Charm & Whimsy

The Boy’s Robot Birthday Party.

The Boy turned 3 this week and it was time for a party. A Robot Party!

Ever since seeing the movie Wall-E, the Boy has really been into robots. He spontaneously speaks robot and walks like a robot; the last few months have been pretty hilarious. All said, it was easy to settle on a theme for his party. At first I collected Wall-E ideas onto my Pinterest board but then decided to go with a general robot theme instead of a specific character.

The adorable printables from Tracy Ann were the cornerstone of the robot theme. She was such a pleasure to work with and her turnaround was very fast. She has tons of other cute designs – go check her out on Etsy.

The Boy and his best buddy Brady who lives across the street.

I bought the printable party pack and customized invitation and then printed them out at Kinko’s . I printed the 5x7 invitations on card stock and just mailed them as postcards (there’s one hiding back there behind the hats). Easy peasy.I used metallic elastic from the beading section at Michael’s for the hat string and metallic pom poms from my crafty stash.

I had a lot of fun setting up the party – I have to admit I love this stuff – I totally get it from my Mom (aka Womsy). I wish I had a picture from one of my birthday parties as a kid and you would see where I get it from. The forks and napkins scream Womsy.

I struggled for a bit how to stand up the signs. Glue the printable cards to a card stock table tent? Hmmm… as I contemplated my options munching on Halloween candy – I came up with the toothpick-in-a-rolo idea. Voila! They worked perfect and were tasty during cleanup.

Juice boxes. Would have been cute to have the straw sticking out but those things are filled so full there would have been apple juice squirting everywhere when they were picked up. The striped paper was part of the printable party pack.

The baby robots are just mini sugar cookies with cheerios, frosting glue, rainbow sour ribbon mouths and mini M&M ears/antennas.

The centerpiece – a Watermelon Robot! In the next picture you can see how I had to prop up the head in the back with some skewers and a watermelon wedge.

 

I heart egg salad. These make an appearance at nearly all of my parties.

These were the party favors. Guests got to take home a little robot and a favor bag (robot sugar cookie, bottle of bubbles, couple sheets of stickers, couple of glow sticks and a crazy straw).

I’m new to this kiddie party thing and one thing I missed during my research were tips on timing and pace so here are a few that I found helpful:

- I read somewhere a good rule of thumb is to invite as many kids as the age of the birthday boy/girl. We invited a couple extra but three would have been good too.

- We started the party at 11am and it was over by just before 1pm. Good timing for five 3 year olds – that way they could still go home for an afternoon nap.

- We ate when the kids arrived, then played for awhile with all the balloons in the toy room.

- Then we made robot circuit boards. I had prepped square, silver paper plates with a loop of yarn at the top to hang around the neck. The kids glued a bunch of misc. stuff to them. Everyone put on their circuit board and then moved around the room like robots. We had a mini robot dance party but they lost interest quickly!

- Then we blew out a candle and ate cupcakes.

- A bit more balloon kicking and running around and then the breakdowns began – time to wrap up the party!

- We opened presents after everyone left. At this age I think that opening the presents all together would have caused more problems than anything. Fighting over unwrapping, the toys, etc. It was a wise decision.

Here’s some other neat stuff from the Boy’s birthday celebration:

The morning of his birthday, the Boy woke up to a ton of balloons in the family room. He loved it, rolled around in them, kicked them all over the place. It was great to see the joy on his face!

I made robot favors and cupcakes for his classmates at preschool/daycare. You’d think we just handed those kids a million bucks each – they were so happy! Ahh the simple joys of childhood…

 

Thanks to all the awesome people out there who share their parties and ideas on the web. Here is where I got some of my inspiration .

I discovered the printables at this party.

Robot cookie inspiration and “ball bearings” here.

Watermelon robot idea from this party.

“Nuts & Bolts” and “Computer Chips” from here.

Circuit board craft from this party.

Robot party favors for his party were based on these. As well as the balloon idea (or somewhere on Pinterest?).

Robot party favors for his daycare were based on these.

Toddler Boy Apron and Snapshots from a Great Weekend.

What a GREAT weekend!!

I just finished this apron for The Boy. I started it at around 1:30pm today after he went down for a nap. He is really into fish and I had this fabric that I had bought to make him a little bag but instead used it for the apron. I made a pattern out of 4 sheets of paper I taped together and used one of his shirts as a guide for size. It came out pretty darn good!! I can't wait to try it on him tomorrow. I took pictures during the making of but it's too late to whip out a tutorial... I'll try to get one together and post or at least get the pictures up for a visual tutorial.

 

Friday The Boy helped me make pizza and kept trying to eat the flour and dough, then ate handfuls of tomato sauce and cheese instead of putting it on the pizza. Hence the need for an apron - wish I had had my camera handy, he was too cute.

Saturday night we started our Neighborhood Dinner Series night by having our neighbors across the street over for dinner. We had a great time, the company was great, the food was delicious and I got to use my favorite tablecloth, dishes, etc. which always makes me happy. Wish I had taken pictures, where is that camera?? We hope to have a different family over once a month so we can get to know everyone better. Hmmm... who is next...

Sunday morning started late with The Boy sleeping in til 730am. WoooHooo!!! Sweetboy made the best biscuits I've ever eaten for breakfast. We played around all morning, then we had fun with finger paints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to play outside. "Eyes! Eyes!!" he says, so we go get his sunglasses.

