Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Yodel Ay Hee Hoo! Its a Jessie Party!



I'm so excited to share my daughter's Jessie Party with you!  Its one of my favorites to date and I'm so happy with how it all turned out!  Its chock full of cow print, red bandanas and of course the one and only cowgirl herself, Jessie!

What you can't see in the picture above are the super cute cow print balloons I found at Hobby Lobby!  They are just out of frame (I never said I was a professional prhotographer!)  There were bandanas everywhere...on the tables, hanging from above, and incorporated into the supercute printables made by the awesomely talented Pinkadot Shop



 Let's talk party food!  I tried my hand at the infamous Jessie Hat cookies that everyone seems to make beautifully themselves.  (Again, not a professional in that area!) I consider myself a decent wannabe baker so needless to say I was surprised when it took me 3 tries to perfect them, and using the word "perfect" is a little much.  But I was happy enough to put them out on display and the kids ate them up!!  To counteract the cookies I put out little fruit salads in cupcake wrappers, which ended up just as big as a hit!  We also LOVE smores on a stick in our house so I thought they were a great compliment to the party food.  Chicken nuggets, pigs in a blanket, and strawberry and banana (red and yellow colored) flavored popcorn also rounded out the food tables!

No party is complete with Kandy Kones by the Superchick!  I told her the theme and colors I wanted and she immediately went to work!  The result?  Those supercute Jessie Kones, complete with a Jessie hat and braid!  I could have died!!  The cake from Sweet Designs Kitchen looked AMAZING and couldn't have matched the whole theme better!  If you are local to the Orlando area, Sweet Designs Kitchen makes the most delicious cupcakes and cakes you'll ever have the pleasure of eating! 


The Toy Story Photo Booth was the biggest hit of the party with the kids (and the adults too)!  I made all the props myself, mostly just cutting the cardstock by hand. I used my Cricut for the thought bubbles and Mr Potato Head Nose.  For the Etch a Sketch frame, I just cut out some foam board and painted it red, and glued on two water bottle caps for the knobs.  Easy Peasy!  I found the cloud fabric (Andy's Room) at Hobby Lobby.  It really was the highlight of the party and made me want to add a photo booth to every themed party I do in the future!


I cannot take credit for The Claw game.  I saw it somewhere along the way in my planning and just had to have it.  Its perfect for the 5 year old age group of children there.  Its a small tub filled with prizes like glow bracelets, pop rocks, and rainbow chewy candies.  I cut out aliens and glued them on to some of the prizes, and cut out a "spaceship/rocket" with a window and taped it to the front of the tub.  The kids loved using tongs as "the claw" to grab the prizes out with.  Again, easy peasy!   I printed Toy Story activity books for each Pre K child.  And I also made sure our Mr and Mrs Potato Heads were out for the kids to play with.  The activity table was ready with foam door hangers for the kids to decorate.  The local Dollar Tree had lots of Toy Story games I added to the activity tables to keep the kids busy!  Oh, and speaking of the Dollar Store I also grabbed a couple of ropes from there and put my daughter's rocking horse out for the kids to "lasso". 

It was a great day and one my daughter will always remember!  Her adorable Jessie outfit came from Personalize it by Jackie.  Don't you just love that cow print skirt?!


I'm not really sure how I'm going to top this one, but luckily I have a few months to think about it!   Thank you again to everyone who helped make the day so special!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Welcome to Hogwarts

We're boarding Platform 9 3/4 to the Hogwarts Express!  I was thrilled when a client (and a friend) asked if I could design a Harry Potter themed party for her 7 year old daughter.  I had never done one before but am a HUGE fan of the books and the movies and was totally up for the challenge! 

I knew we had to fill the party room with Gryffindor colors, potions in jars, and floating objects.  The table was made up with a cauldron full of "scary" chex mix and a magical-color changing drink at each setting.  We even had a photo booth complete with a HP costume! 




The children loved the color-changing drinks.  I put a few drops of food coloring under the ice in each cup.  The children picked their places and then we poured the (clear) soda.  Every cup was different and we had a framed chart on the table that the children could use to match their color to a description.  Red = Powerful, Blue = Royalty, etc.  It was a huge hit!


No Harry Potter Party is complete without a Potions Class!  After testing and tweaking and tweaking and testing (for what seemed like hours!) I had come up with the perfect potions recipe.  (Email me if interested!) I put all the ingredients needed in separate jars and re-labeled with "spooky" names.  I typed up the recipe on scrolls for the kids and let them do two potions.  In the first one, they could follow the recipe.  In the second one, they could use their creativity and more or less of the ingredients on the table, and come up with their own recipe.  What a hit!  Some of the kids made bigger explosions than what I had come up with.  This was one class they did not want to end!


One of the best looking parts of the entire party was the cake and cupcakes!  Everything looked too pretty to eat! 

I loved how everything turned out!  One activity not shown was the wand making craft.  The kids used decorative duct tape, gems, glitter and pipe cleaners to make girlie wands fit for any Hogwarts student!  Special thanks to Frog Prince Paperie for the awesome HP circle tags, Happy Birthday banner, and potions sign and to Sweet Designs Kitchen for the ridiculously cute and tasty cake and cupcakes!