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.

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.

Parfaits in a Jar, Cake Crumble Tips and a Tasty Mousse Mix

A coworker was kind enough to give me 8 of these adorable jars.  Walmart sells sliced peaches and pears in them.  I just think that they are the cutest little things and wanted to find a way to use them on my food table.  And then it hit me - parfaits in a jar.  Perfect!

I spent some time Goo Gone-ing the label stickies and I used a Magic Eraser to scrub of the inked lot/expiry info - it worked like, well, magic.  The good people at Mr. Clean don't lie.

I washed everything well and then painted the lids with 2 coats of brown acrylic paint (because I have a lot of brown for some reason).  The base coat color is irrelevant and only serves to cut down on the number of coats of chalkboard paint I needed to use.  Chalkboard paint is more expensive so I always try to get by with one coat.

I filled the jars with alternating layers of chocolate cake crumbs, chocolate chips, and chocolate mousse.  Here's my super-frugal, efficient tip for those cake crumbs.  Whenever I make a cake that involves trimming it or say I make 2 cakes from a box mix and I only need one, I don't toss the extra bits - I throw them into a zipper bag in the freezer.  This way, I always have cake on hand for dishes that don't need a full cake recipe, like a trifle or a parfait.  Try it! 
Now, regarding the mousse...  I have made chocolate mousse from scratch before.  The first time was a huge fail (because I grabbed half and half instead of heavy cream - oops!) and I ended up with chocolate soup.  But now that I think about it, I recovered gracefully by heating up the soup and BAM - it became the best hot chocolate ever, so I'm changing that to a win.  Life gives you lemonades, people.*  My second go-round with mousse was a bit more successful, but required more time that I had last week, so I bought one of those box mousse mixes near the pudding and Jello mixes.  It was actually very good.  Oetker Dark Chocolate Truffle Mousse  I recommend it if you are in a pinch.

So, back to details.  The parfaits were prepped, lids were applied to jars, "Parfait" was written on said lids in chalk, and the whole shebang was finished off by tying on purple spoons with multicolored yarn.  I wanted baker's twine, but it wasn't in the cards, and yarn worked just as well.

I grouped the jars - 4 at a time - on a cake pedestal.  I had to put out the other 4 jars like 5 minutes into the party because they were a huge hit.  I did notice that people were taking them home, so if you do this, be prepared for your jars to walk.  I'm cool with it, though.  My coworker really likes sliced pears.

*I have a friend whose husband always thought that the quote was "life gives you lemonades" instead of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" and I think that is the cutest, most uplifting story.  I love positive people and I strive to be more like that.

Peeps Garland Tips and Tricks

We just had our first neighborhood egg hunt yesterday and it went very well in spite of being ridiculously cold.  (Nothing like hunting for eggs in the snow.  Oh Spring, you foul temptress, changeable vixen... why dost thou tempt us with splendiferous sunshine only to snatch it away when outdoor events have been planned and evites sent?  Why?  WHY?)  I'll be posting more details later, but for now, here's my Peep garland, which was the inspiration for the whole event.  (Does anyone else throw parties purely to give them a reason to make something they saw on Pinterest?)

I ended up needing 2 boxes of yellow bunny peeps for this.  The first step is to open them up and separate them.  The separation points are quite unsightly, so if I do this again, I will have yellow sanding sugar on hand to patch them up.

After separating them, leave them open for a few days and let them go a little stale before trying to work with them.  It helps the needle to go through if they are a little stiff. 
So after a few days in the open, thread a large needle with at least 2 strands of embroidery floss.  I used yellow in the same color.  Now that I think about it, it might be fun to try it with fishing line so they look like they are floating in the air - maybe next year!  Push the needle through both ears and  pull the thread until about 12 inches from the end.  This is your allowance for hanging to garland. 

 Make a double knot with the tail end and another double knot just past the 2nd ear.  This will help to keep the string in place until the innards adhere to the thread and immobilize it.  More on that later.  Repeat this process, spacing the next bunny a few inches away from the first. 

Do this until all the bunnies are threaded.  Leave another 12 inch tail to allow for suspending that end.  Now, let the whole thing sit undisturbed for at least a week.  This will allow the peeps to harden even more and it will allow the interior marshmallow stickiness to adhere to the thread so that when you hang the garland, the peeps stay in place.

Things that I learned...
These things drop A LOT of sugar.  I mean A LOT!  If you can work on this outside, do.  If you can't, try to work over a tray or something. 
This is not the craft for you if you can't deal with sticky fingers.  You will be a gooey mess.
This is harder than it looks, especially the knotting part.  The first few are OK, but as your hands get stickier and the string gets stickier from multiple passes through the bunny innards, the string starts to get tanglier and your hands get clumsier and it can get frustrating.  You may want to do several shorter strands and just tie them together.

But even with that said, the end product was totally worth it.  It was fun, bright, cheap, and a great focal point for my food table, especially when paired with some quick felt and yarn pennants that I made as well.

Pennants and Picture Display

Yep, I hoped on the pennant bandwagon.  There is something so cheery and fun about them, so I decided to make some for our playroom. 

I used a quick and dirty method with minimal sewing.  I made a template by cutting a triangle out of a cereal box.  I then parked my butt in front of the TV with said triangle, my scrap fabric bin, and a pair of pinking shears from Joann's (coupon!) and pinked my way through a stack of colorful calicos.  Once that was done, I laid out a few lengths of ribbon and pinned the triangles at fairly even intervals.  I then ran the whole thing through the sewing machine.  I didn't even take the time to match the thread to the ribbon.  I kind of like the contrast.  The whole process took me an episode of True Blood.  Once done sewing, I mounted a few clear small Command hooks and swagged my banner around the playroom.  I love them in the playroom and I also love that I can use them for parties as well.

Under the pennant banner, I mounted a wire for displaying artwork.  I don't know why it took me so long to do this - I guess I was nervous about putting a hole in the window trim and then not liking the wire.  No worries now - it was well worth the risk.  I bought a picture hanging kit at Lowe's.  The kit consists of a spool of thin wire and some tiny brass hook screws.  There's other stuff in the kit, but I haven't used that part.  I simply screwed the hooks in by hand, threaded a length of wire through each end and wrapped the tails around a few times.  Easy peasy.  Add a couple colorful plastic clothes pins from the Dollar Store and Voila!  Instant extra art display area does double duty as playroom decor.  And because our playroom was an addition and still has the windows that look into the family room, we can put artwork facing into both room for double the display space.