 

The Boy went down for his nap and I started the apron. Now granted I just finished it around 1030pm but there were a lot of interuptions along the way including a hilarious bathtime

 

 

and listening to two new CDs (You Are My Flower and You Are My Sunshine) before bedtime from Elizabeth Mitchell & Daniel Littleton.

 She has such a sweet, folksy voice - her and her partner sing wondeful duets and the lovely little songs... you must go listen to the samples and read about all of the songs. I've been listening to the music on my own to learn the words and the songs are just so sweet and charming. I particularly like Ladybug Picnic, Lovers Lane and another that I can't remember the name.

 

 

 

We also had so many fresh flowers in the house this weekend. I'm sure it contributed to the great mood :)  Aren't those peonies amazing? Our neighbors brought them over Saturday. They smell heavenly.

Have a great week everyone!

 

 

St. Patrick's Day themed Bunco party for my neighborhood ladies.

When we moved to northern Virginia last summer we were lucky enough to move into a super social and friendly neighborhood full of fun people who love to get together. In fact, we just came back from a neighborhood 40th birthday party complete with a bouncy Scooby Doo thingie where the kids and adults bounced away the afternoon (Happy Birthday Catherine!).

Every other month or so, the neighborhood ladies get together for some wild and crazy dice throwin'. I got to host my first one yesterday and I must say - I've been looking forward to it for weeks - you know how I like to throw parties...

 

 

 

I have a thing for little bites of food. So when I was jotting down intial ideas for the menu I wanted to go with mini corned beef sandwiches (although I LOATHE corned beef). Sweetboy insisted he could smoke it and it would come out delicious - and you know how the man can BBQ - so I said ok, he did, and now I have been converted to a corned beef lovin' lady.

Here is the final menu:

Savory

Mini corned beef sandwiches on home baked rolls, mayo & spicy mustard on the side
Egg salad triangles (one of my personal favorites)
Roasted fingerling potatoes with parsley, white & purple
Crudite with a peppercorn ranch
Wheat Thins with Boursin (very popular!)
Wasabi Peas
Veggie Straws

Sweet

Sugar cookie rainbows (didn't end up having enough time to ice more than a few)
Thin Mints (we have several Girl Scouts on our street, this was thankfully the last box)
Lindt truffles
Pocky sticks
Green grapes

Drinks

Malbec
Pinot Grigio
Irish Whiskey (planned for but never drank)
Sierra Mist
Diet Coke

 

For the 4 Bunco tables I had made little pots of gold ala make and takes. They were so easy - just paint little terra cotta pots with black craft paint (it took 3 coats for the coverage to be opaque), throw in some colorful pipe cleaners, some rolos or nuggets for the gold and voila!

 

We were short a player so The Boy's friend Rat graciously stepped in. Foksy was our Bunco tiara since I didn't have one. Rat rolled a Bunco at one point.

Planning

 

 

I find it helpful to write my initial menu ideas down and then edit as I go - Sweetboy makes fun of me every time I have a party. I think it's perfectly normal. I check off items once I've selected the platter. I struggled with the egg sandwiches and finally placed a piece of parchment on a green cutting board and arranged them in an alternating pattern. So 1950's Betty Crocker! I love it :)

 

I like to label my platters and serving pieces to visualize how the food will look. I want to make sure there is variety in size, shape and height. I think I read this in an old Martha or something. Over the years I've gotten the timing down. I even had enough time to get a pedicure the day of!! WooHoo!

How do you plan for your parties?

Shark cake, fish cupcakes and a tip for transporting frosted cupcakes.

 

David's 4th birthday (my nephew) was last weekend and I got to make his cake again this year. Since he had just gone to Sea World - we decided a shark cake was in order. It would have been Shamu except do you know how hard it is to make black frosting? It's hard - last time I tried it was when I made his Lightning McQueen cake... not really black and it tasted very bitter. So - let's do a shark instead. I added the fishy cupcakes and voila... birthday cake extravaganza!

I had seen the idea for this somewhere and then found it again on Parenting.com (go check it out - there are lots of other really cool kids cakes).

When I googled shark cake, I found this woman's site. She had the brilliant idea of making the shark cake out of red velvet so it looked bloody. Awesome! No red velvet on hand but that's ok - just put some red food coloring in a box of chocolate cake mix and, well, it looked kind of red.

 

That's what you'll need for the cake and cupcakes. There's frosting, graham cracker (shark fin), fruit roll up (shark mouth), marshmallows (shark teeth), Junior Mints (shark eyes), Goldfish crackers (shark bait) and extra bowls to tint the cake mix.

 

Crumb coat

 

Mouth and teeth... done.

Swirled frosting for the waves. 

For the cupcakes I had some white cake mix on hand and thought of making the cake batter look like the ocean (ala rainbow cake technique) so I mixed up a few different colors of batter and then swirled them in each cup.

 

 

 

Turned out kind of cool huh?

 

They were pretty tasty too. 

So here's my super-duper-how-to-transport-frosted-cupcakes tip... the trick is to elevate the cupcake just a little from the pan so you don't have to stick your fingers in the frosting to get it out. Throw some mini marshmallows in each well of your cupcake pan to form a single layer then place the cupcake in and voila!

 

Cupcake on the left doesn't have a bed of marshmallows. Cupcake on the right does! Easy cupcake transport without having to ruin the frosting when you're ready to take them out of the pan. Don't say I never gave you anything :)