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!

"Happy Birthday", Welcome Mat-A Tutorial

What can you do with a door mat that cost $1?

This was so easy!
Materials Needed:
A doormat-I bought mine at IKEA for $1, seriously!  I bought a few so be on the lookout for some more mats.
Paint-I used fabric paint because I thought it would be more durable
A piece of chalk-any color that will show up on the mat
Paintbrushes

Step 1-Using your chalk, draw whatever images and words you'd like on your mat.

Step 2-Using your paint, paint over the images you drew.

I used paint that was easy to squirt out of the bottle so I could literally write with the paint.

For the balloons, I painted a thick ridge on the outside, but smoothed out the paint on the inside.

I like the dimension the outer ridge gives the balloon.

All four balloons are done.

Well, almost.  I had to paint in the strings.

As soon as the paint dries, I'll dust off the extra chalk, beneath the balloon strings, and set it out with the rest of the birthday decorations, to prepare for my baby's 2nd birthday on January 23rd.

I'm sort of guessing, you'll see a couple more of these doormats, in the future!

New Year's Eve Celebrations

This will be the 11th year my husband, John, and I have celebrated the New Year together.  Each year has been special.  Most of the time we stay in, play games, and watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years.

Now that we have kids, I want to incorporate them into our celebration.  Last year, they included themselves.  Both kids were up at midnight, puking.  It honestly became a bit comical.  Here we were, watching the ball drop, with two ill kids.  After their midnight vomit, they quickly recovered, and we've had a great year.  This year, we have a different plan.  We want them to celebrate with us, just not at midnight.

My kids are 4 and three weeks away from 2.  I'm thinking midnight won't be a happy time for them.  So, I'm going to make their midnight 9 o'clock!  Which is late for them. We'll have bathtime and then come back downstairs for the festivities.  Usually after bathtime we have stories and then it's bedtime so this will be a special treat. I plan on making some of Jill's marvelous caramel corn, playing Wii (we just got Just Dance for Kids and Just Dance 2), and counting down until our midnight (9:00 pm for these kiddos). We bought horns, blow outs, and sparklers, which will all be part of our New Year's festivities.

After the big party and storytime, we'll talk about some things we'd like to work on for the New Year.  Hopefully, we'll make some resolutions together. I'm thinking GraciAnn may want to start listening better, the first time. Mariella may want to cooperate more when putting on her pajamas.  I'm not sure that's what they'll choose. I'm just thinking those would be excellent choices.

As for me, I plan on setting aside some me time to take care of myself.  2011 brings on a big birthday for me (much later in the year).  I want to be able to keep up with my kids, even though I'm getting older.  That means I need to really work on getting in shape.  That's my plan and I'm sticking to it!

Do you have any New Year's traditions to share with us?