Girl Scout Journey Celebration

My daughter's Junior troop recently completed their Journey to earn their Get Moving badge.  They spent the last year diligently working on it, learning about energy and conservation along the way.  The Journey concluded with an event at a local park to celebrate their accomplishment.  Because I love parties, I volunteered to assist the mom leading the event.  She was gracious enough to let me be her collaborator on the project.  It was so much fun to share this project with her - thanks, T.!  We are kindred party-planning spirits!

To honor the journey, we stuck with an earth and conservation theme and worked to bring in lots of color as well as upcycled and reclaimed elements with some pretty vintage touches as the cherry on top and is that a run-on sentence or what?

Food
Dirt cups:  Chocolate pudding and crumbs with whipped cream, enclosed in mason jars - the ultimate eco-friendly party tool.  T. gussied them up with cupcake wrappers on the lids for a punch of color.  She stacked them in a beautiful dark wood crate, which I totally covet!

Earth cupcakes:  Modified from this post (skipped the heart center), these were a hit.  Topped with a simple buttercream, they were quick, easy, and festive.  Side note - when I tinted the batter, I wasn't thinking and did more green than blue and it irritated me all day that my ratio of "land" to "water" was skewed.  Did I mention that I'm a geek?  Anyhoo, regarding the frosting - I did hear from some girls that the frosting was a bit too sweet.  Does anyone have a buttercream recipe that's less sweet?  Mine is 2 sticks butter, 4 cups powdered sugar (which I reduced to 3 cups), and a splash of milk and a bit of vanilla.  My favorite frosting is the cooked frosting recipe listed here - it is TO DIE FOR, but I was worried it wouldn't hold up in the heat - even the buttercream got a little flat and melty and buttercream is MUCH stiffer than this cooked frosting.  (And in case I wasn't clear - this frosting = AMAZING.)  But if you make it, do yourself a favor and do not use store-brand butter.  Name-brand butter only.  You may also want to do a practice run before trying to make it for an event.  There are some traps that can make things go very wrong.

Fruit Skewers:  T. and I split them up and each made half.  I really liked that approach because we ended up picking different fruits, which made for a nice variety in terms of taste and color.

Decor
The food table was covered in a blue cloth (originally, it was covered by T.'s creamy vintage lace tablecloth, but the high winds knocked over a pitcher of lilacs that some idiot put on the table (moi!), so we had to improvise.  Food was arranged around the aforementioned crate (me want!) and accented with some pretty pansies and a sweet little doily.  In lieu of water bottles, T. brought a beverage dispenser filled with cool water.  We supplied plastic cups which were cobbled together remnants from other parties.  We also made sure to bring recycling bins to the park.  The paper straws added a nice pop of color.  The final touch was a simple banner that T. put together with twine and vintage napkins - the napkins were draped over the twine and pinned in place.  Even in teh high winds, it held together nicely.  The vintage napkin banner was just the right little touch to bring some vintage elegance to the setting.

The girls sat picnic-style on blankets spread under trees to enjoy their treats.  The idea was to have jugs and jars of lilacs scattered around, but it was just too windy.  The lilacs were grouped in a pretty basket and used to accent the food table instead.

 Activity
In keeping with their focus on recycling, the girls made jewelry from reclaimed hardware.  We have a Tool Thrift Shop in town where donated items are resold at low prices.  All proceeds go to a local senior living facility.  I was able to find a ton of washers in various sizes.  A quick coat of primer and they were ready to be enameled with nail polish.  I found several sets of mini bottles at Big Lots and Marshall's and the girls went to town making unique pieces.  We provided hemp twine in bright colors to string the finished product.

Awards
The event concluded with the leaders talking with the girls about the highlights of the Journey followed by passing out their patches.  For a fun presentation, the patches and a seed packet with a vintage-inspired label were bundled into a colorful bandanna hobo pouch tied with jute twine.  Because the whole troop earned the same patch, there was no need to personalize the bandanna pouches.  In retrospect, we should have considered handing them out rather than letting the girls pick their own.  I noticed that while the leader was speaking, some of the girls were more focused on creeping closer to the bandannas to ensure that they could be the 1st to pick their color.  Oops!

Egg Hunt: Decor and No-Crying Tips

The decor for this event was very straightforward.  Easter eggs are so colorful and bright and that really inspired everything.

I also tried to work in pops of Peeps.  I love the look of Peeps (the taste, not so much) - they are so iconic and graphic and colorful.  To bring in the Peeps, I served Peep kebabs, added a "Keep Calm and Peep On" framed sign, and made my fun peep garland.  Check out that tutorial here:  Peeps Garland Tips and Tricks and read on for a link to the food post.

I relied on the food table to serve as decor as well.  The key there was variety and height  See this post for specifics:  Egg Hunt Food

With the peep and pennants strung behind, I think it made a nice presentation.  I was going to try to hang some curtain panels behind everything, but it was just too windy.  Next time!

Geeky Crafty Tips for a No-Crying, No-Whining, All Fun Egg Hunt

I love taking my kids to egg hunts, but I do not love scooping up puddles of crying kids because they only found 3 eggs and the older kids got 15.  In fact, I remember BEING that puddle kid, sobbing piteously because I would spot an egg and run for it, but a big kid would beat me to it.  That is no fun for anyone.  I will not have that at my egg hunt.  I will not HAVE it.

To even the playing field, I did 2 things...

