Ice Cream Social Birthday Party

Today we celebrated my April Fools Day baby. She turned eight. I can't believe it!

April 1st is always an iffy-guess on what the weather in Kansas is going to be like. We've booked moonwalks and planned backyard parties that ended up cool and drizzly. We planned a day at the park and had to change it because it was the same day as the Easter Egg hunt. It's always something.

Today, though, everything cooperated. The weather was almost 90 and breezy (okay, a little too windy actually but it was nice considering the temp!). The park was empty except for us. I did not have to clean my house.

Since Brooke doesn't like cake (WHAT?!?!), we decided to have an ice cream social.

I packed up all the goodies and decorations and we took them to Beech Lake.

Now, I do have to say, that these pictures and this 'spread' would look A LOT better if it hadn't been so windy. I was having a few issues with that. But I was still happy with everything!

Here's the spread:

I had all the toppings in these cute bowls I got at Hobby Lobby several months ago. (More on those in a bit). I bought the cute chalk-board labels at The Cottage Collective from Paper Goods Creative.

I loved how all the colors looked! We had a bunch of good toppings too...chocolate syrup, homemade strawberry sauce, sprinkles, itty-bitty peanut butter cups, chocolate stars, chopped MMs, chopped peanuts, crushed oreos, marashino cherries, and of course, whipped cream. YUM.

I made this balloon topiary inspired by something I saw somewhere on the internet. Instead of trying to deal with balloons in the Kansas wind, this was a great alternative and gave me the centerpiece I mostly wanted. Now, if I had my head on straight, I would have remembered to get colored tissue paper for the bottom. And if I felt like spending more money, I would have bought balloons in the exact colors as my little bowls. But this mama is on a budget. I used the tissue paper my Aunt Debbie wrapped Brooke's gift in. And I used balloons and ribbon I had in the house. :)

Fill an empty 2-liter bottle half way with sand or pea-gravel (from your landscaping...send the kids out to do it). Wrap a dowel rod (1/2" diameter is good) with some ribbon. Blow up balloons in quantity and color of choice. I used six here. Tie two together on centered on a long piece or ribbon, then wrap that ribbon and tie it tightly around the top of the dowel rod. Repeat with other pairs of balloons. Stick dowel rod down in the sand/rocks. Cover 2-liter bottle as you choose. I would have chosent hot pink, bright green, and bright blue tissue paper but as I said, I was on a budget. So I used the white that I had and wrapped more of the ribbon around it. Then I added some of the happy birthday banner to it.

Overall, room for improvement but loved the concept, and it held up great for the party.

Birthday girl was first through the line!

I don't know why they all felt compelled to sit on the same side of the table!

I hired our babysitter to help me with some of the decorations and game facilitating. The kids love her (She is our teacher's daughter), and she was such a great help to have there!

This game was like a hot potato game. I had a sack-within-a-sack-within a sack for five sacks total. The outside of each one had a task for them to complete. So we passed the bag around like a hot potato and when the music stopped, they read the task and completed it. They included running down to the slide and back, all the boys singing "Happy Birthday" to Brooke, everyone jumping up and down while saying their ABC's, etc. It was fun. The last sack had tootsie rolls in it for everyone and the person who ended up with the last sack got a prize.

This game....it was crazy chaos...and the kids had fun....but it was nuts. We tied one balloon to each kids' ankle. At first we were going to play this in the grass but the balloons kept popping. So we moved it to the shelter area. I didn't even think about the kids RUNNING around and doing this. They were supposed to pop each other's balloons and the last one standing won. There were kids and balloons everywhere. I was just waiting for people to end up on their faces from getting tangled in the ribbons. But no injuries, lots of giggles and cheering and craziness.

After these games we just had the kids play on the equipment for awhile, etc. Before they went home, they got their party favors....which have a story all their own.

I got the bowls for the party at Hobby Lobby for about 42 cents apiece on sale several months ago. I thought it'd be fun to fill them with cotton candy to make them look like ice cream. I spent an hour last night making cotton candy on my little machine. I even caught my machine on fire at one point. They were so cute...looked like this:

Then this morning, I got up, and they looked like this:

Yeah, it's APRIL FIRST in Kansas and it's humid enough to ruin cotton candy that is SEALED UP in a bag. UGH. So I tore them all apart and made this stuff instead (minus the chex mix, and with peanuts added). It was yummy, and didn't get destroyed by the weather.

So in my 42 cent bowls went the popcorn mix, tied in a cellophane bag, with a candy-stick (thirty cents each) and a tag that I made that said "Thanks for coming to my party. Peace, Love and Ice Cream, Brooke"

It was an Ice Cream Social success. Everyone had fun, we had a great turnout, and my girl was happy! So thankful for all the friends that came, for the friends and family that helped out, etc.

Happy Birthday, Stinkerbelle!

A new twist on Tie Dye

I love doing fun crafty things. I love doing tie-dye stuff. I think it's a throwback to VBS or church camp or something like that. It's always been something I enjoyed.

Last year, I learned how to make these Mickey tie-dye shirts. I made FOURTEEN of them for our cruise (our family, and some friends). Took for.ev.er because I had to sew the mickey shape, pull it tight, wrap it with rubber bands, etc etc. But they looked good!

