Mario Kart Birthday Party

My son is a huge fan of Mario and Luigi.  I have always felt that all holiday should be over the top for a child as they are grow because you really only get a handful of years to create lasting memories before they are adults and moving away.  So for his eight birthday he asked for a Mario Kart party and me being crafty mom, got the wheels rolling to create a party of his dreams.  

My first thought was invites.  I loathe store bought invitations and always try to create my own with a personal touch.  These are so easy to create and anyone with just a little computer skill can do it.  I start by searching yahoo images for Mario backgrounds.  Once I find one (which in this case was the mountain road) I copy and paste it to powerpoint.  If you haven’t figured out, powerpoint is my favorite tool to work with.  I then searched images for all the characters and did the same copy and paste.  I pulled in a picture of my kiddo and added the words for the picture below.  It’s easy to then print on card stock and you have your own cute invites for much cheaper and cuter then the store bought.

 

My next thought was the cake!  I love to bake but I’m no pastry chef.  I knew what I wanted but couldn’t find anything like it at my local store to purchase so I created my own.  I found the little pull-back cars on amazon and the idea took shape.  Why not a race track in the figure eight since he was turning eight?  I was pretty simple after that.  I used two different flavor (chocolate and white) mixes to make four round cakes.  Then I found sheets of black fondant for the track.  Fondant is not cheap so I don’t use it unless I have to.  These sheets worked great because all I had to do was cut out the shape of the track.  One sheet per side.  The bananas are from a pack of fruity hard candy.  In hindsight, I would use a gummy banana instead of the hard because a guest at the party did make a comment about HOW hard it was compared to the rest of the cake.  So take that in mind if you want to create this cake yourself.  I think I used three cans of white icing and one tube of green.  Make sure to put icing between the cake layers to use as glue to hold it together.  Also make sure to cute the bubble top off the cakes so you have a flat surface to work with.  I was able to pick up the candles at my local Dollar Tree for $1.00 each to complete the look.

 

We had several games but the kids loved the “Smash Yoshi Eggs” the best.  I took regular eggs and cut a small whole in the bottom to drain out the yokes (which I used for the cake and breakfast).  I then carefully washed them with hot water to make sure all the yoke was clean.  Leave them to drain overnight so that they are complete dry before moving on.  The next day, I filled them with confetti and a few had special “Happy Birthday” confetti so the kids could win a prize.  I used small squares of tissue paper and glued over the whole and then took a green marker to color my dots.  The kids took turns grabbing an egg and throwing it at a wall outside to see who could find the “Happy Birthday” confetti and when a prize.  The eggs turned out harder than I thought to crack and several took a few times to smash. 

I also had the Wii running for the kids to battle each other in a Mario Kart video challenge.  The winner of each game also got to pick a prize.  The prizes was candy filled Mario toys you see in the picture along with trophy’s and medals I also found at the Dollar Tree in packs for $1.00.

I didn’t do much decorating because all the favors made the room filled with stuff anyway.  What I did do was turn one of my walls into the game screen.  I used a $1.00 light blue plastic table cloth from the Dollar Tree and then found the Mario wall decals at Kmart.  I just cut the decals out and taped to the plastic so that I could use them to decorate my kids room after the party.  This worked great and was easy to clean up afterwards.  I found the brick images on yahoo and printed them on some brown card stock I had on hand. 

Now my favorite part of any party…FAVORS!!!!  I made VIP Access badges for each kid using powerpoint like I did the invites.  I also found cute colored sun hats from Oriental Trading which I added cut out foam letters to match the characters hats in the game.  For the favor bags, I used plan brown paper bags and printed off labels I created in powerpoint to add a special touch.  At the end of the party I let the kids use the bags to grab whatever toys/candy was left to take home. 

I love how the chocolate coin question mark box favors turned out.  I had these small boxes on hand that I bought years ago with the thought that they may come in handy later.  I found the image on yahoo and added it to shipping labels.  I like to use shipping labels when I create my favors because they are cheap and easy to work with.  You print off your image and peel and stick to our favor.  I was able to fit two question marks on each label and print 20 per sheet.  I peeled and stuck to the box on all sides.  I then filled with yellow tissue paper and dropped the chocolate coins in. 

It was a fun party and my son has asked for a repeat for several years but I try to push for something different so that I can create more ideas!

Yellow, Pink and Orange Bridal Shower

In 2012, I was asked to help with my nieces bridal shower.  She didn’t have a theme but really loved the colors yellow, pink and orange.  At first I found it hard really hard to come up with ideas without a theme but I worked my magic and was able to create a few really good ideas that made her shower special.

