garland

Lalaloopsy birthday party

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Lalaloopsies are so adorable, I was excited when my daughter chose that theme for her birthday party.  (the party was last fall and I am again behind on my posts!)  First, I bought a book (for the kids) that had most of the lalaloopsies in it, so I could get an idea of decorations and activities for the party (and Pinterest of course).  And we watched a Lalaloopsy show on Netflix (the show isn’t good, IMO … the plot is horrible), but I did get some ideas.  Here are the pictures from her party with links and comments!

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The buttons were cut out on the Cricut using my Wild Card cartridge. And then I just used a yarn needle and threaded yarn through the buttons to make garland.

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Found these wall decals on clearance at Toys R Us… good deal, but they did NOT stick well at all… they were in the trash right after the party unfortunately. They also have them on Amazon and Birthday Express and hopefully better quality.

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More Garland made from dessert size paper plates and a black paper button cutout glued to the plate.

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More button garland! (I guess I got crazy with the paper button cutting, because I had a lot!)

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Used the book mentioned at the top of the page to help lookup a bunch of lalaloopsies on Bing image search (make sure you set the image size to wallpaper (or large) find the better quality images! Then I added the names and printed them out… (they moved to her bedroom wall after the party!)

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For one activity, we stuffed, sewed and decorated little lalaloopsy pets. I prepared them, but printing out the pets on paper and tracing them and their pieces onto felt. Then glued some of the pieces on using felt glue (so they would have time to dry) and sewing the button eyes on. With the front and back felt pieces together, I used a very small 1/16 hole punch to punch around the edges. (warning: hand fatigue is possible!!)

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We used embroidery floss to stitch them together and I had a bunch of plastic yarn needles for sewing them and stuffing.

 

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Also felt markers (found at a fabric/craft store) for decorating.

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For the second craft, I purchased a bunch of small prepared canvas boards from Michaels and precut with my cricut the first letter of the girls who were attending the party. I traced their letter onto the canvas with pencil and we used thick glue dots to glue on buttons to fill in their letter.

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buttons from Oriental Trading

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The last activity was a Lalaloopsy board game and it was so cute. It comes with a little lalaloopsy doll and it involves someone hiding the doll and they others picking cards to figure out which room she is in and then they have a minute to try to find her. (I had all the kids go look instead of one at a time as the directions say). Also I took out the cards of the rooms that I didn’t want the kids looking in (bedrooms, etc)

 

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lalaloopsy party supplies found here. I also crocheted a few flowers to stick around.

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Button candy molds found here. I just melted Wiltons candy melts and poured them into the melts. Make sure you wait until they are good and cooled before you pop them out of the molds (some of mine turned out better than the others)

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super cute cupcake topper from Amazon.

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I found these tin lalaloopsy boxes from Hobby Lobby and they worked great to put their little animals in and some stickers.

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Outer Space Baby Shower

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A few months ago, I hosted an Outer Space baby shower for a friend and her baby boy.  Thanks to my friend Liz, I didn’t have to do much with the food, so I got to focus on my favorite things:  the decorations, games and favors!  Here are the pictures with descriptions below them:

deirdre_invite_proofEThe invitation created in Adobe Illustrator

IMG_3639This is a foam wreath, covered with white tulle.  Then I cut out the rocket, star, and banner with my cricut and just pinned it onto the foam and added a ribbon to hang it.

IMG_3642Here is another banner made from my Cricut.

IMG_3648Here, I printed out different planets and cut them out.  You can use a glue stick on the picture side of the paper and paste them to the bottom of a clear plate to go with the theme of the party.

IMG_3647 The food and cut out stars scattered around.

IMG_3645I bought these whirly decorations of Amazon.

IMG_3644More cut out stars strung and displayed around.

IMG_3643  Fun baby shower Memory game.  Instructions HERE

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The favors were popcorn balls with a little blue food coloring!

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Ice cream party!

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Ice cream birthday party

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM!  Actually the screaming didn’t get too loud!  🙂   Ok.. I’ll be honest, I never really know what to say in these intros, but sometimes I feel like I need to introduce each party!  🙂  Bla bla bla… I’m more of a picture person myself, so let’s just get right to the fun stuff!  🙂
 
First up the decorations:
I sorta threw this together last minute… I had made a large crocheted ball a few months ago as part of an experiment that didn’t work out.  And I had some of those cardboard like cones from Michaels from a previous party… so I hot glued on a ribbon hanger and rubber banded the tulle over my crocheted ball and shoved it in the cone.  Would have been cute with some beads glued on top for sprinkles. 

inflatable cone… what I am going to do with this after the party?