I found a new technique that I wanted to try. It is originally called Batiking (I think) and it involves putting something on the shirt that is dye-resistant, then doing the dye. Originally it involved wax I believe...can't even imagine what a mess that would be!

Anyways, I found directions (on Pinterest) to use this blue-gel glue. Apparently, the blue-gel elmers is the way to go. I cannot attest to how any other glue would work, but I can tell you the blue-gel elmers worked!

As with half the things I do, I decided to do a Mickey shape. Why not, right? This was going to be a birthday gift for one of our little friends.

I had a friend/client pick up some of those auto-emblems for me on their last Disney trip and I've never stuck it on the car. I've found it is very handy for tracing on shirts!

In this case, I did a bead of glue all the way around the face of the emblem,

then flipped it over in the center of my dry shirt to make a transfer of the shape....

I then went back over the shape with a better bead of glue.

Let the glue dry for several hours. Prepare for tie-dying as you wish. I like the spiral look. To do that, you pinch in the center of the shirt and twist in a clockwise motion, twisting tight. Put several rubber bands around your twisted shirt to hold it in place.

Prepare dyes in the colors of your choice...I find three is a nice number for spiral, because then where they overlap...theoretically...additional colors come out. I slightly dampened my spiraled shirt and then started putting the dye on. You want rubber gloves for this part!

I have yet to get colors to come out as bold as they initially appear....of course a lot of the dye washes back out when you squeeze/rinse. I like to use these bottles for this process, and just saturate the shirt in sections in our stainless steel sink.

After your shirt is dyed, squeeze out the excess and remove the rubber bands. Then go lay it somewhere to dry (I layed it on a garbage bag in the garage). This lets the dye soak in really well.

When I layed the shirt out, I decided that the Mickey didn't pop quite as much as I wanted...because of the tie-dye that I did instead of just dying it a solid color. So I went and got my squeeze bottle of red, and after sticking a walmart sack in between the layers, I just added more red to the inside of the Mickey.

After the shirt is dry, fill your sink up with warm, soapy water and dunk the shirt in there. Agitate it a little bit and give it just a few minutes. While it seems a little redundant to let the shirt dry (setting the dye) and then dunking it in water, this will remove the glue. Then throw it in the washer and dryer as normal. (I threw mine in with some old towels that needed washed, so if extra dye got on anything in the wash, it'd be no biggie).

Here's how it turned out! I like it! Next time I will slightly dampen the shirt BEFORE I twist it, which allows the dye to soak in a little better (which is what I did with last year's shirts). I was nervous about the Mickey outline getting soft again before the dying process was done.

Give it a try! Fun project! You could do words, shapes, etc. You can tie-dye it like I did, or soak it in a solid color of dye...whever you like! I'm anxious to try some other techniques!!!

Teacher stuff

Whew!!! The last day of school before Christmas break is craziness for this PTO mom. In addition to teacher gifts, the staff luncheon we put on for the entire staff, and the all-school sing-a-long I had to also zip up to the little girl's preschool program. That was entirely too cute and will get blogged about in the next day or so!

I blogged recently about remembering to do something for your 'specials' teachers at school. This is an idea that one of my friends on facebook did for some of their teachers. We got Brooke's teacher some Kstate PJ's, the bus driver got a gift certificate, and then the specials teachers, preschool teachers, and office staff got these post-it holders:

Acrylic frames from the Dollar Tree:


Scrapbook paper.....


Cut the scrapbook paper to fit the frame. Wrap a ribbon around the top and tie a bow. Embellish how you choose. I had some flat floral marbles downstairs that I hot-glued to these. Stick on a post-it pad and you have a handy little post-it holder!


The PE teachers were harder because they are guys...and they are, well...PE teachers. So I used a basketball themed scrapbook paper, got rid of the bow, and glued buttons on instead.

Those all got delivered on Monday, and then I focused on the luncheon we do for the staff at our school. There are about 75 staff at our school...that's a lot! We always do a Christmas luncheon for them where they all get together to eat and parents cover the classrooms for a bit.

I found these cute pink, green and white striped boxes on clearance on stumpsparty.com for 5 cents each several weeks ago. Ordered a bunch of them. We decided to do a little gift for every person and these boxes were perfect. Inside the boxes were:

Little jars of Festive Cranberry Honey (made by my co-chair and found in one of my Gooseberry Patch books), Hershey Kisses, mixed nuts, and individually wrapped Triple Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes (made by me).

Then we topped them with Cozy Cocoa Spoons (made by me with Ghiradelli chocolate). Here's what 75 wrapped/tagged cocoa spoons looks like:

We did white plastic tableclothes (because we were tired and didn't feel up to dealing with fancy ones), with green paper runners down the middle. Stacked the little gift boxes in sets of three.

I found this cool stretchy meshy silver sparkly ribbon on sale at Michael's for 40-cents per yard. So we stretched that and wove it down the tables.

