Chasing the Crafty DIY Birthday Party

(Quick note to remind you all to vote again for Samantha today for the Parents Magazine weekly contest - at the end of the time period, the 10 weekly winners will vie for a cover shot!  As of today she's at #41!  It only takes a few seconds to click the link, click the "vote" button and type in the word recognition, then voila!  You can vote once daily per IP address, which means that if you access multiple computers, including your cell phone, you can vote from each.  Here's the link: http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/863057/46 Thanks!!!)

So I'm not in the least bit creative, am a HUGE procrastinator, and tend to opt for the quickest shortcuts when trying to exert my creativity to make something new.  This often results in sub-standard crafts that fall apart and look shabby.  Kind of like someone took a shortcut...  However, reading so many blogs where people showcase their own brilliance in birthday-party-planning, as shoved in my face by their drool-inducing photographs of the events (oh, seriously, if I see one more beautiful, hand-made cloth banner from colorful, sewn cloth strips, I'm going to have to get a sewing machine of my own to sit in my closet, gathering the dust of ages of disuse) , I am once again feeling the urge to create.  Samantha's party is in 2 weeks.  Am I ready?  Not really, but I'm getting closer...

The theme this year is Olivia.  Parents of little girls know exactly who this is.  If you don't, click here.  I love Olivia, the smart, precocious little pig with a wild imagination.  Many of you know that Samantha is/was pretty much obsessed with Olivia, although that obsession seems to have lessened this year as Peppa Pig has grown in dominance (sense a pig thing here?).  However, even if I am a little bit late to the game with this, she still will appreciate the theme, and I think it's pretty darn cute myself.  :-)

I started my "planning" (I use this term very lightly) a few weeks ago, and have begun to obtain lots of red and white to decorate our little corner of the playground for her party.  I wishwishwish we could have had her party at home this year, but our back yard and our basement seriously just aren't there yet, not fit for use by humans.  Maybe one day.  But since her birthday is on May 30th, the weather is usually pretty darn beautiful, and a playground is the perfect location where the children can play and enjoy themselves, then scarf down pizza and cake (the pizza part has proven to be a bit of a challenge every year, as the delivery guys swear up and down that they won't deliver to a park - I insist otherwise, and they eventually bend to my will).

I discovered that unless you plan even further in advance (see?  That sneaky word plan rears its ugly head again...) and order from a website, you cannot get Olivia decorations or party supplies, so DIY it is.  I kind of didn't want to go the commercial route anyway, again inspired by those beautiful blog posts of the super-moms.  We'll see.  My budget is, like, $0, so I'm hitting up Michael's and Target, possibly Walmart soon (read:  the night before the party).  Red and white are good, popular colors this time of year, as we enter into Fourth of July season, so my options are pretty endless.  I'm actually having fun with this, and if I manage to pull it off, I'll certainly take the time to pat myself on the back.

...that is if all of my decorations don't disintegrate before the guests arrive...

Maybe I should ask the guests to bring their own gluesticks.