Birthday Treat Buckets-A Practical Alternative to "Goody Bags"

One of the fourteen treat buckets I made.

My baby did it.  She graduated out of the baby stage.  She's an official two year old! It's amazing how fast two years goes by.

Mariella

We had her birthday party at a wonderful place in Gainesville, GA called: INK. http://www.inkfun.org/ If you live nearby or are ever in the area, this is a wonderful place to bring kids!  Anyway, since her party was at a museum, of sorts, we didn't have a real "theme".  Mariella LOVES Minnie Mouse.  I think it's because we got her this incredibly soft, stuffed Minnie, when we went to Disney last time.

I wanted to cut vinyl Minnies and Mickeys on my Silhouette for the buckets, but that bad thing called, "Lack of Time", took control and I didn't get that done.  I also wanted to put hand crafted Minnie bows in the girls' buckets, but, well you know my excuse! (I will share pictures of those bows soon!)  So, I'll tell you what I did do.

Since she adores Minnie, I got her a Minnie themed birthday cake.  I tried to tie the treat buckets(I got at The Dollar Tree) into the theme.  Using my Silhouette, I cut the guests' names with the Disney font, Waltograph (it can be downloaded for free!). I used pink vinyl for the girls and blue for the boys.  I gave family treat buckets, as opposed to individual ones, simply because I ran out of time.

Each bucket had homemade Playdough in it. http://www.oursevendwarfs.com/2011/01/easy-safe-not-as-messy-homemade.html I made five different colors.  Since we were at a museum that didn't serve or sell food, I worried that our guests would get hungry.  So, I put popcorn, fruit snacks, and rice krispy treats in the buckets as well.  I topped each bucket with coordinating tissue paper. Although they weren't exactly what I wanted, they were cute and the buckets can be used again and again! 

I'll admit, these treat buckets were a bit time consuming but I didn't send my friends home with a lot of junky stuff for their kids.  I also didn't spend a ton of money on them. I think the guests really liked them and I was happy with how they turned out. 

This is just another example of how you can turn something blah into tada with a little vinyl and a Silhouette!

Happy 2nd Birthday, My Sweet, Sweet Mariella!

 

An Easy, Safe, Not as Messy, Homemade Playdough!

My Homemade Playdough

Face it, Playdough is crumbly and I think it stinks! Of course, I'm SUPER sensitive to smells (hence the reason I don't want to set foot (or even drive thru McDonalds).

My friend Lesli shared this wonderful Playdough recipe with me.  She got it from her daughters' school.

Play Dough
1 ¼ cup flour
¼ cup salt
1 package of Kool Aid
1 cup boiling water
1 ½ Tablespoon oil
Mix dry ingredients. Mix liquid ingredients. Pour together in bowl. Knead into ball. Keep in Ziploc.

Of course, the color of Kool Aid dictates the color of your Playdough.  The only color that's a challenge to get is yellow.  I doubled the recipe, so I used two packs of yellow KoolAid and added a pack of orange KoolAid.  It was a close yellow.

I promise, this Playdough smells great.  If little hands put some in their mouths, no worries.  It will taste EXTREMELY salty but won't hurt them.  The oil keeps the Playdough from being crumbly. It's oh so soft. It lasts for months in a Ziploc bag. The best part is for about $5 you can make enough playdough for more than twenty kids!