Then I stopped into Dillons and said "I need something inexpensive we can use to decorate tables at a luncheon!" She had just marked down some red roses to $2/dozen, and some bunches of daisy/spider mums/carnations to 50-cents per package. SCORE. Peeled off some not-so-pretty petals, and they were good enough for a luncheon that is for sure!

The meal was great, I heard everyone enjoyed it, and it's all done.

We had a great day today and I will post more about the preschool program and the school sing-along tomorrow!

Homemade Gingerbread Playdough

Christmas fun is in full swing around here. A week ago we had Jingle Jam at our church, which is the kids' Christmas program. It was a ton of fun. The girls were part of the 150-kid Jingle Jam Carolers, and that was cool. They did 'Silent Night' and a jazzed up version of 'Joy To the World.'

Here the girls are in front of the stage in the main auditorium. They do a different set for each sermon series and they are always amazing. It's (almost) all made from styrofoam. Wow.

Waiting for the show to start.

Getting ready to sing

Silent night...looked so pretty with all their star lights.

Now onto the blog post title. Homemade gingerbread playdough! I saw this post and thought it'd be a fun project to do in Brooke's class. I wanted to do it in cute jars but a)jars are expensive, b)I didn't have enough old jars of my own and c) they would probably break on the way home. Off to the dollar tree I went.

I found plastic containers 6/$1. Awesome. Found cookie cutters in a pack 5/$1. Awesome. Bought some 3"x4" Avery shipping labels and printed them up with the words Gingerbread Playdough outlined on there for the kids to color, along with the directions.

In class, the kids decorated their labels, then came to me to make their dough mix. In their container they put 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 T. cinnamon, and several shakes of nutmeg and ginger. We put the labels on the lids, let them pick out a cookie cutter, and tied it all together with a ribbon.

Off to their homes they went with their box of dough mix. To complete it, you just stir the ingredients in a saucepan with 1 cup of water and 2 T. oil. It gets kind of clumpy but you just keep stirring and once it comes together in a dough, you knead it and turn the kids loose. My hands still smell good from kneading it. Will store in an airtight container for several weeks.

Fun gift for friends and neighbors, right?! You can go fancy, like in the original post, or you can go Dollar-Tree version like I did for the class of 19 kids.

$3 Cupcake Stand, and guest blog sneak peek!

I must say, I am still NOT totally sucked into Pinterest yet...but I have found some great stuff on the few occasions I've had time to pop over there and stalk my friends pinboards... And this is one of them.

It's cheap. It's easy. It's cute. It holds cupcakes. Perfect to try for my Open House I had last night. Here's the $3 Cupcake Stand.

You need:
Two candlesticks from the Dollar Tree, $1/ea.



A 2-pack of the ugly burner covers from the Dollar Tree, $1.

Spray adhesive, which you can get at Michael's. I didn't count this in the total price because theoretically, any crafter should have this stuff. It is handy dandy. If you use your 40% off coupon I think this can costs about $4.

I was out of spray adhesive so I thought I'd use this decoupage gel that I had on hand instead. For the record, it DOES NOT WORK for this project AT ALL. I ended up going to get a new can of spray adhesive after all.

Pretty scrapbook paper of your choice.... which you may have already stashed in your house, or you can pick up two sheets for about 50cents on a sale day. (Okay, so if you don't have scrapbook paper, and have to buy it, that would make this a $4 cupcake stand maybe).

Trace your little burner on the piece of paper you want on the top tier. Cut it out. Repeat with Bigger burner cover and the paper you want on the bottom tier.

Go outside with your burner covers, paper circles and spray glue. Best when it is not windy and the dog is not out there to try to eat the spray glue.

Spray the top of the burner cover with adhesive, position paper circle, rub it on good. Be mindful of the "made in China" markings on the burner cover... if your paper has a pattern where direction is important, just make sure your "made in Chinas" are on the 'back' of both tiers.

Use Gorilla Glue or E6000 glue or super glue, whatever monster glue you have on hand to glue a candlestick to the bottom of each burner cover. Leave upside down for several hours while glue sets.

Glue little tier/candlestick to the top tier with same monster glue. These cupcake stands are not excessively big or sturdy, so stick something on the top in the middle to hold in place while the glue sets. I used a mug and told the kids to stop running around the island. :)

And joila'! Here is the finished product! So cute !

Here it is doing the job it was made for- holding cupcakes!

And here it is in the midst of my spread for my sweet shoppe open house last night. It worked perfectly!!

Now..... a little sneak peek on my upcoming guest blogger. I am so excited!! I am a Harlequin romance/Harlequin Intrigue junkie and my favorite author is Julie Miller. She has written over 35 books and I love them all! You can find her booklist here. My favorite series is the Taylor clan series....she writes them so well, it makes you fall a little in love with the leading man each time, and makes me wish I was from a great big family. I LOVE her books. Anyways... JULIE IS GUEST BLOGGING HERE on THURSDAY!!!! How cool is that? I mean... I think someone who has published that many books is pretty much a celebrity... and she's way more exciting and talented to me than...like... Justin Bieber. And she's coming to my little blog. I've been so blessed with awesome guest bloggers on my "Christmas Traditions" quest, and I can't wait for Julie's post! I hope all my readers give her a warm welcome! :)