Guest Book:

 

Instead of doing the same old guest book, we came up with the idea of leaving envelopes and having each guest fill it out so my niece wouldn’t have to locate everyone’s address for the thank you cards.  I used a foam poster board and covered it with flowered gift wrap paper I found at the dollar store.  I then decorated it with their engagement picture and random pictures from their childhoods.  We also left the album filled with her engagement pictures for everyone to look at.

Advice Board:

I used another foam board with yellow gift wrap paper for the advice board.  I strung a string from to push pins and hung tiny clips with different color paper so the guests could fill out advice to the bride that should could put in her scrapbook.

Games:

For the games we played several but the best was when each table picked a “Bride” and made a wedding dress for them using only toilet paper.  It was so much fun and we had a lot of creative “dresses”.

Favors:

Creating party favors is my favorite thing to do.  I LOVE the idea of coming up with something and creating it from scratch rather than paying the huge price tag on party stuff.  Plus, if you do it yourself then you can put that special added touch that makes it stand out at any party.  I went with the yellow theme for the favors because of its warm and bright color.  When I think of yellow the first thing that pops in my mind is honey.  I really wanted to create jars of honey but after pricing the jars and the honey, it did not fit into my budget.  My next idea was to use sticks of honey and the Meant to Bee Honey sticks was created.

I ordered 100 honey sticks from amazon, along with the cute yellow ribbon with the bees on it. I created the tag and used glue dots to put the two sticks together.  I then tied the ribbon around the sticks and through the tag.  

I also made He Popped The Question and She Said Yes Bags (pink bags in the background) and added a microwave bag of popcorn and white paper.  I also made smores on a stick and used orange chocolate with chocolate hearts.

Last was my oreo truffles.  Everyone LOVES these and they are so easy to make for any party.  I always have tiny favor boxes on hand that I pick up at Wal-mart (100 to a box) for favors.  I picked up yellow flowers from the dollar store and pulled them off the stems.  I used a hot glue gun and attached to the top of the boxes.  I then used yellow ribbon that I also got at the dollar store to wrap around the box and added a tag made with card stock.  I used a cupcake liner and then added a truffle to each box.  

For my first bridal shower, it was a huge success.  The food was awesome but created by someone else, which is why I don’t have that on this blog.    

Despicable Me Minions Birthday Party

This year for my sons birthday, he wanted to do a Minion Birthday Party.  I was very excited because I LOVE these cute little yellow things and couldn't wait to get started.  The only problem was, I couldn't find ANYTHING for his party that didn't cost an arm and a leg.  I'd rather spend the money on gifts and location rather than party stuff that will only get tossed in the trash later.

Food:

Since the party was also a pool party, I used sand buckets and filled with different treats.  We than had hamburgers (I forgot to bring the hotdogs) and chips.  I also brought small snack bags and filled with the remainder fishy crackers, animal crackers and pretzels and added to the goody bags so nothing got tossed in the trash or brought home at the end of the party.

Favors:

I was able to find the plastic party goodie bags at my local party store but the price tag was close to $4.00 for 8 and I really didn't like the look of them.  I decided to see what I could come up with at a cheaper cost.  I started by making a trip to my local Dollar Store.  There I found plan yellow gift bags 10 for $1.00.  Next I tried to find the eyes on the Internet but ran into the problem of how much it was going to cost just to download the template for the eyes.  I decided to create my own computer generated template. 

Here is a sheet of 10 different eyes you can use for your bags, cups or anything else you need. 

I printed them out on Avery 5163 Shipping Labels and than took the time to cut them out (which takes a while) and peeled and stuck to the bags.  I just created a template for the pants and then used a black sharpie to draw the pockets and things on blue card stock.  It was easy to just glue these to the bags.  I then used my sharpie to draw a mouth of different shapes and sizes.  My son wanted to help and added hair to the bags.  I had all the supplies on hand but the yellow bags, so 10 goody bags ended up costing me 10 cents each.

I also wanted to make little minions that could go into the goody bags.  I used the template for the eyes and then created the pants and made a sheet of labels that I could cut and add to the mini cakes. My trouble was finding cakes that didn't have writing on the package.  I had no luck there so I had to make do with what I could find.  I also put the leftovers inside the goody bags as well.

Cake:

I had a hard time finding cake toppers.  I was lucky enough to find this cupcake cake at my Kroger's and then found all the characters at ToysRUs.  It turned out rather great since I had his birthday party at the water park and didn't have to worry about cutting a cake.  The kids just grab the cupcake they wanted without an adult having to cut and put on a plate for them.

All and all it was a great birthday.  Everyone had fun and enjoyed the party.  I hope my ideas and templates help you create something magical for your little ones.