Separate the little ones and the older kids
This idea came from an article on Kids Out and About:  KOAA Easter Egg Hunt Tips and Tricks.  (Check it out for other great tips as well.)  We put the hunt for the little ones in the front yard.  This allowed them to hunt without getting trampled by big kids as well as prevented them from climbing the slick rungs of our playscape and allowed the parents to keep an eye on them while socializing and snacking.  The big kids were in the back yard, which is bigger and provided more space for a more challenging hunt.  Because we separated them, we could really make it hard for the older kids.  I dislike it when egg hunts are over in about 2 minutes, so my husband REALLY HID those eggs.  The big kids were hunting for a good 15-20 minutes.  Victoire!

Customize the eggs for each kid
I designated a color for each child attending the hunt.  This required a little more work upfront and a disadvantage is that you do need a solid RSVP count to pull it off, but it was worth it.  It allowed me to control exactly how many eggs each kid got (i.e. they all got the same amount), ensured that all the eggs were found, and allowed me to customize the treats for each child.  For example, one kid has braces and can't eat gummy candy... no problem - all chocolate in his eggs.  Four kids with severe food allergies...  no problem, they get the candy that specifies that it's allergen-free.  I also tried to mix it up and have some eggs with candy and some with toys.  Customizing the eggs ensured that girly girls got the eggs with hair clips, less girly girls got eggs with stickers and bouncy balls, boys got the eggs with race cars, girls who like race cars got an egg with race cars... you get the idea.  It worked out beautifully. 

Tips for Next Year
The hardest part was getting enough egg colors, but even that wasn't too bad.  Target has a nice variety of colors and because I had hunts in front and back yards, I could use the same colors in those hunts.  Next time, I will get some eggs with designs as well to increase my options.
I was initially going to just TELL each kid their egg color, but after I realized that it might be a challenge for a bunch of kids to distinguish between wedgewood blue and cornflower blue or spring green and lime green in the heat of the hunt, I ended up giving each kid an empty egg in their color to start with.  Instead of making a master list, I just put some tape with the kid's name on the sample egg.  Easy peasy.

I had stocked up on eggs last year in the after-Easter sales, which not only saved my a ton of money, but it also forced me to actually do the hunt (I've wanted to do this for years, but never got around to it.).  When I buy my eggs for next year, I will look for bigger eggs this time.  It was hard to find non-candy treats small enough to fit in the standard-size eggs.  And regarding toys in eggs, I was very careful to only put in things that were obviously not edible.

Egg Hunt: Food

Our first neighborhood egg hunt was very successful despite the snow.  (Our apologies to the kid looking for the white eggs.  Oops.)  We got lots of compliments on the idea and how it brought everyone together to spend time with one another and chat.  I've always wanted to live in one of those neighborhoods where people hang out together all the time.  This isn't that neighborhood YET, but I've realized that I can help to make it happen if I want to.  Be the change you want to see in your neighborhood, one party at a time.  That's a direct quote from Gandhi, people.*

*OK, maybe I tweaked it a bit, but I think that Gandhi would have loved a good block party.

Anyhoo, here's what I made...  and please disregard the unsightly siding on my house.  Superstorm Sandy did a number on it and it's been too cold to repaint.  We are getting vinyl this summer, hopefully!

FOOD

This was so much fun and I was very proud of my little economies.  I tried to get variety by using some of the same ingredients in different ways.  For example...

... I used one box of cake mix to make both cupcakes and cake pops.  Cupcakes are topped with homemade buttercream (you can make a delicious ton with just 2 sticks of butter, some powdered sugar, and a splash of milk - it's super easy and you will get mad props from your peeps for making homemade frosting) and both cakes and pops use sprinkles from the dollar section at Target.  Link to printables is posted below.

... and I used a bag of Oreos to make both Oreo truffles and Oreo pops, also topped with $1 sprinkles.

I love them on the bed of Easter M&M's - so colorful and who doesn't love edible decor?  By the way, the glass tray was a thrift store find for $2.00.  It's actually a candle plate.  I bought it because it's very shallow and therefore wouldn't require a ton of filler. 

I used my old standby of marshmallows to fill things out a bit for a buck.

Plus I found a bag of cotton candy at the Dollar Tree and that filled a bowl nicely, also for a buck.  Incidentally, the candy jar here and the fishbowl holding the Bunny Tails are also thrift store finds.

I wanted some height and whimsy and more peeps, so I skewered some chicks on kebab sticks mounted in a styrofoam ball.  Iridescent Easter grass from the Dollar Tree was a great, cheap bucket filler.  I added height with a sturdy box covered in Dollar Tree wrapping paper and a sheet of scrapbooking paper.

I wanted to mix it up and have some things that weren't too sweet as well.  Baked Cheetos and Veggie Straws fit the bill and went over well.  I lined the basket and tin with waxed paper to 1) avoid grease stains on the cloth basket liner and 2) ensure that nothing harmful leached from the tin into the food since I wasn't absolutely certain if it was food-safe.

My most time-intensive treat was my parfaits in a jar.  I loved the spoons tied to the jar with the same yarn used for the pennants.  It was very practical because I didn't have to put out a separate container for utensils.  Check out this post for details on how I made this treat:  Parfaits in a Jar  They were a big hit.  I did notice that people were taking them home rather than eating them there, so if you make them yourself, be prepared to bid your jars adieu.  The cake pedestal that holds them was an after-Easter-sale purchase at Target a few years ago.

For drinks, a big jug of water and a tin bucket full of Orangina.  And a pretty jar of colorful straws.  I know that plastic straws are soooo passe, but I like the vibrancy of the colors here.  And I liked the price as well - $1 at Target.

I used a great set of free printables found on Catch My Party, designed by Autumn Leah Designs for the cupcake toppers and food signs:  Chick Printables

The "Keep Calm and Peep On" free printable was found here:  Peep On  It wasn't quite 8x10, so I trimmed it and mounted on cardstock to fill it out.  I popped the whole thing into a frame from Ollie's.  I use this frame for a rotating series of seasonal art.