Ice cream party!

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!
 

Owl birthday party!

Well, its April again, so we just celebrated the 1st of 2 birthdays.  My 5 year old was looking through the list of party themes from the Birthday Express catalog, and she loved the owl blossom party supplies, so we went with that theme.  I started by crocheting amigarumi owls for decorating the room (Ravelry has a ton of cute patterns).  After deciding on my upcoming 3 year olds party theme, we got our orders together for birthdayexpress.com and orientaltrading.com.  I just love getting all those fun supplies in the mail! 

Last week, we had 16 little party friends come to have a hoot at our Owl party.  My little birthday girl had a lot of fun and we even got a sunny day!  Here are the pictures: 

Had trouble with this flipping in a bit.  😦  Oh well
Love these wall stickers from birthdayexpress!  And I can now move them to a bedroom for a cutsie wall


When the kids arrived, we started with a craft:  painting owl suncatchers.  I found these great markers from JoAnns to use instead of paints.  Was super easy for a 5 year old to do, but they do like to glob it on, so it did take a while to dry. 
Owl aprons to put on to protect their clothes from paint!

Next up, I printed and glued this own onto some cardboard… cut the mouth hole out and the kids had a beanbag toss into the owls mouth.

My mom helped by making these super cute bean bag mice out of felt, string tail and a pompom nose.

Decorations over the food
food display… saw the idea for the wood displays and platter stands on pinterest!

we had some allergy kids coming to the party, so I tried to make sure we had things they could have!

Gluten free rice krispie cupcakes

Don’t you just love cupcake cakes?

the betty crocker butter chocolate cake mix was SUPER yummy…  I recomend you try!! and I don’t even usually like chocolate cake!)

Was thrilled to see this on orientaltrading (they were for Valentines, so I even got them on clearance!)

Oh … and happened to find these owl label stands in the dollar section at JoAnns!

pinata

presents
party favors
the boys got a wallet and the girls got an owl purse and they got to keep their aprons, suncatchers, and loot from the pinata.
After the party, the kids got to go outside and play to burn off some sugar.  🙂  Again… super thankful for the sunny day!  Happy birthday sweet girl!