The Obligatory Pre-Party Prep Post

Since Sammi turned 5, I think, I determined that I wouldn't go the pre-fab party gear route for her birthday parties.  Inspired at the time by the likes of Kelle Hampton, Parents Magazine and the rise of Pinterest, I began to let loose my "crafty" inner-self (hahaha) and try to do it on my own, with not much more than a fierce determination and several months of prep to aid me.  It's never perfect, but I've been pretty pleased with the results thus far! 

This year I had a dilemma.  I had absolutely no idea in advance of what theme to do, had absolutely no time to actually do any of it, and Samantha was absolutely no help in the selection process.  She told me she wanted a Mike the Knight party.  She absolutely adores the main character's little sister, Evie, and her ability to cast spells, but I agonized over the implications of having a party based on a cartoon that was geared more towards preschoolers than big 1st graders.  What would her friends think?

I went back and forth, trying to convince her that she wanted a party with a cat theme, but she held fast.  I came to the conclusion that it's not what I want that matters, it's what Samantha wants.  Not like she'll pay much attention to the results, though - the party's at a playground, and there will be pizza and cake.  Need I say more?

The theme is loosely based on Mike the Knight, with red, yellow and blue as the main colors, and a few cut-outs of the characters hot-glued to table cloths, fashioned into cupcake toppers, and on the Happy Birthday banner, thanks to the printables available on NickJr.com.  I decided to make wands out of wooden dowels and wooden stars in varying sizes from the craft store, painted with fast-drying acrylics and slow-drying glitter glue (oy vey). 

I'd had a fantasy of making Dragon Juice labels for the water bottles and juice boxes, but as they'll be soaking in ice-filled coolers and it'll likely top 90 degrees that day, labels would quickly become a soggy, runny mess.  Then I brilliantly came up with the idea of using foam bookmarks (see photo below) to make the labels, but the liklihood of successfully curving a glitter-covered item around a bottle or juice box without the glitter going everywhere would be slim-to-none, and I decided that they'd make better treat bucket labels instead. 

The next dilemma was who to invite.  So I invited the whole class, and a few of Sammi's non-school friends, and I'm very pleased with the numbers of RSVPs we've gotten so far!  There's really no limit to how many people can come (we have the pavilion reserved at the playground), so if you're local and I haven't invited you (I've been horribly scattered lately, and am sure I missed several people on the invite list) and you'd like to come, please drop me a line!  The more the merrier!

Wands in the making.

After searching high and low, there wasn't a paint brush in sight on Sunday when I wanted to paint these wands and stars.  I finally used a paper towel to wipe the paint on the wood, which worked nicely.  Off to buy one today, though...and maybe some spray shellac to finish them off.

Okay, so these two initial experimentations aren't perfect, but at least I have the idea now...  These were originally planned to be bottle/juice box coozies, but due to the volatile nature of glitter glue will likely be attached to goody bags instead.  There will be a variety of red, blue and yellow labels, decorated with stars and jeweled brads (seen above).