So, I painted this cone for a game, but realized it was too small… so it just became a decoration.

(Ice cream try number too for pin the cherry on the sundae)

to make ice cream cone garland… see THIS blog post

I saw these cute ice cream balloons on Pinterest, so I tried them… they are helium filled balloons, but what I found out was that the weight of the cone (paper) was so heavy that they wouldn’t stay up in a bouquet… so I just tied them tightly to each chair and that worked.  Still a fun idea though… if you try this with a lighter weight paper and it works, let me know.

I ran out of time to make a piñata, so I bought this at our local party store… I think it may have been the first time we used a piñata that wasn’t a pull string one… it was interesting!  (my girls are not much into hitting with a bat)
This was one of the games.  I had 4 buckets and filled 2 of them with some pom poms I made with this brilliant contraption.  And I bought these cute ice cream scoopers.  So, the game was a relay type race… there were 2 lines of kids and they had to scoop a ball of “ice cream” and run across the room to the empty bucket and drop it in and run back, then the next kid goes.  Which ever line finishes first wins.  We played a few rounds of this.  It was a nice calm active game for them! 



I may do a blog post about this game too.  Have you all heard of the Cupcake game?  It is a super cute easy game for kids.  I spent a bunch of time creating a game like it, but it was making an ice cream cone or sundae instead.  5 kids could play at each game, so I made 4 games total.  I will link to the post after I blog about that. 

Pin the cherry on top of the Sundae!

 

I found this cake pop kit on clearance at Michaels and it was just perfect for the party.  It was pretty easy to make… the instructions were well written and they looked adorable.

lot of syrups!

Lots of toppings!



and MORE toppings!  (I am always happy when I get to use this fun ferris wheel serving piece from what used to be Southern Living at Home.)

Here are those finished cake pops

popcorn cones

ice cream bowls from Oriental Trading

 
We had a ton of different cones, but the majority just wanted to use the fun bowls.  The plates and napkins were from Birthday Express

I had my helpers (sis and mom-in-law) pre-scoop the ice cream onto a cookie sheet and stuck it in the freezer.  Then when it was time to serve… we dumped them into bowls and they were ready to go.  This was super helpful and make things fast and not as messy!

chocolate chip mint

and vanilla

She didn’t want a cake, so candles went into the ice cream scoop!  🙂



party favors (in the green bucket there are THESE ice cream shooters for the boys)

These party pails were from oriental trading and they had the idea HERE

inside the pails there was Ice cream scented nail polish, tattoos, ice cream lip gloss and stickers.  (just the sticker and tattoos in the boy’s favors)

Note: on the instructions from Oriental trading… the didn’t say anything about how they got the blue / purple/etc color under the iridescent glitter… I just hot glued on some ribbon of the same color and then glued the glitter stuff on top!

 
Happy birthday sweet girl!
 

How to make ice cream cone garland

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Ice cream cone garland

 
I thought I would show you a tutorial to make some fairly quick ice cream cone garland for an ice cream party!

What you need:

  • tissue paper in the colors you want
  • 6″ X 8″ brown paper (I used cardstock, but lighter paper will work just as well)
  • 2″ Styrofoam balls (you can find them cheap at the dollar store)
  • hot glue gun
  • fish line
  • scissors

Making the cone:



Take your brown paper

start to roll it into a cone with the corner at the point as shown above

hot glue a strip down the edge.  I glued the top half first while holding the point and then glued the pointy part around tight. 

Here you can see the glued part better.  then cut around the top to cute off the excess and make it straight.

 Adding the top:

Cover your Styrofoam ball with a bit of tissue paper and twist the ends together.

Put a little hot glue around the inside rim of your cone and insert the twisted end of your covered Styrofoam.
Cut a long strip of tissue paper about 1.5-2 inches wide and fold it down the center lengthwise
Start gluing on your strip of tissue down the fold and slightly above and below the fold, bunching it as you go.

all the way around and hide the ends into the start
Lastly, cut a small piece of fishing line, bring the ends together and put hot glue on the ends, and poke it into a small hole into the top for hanging.



cute cute