Life With My Ginger Snaps

Monday, June 10, 2013

Sugar and Spice Baby Shower

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice,

That's What Little Girls Are Made Of

My best friend is due with a little girl in a few months so I threw her a baby shower. The theme I went with was Sugar and Spice based on the well-known nursery rhyme.

I started with designing all of the printed/paper items (invites, table cards, games, labels) which are all available to purchase in my Etsy shop.

There was a buffet of Sugar and Spice foods.

Some of the "sugar" foods included powdered sugar donut holes, dipped rice crispy treats, rock candy, cupcakes and dipped pretzels.

For the "spice" foods, I included mini cinnamon buns, cinnamon pita chips, sausage balls, chips and salsa and cinnamon donut holes.

I was also sure to include my friend's current favorite cravings: brownies and mac and cheese :)

Gifts!

Big sister helping her mommy open gifts!

I put together bag of diaper-changing necessities, monogrammed with the baby's initial. See the details here.

How stinkin' cute is this?? What a cute idea! There were bath washes, lotions, rubber duckies and a cuddly frog in "the water"

The big sister holding a stack of awesome burp clothes made by her Nana

Nana certainly has been busy! Look at this GORGEOUS quilt!

The favor table included hand sanitizers, bubble gum cigars and shakers filled with cinnamon and sugar.

What a fun time!

And all the kids were sent home with balloons...

...except one! OOPS! LOL

Friday, April 5, 2013

Like most 8 year olds, my son LOVES the computer game, Minecraft! I wanted to give him a Minecraft party for his birthday but there was nothing available in stores yet. So it was time to get creative! My son actually had two birthday parties this year: one was celebrated with family while we were on vacation visiting them. The other was celebrated at home with a few close friends.

PARTY #1: The "Out Of Town" party with extended family

I designed and printed this Happy Birthday banner.

For the centerpiece I printed out pictures from the game and attached them to a pre-made centerpiece I bought at the dollar store.

I cut out a Creeper face from black paper and glued it to a green plate. I then glued a clear plate on top of the green plate. Instant Creeper plates!

I used Twizzlers to make TNT

Cheese cubes for Gold Blocks

Pretzel sticks for Torches

I drew Creeper faces on bottles of sprite to make Creeper Juice

I designed a brownie cake using Grass Blocks made with brownies with green icing for grass and rice crispy treats for the Sand Blocks. I put the cake together on a tray covered with part of a blue plastic table cloth to represent water. The figures on the cake were printed from here and cut out by myself and my mother-in-law. I then folded and pieced together the figures and blocks over a two day period (talk about tedious work!). The cake turned out awesome and my son LOVED IT--which is the only thing that matters anyway, right?! :-)

PARTY #2: The "At Home" party with friends

Again, I used cheese cubes for Gold Blocks

Pretzel sticks for torches

Twizzlers for TNT Blocks

Graham cracker squares for Sand Blocks

Cups of chocolate pudding for Dirt Blocks

I decided to make a square Glowstone Block cake for this party

I love how the pattern turned out!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Look Who's TWO Birthday Party

For my daughter's second birthday party I decided to go with an owl theme. Owls are one of her favorite animals right next to puppies, kitties, horses, cows, birds....okay so she knows the word and the sound an owl makes. Mommy is the one that loves owls!

Since she is still very young and most of the party guests were still under two years old, I decided that a glorified playdate birthday party was the way to go. Our living room has been gated off since my baby girl began to crawl so it was the perfect toddler hang out! We moved some of the furniture out of the room and brought in a small ball pit, a large fabric playhouse, a bouncy horse and many other fun toys.

I had a difficult time finding age-appropriate loot bag items for such a young group of kiddos. Most things I came across at the store were too small and would surely find their way into little mouths. Also, I am a big fan of having the items in my party bags match the theme of the party. Unnecessary, I know, but thats the way I roll! So, this made the party bag issue a little more tricky. I found two items on Oriental Trading Company that worked great for the age-range of the partygoers. The first item made a great favor but also took care of the craft activity I wanted to include in the party.

An owl thumb print craft -- perfect for toddlers! It was super easy to put together. Each craft set came with directions and several pieces of foam craft sheet cut-outs. Two-sided sticky tape was already attached to each piece and was ready to be joined together with coinciding pieces. After the owl was pieced together, the child could add their thumbprints for feathers on the owl's body and wings. CUTE!!

I also found these stuffed owls on Oriental Trading.

Rather large in size, good quality and so adorable!

That's about where my luck ran out with store-bought, age-appropriate owl items. On to summoning my inner craft goddess! I had seen some pictures floating around on the internet of cute party favors that used M&Ms. I know some toddlers may not eat these candies but I figured if the child doesn't eat them, maybe the parent would ;-)

Here is my version of these candy party favors!

I also made a template for personalized labels for containers of bubbles.

Crayons were on my list for toddler party favors but I wanted to do something in the owl theme (duh). So I made swirly crayons in owl molds. This was time consuming and took WAY MORE crayons to make these than I had planned on using or buying. However, they turned out cute and given their large size they were easy for toddlers to hold and use.

I bagged them and made owl stickers to seal the bags.

Finally, I made owl sugar cookies. I used tulip-shaped cookie cutters and used icing and fondant to turn flowers into owls. This was my first time making cookies like this so they were much more work and took a little more time to finish than I had planned. But they turned out cute and made a great addition to the party theme :-)