Were shall I begin....let me just say this; my little girl is growing up. I feel like she was just a couple of years old and then I blinked. Then I opened my eyes she is 7. I am in awe of the person she is becoming. Sweet, thoughtful, generous (unless it comes to her brother of course) and obsessed with Michael Jackson lately.....hmmm, not sure where that one came from. Anyhow, the birthday party was a success. All the hours spent gluing buttons and cutting out paper dolls was well worth it. Most of the girls that were invited showed up. There were lots of giggles and smiles, and thanks to my husbands ninja like time keeping skills we were able to keep to our party timeline.
Thanks to Pintrest, there was no shortage of ideas to get my creative juices flowing. In fact I had a hard time narrowing down the things I was going to do. Not wanting to spend a fortune on party stuff, I thought I would start in the thrift stores. A couple weeks before the party while her brother was at preschool I would go to all of the local stores and just browse until something caught my eye. Some days were not successful, others I scored.
I got the idea for these little mouses here on Pintrest. If you are not familiar with Lalaloopsy's, each one comes with a pet and the mouse is one of them. I was able to get everything but the felt at goodwill. The stuffing was bran new, the yarn used, and the buttons cost next to nothing since I just happen to be browsing on half off linens day. I spent a little over 10$ for everything to put this craft together. You can get the pattern and instructions here for $5 or you can do what I did and just make a pattern yourself. I sewed on the eyes, stitched the noses and whiskers and hole punched with a mini puncher around the edges to help guide the girls where to sew. The needles I got at our local craft store, they are upholstery needles and are pretty blunt at the ends preventing any poked fingers. I made the first stitch for them and placed everything in a Ziploc bag with printed instructions attached to the bag. This was one of there goodies to take home.
Another Pintrest idea was a pin the hat on peanut game. I drew peanut on purple card stock, drew the details, and made the little hats out different colors of card stock. I was pretty happy with the finished product beings that I am not the best at drawing and the girls loved it.
I made the cupcake toppers by printing out these images on card stock and cut them out and attached to a toothpick with a tiny piece of tape.
The cake topper was a Lalaloopsy Ferris wheel toy that I found at goodwill for....wait for it......$1.29. After thoroughly washing and sanitizing it, it fit perfect on top of her two tier cake I made with Bobs Red Mill gluten free white cake cake mix, which by the way was delicious! A little heavier than regular cake still very tasty.
For the party crafts, I printed out these plain lalaloopsy dolls on card stock, cut them out and had the girls glue them onto some goody bags. Then they got to decorate them, with yarn, little pieces of fabric that I cut out in the shape of shirts, skirts, pants and dresses, markers, and buttons. Later they used the bags to collect the candy from the pinata and to bring their party favors home in.
The second craft were little button barrettes. Chloe's friend is wearing hers in the picture to the right. I found the barrettes at the craft store and had the girls glue buttons onto them using glue dots. My inspiration came from these rings made with buttons. I couldn't find the rings at the craft store, so I opted for barrettes instead.
Now onto the food. There were several things I aspired to do like these adorable button cookies and these colorful popcorn balls on sticks, but even with my amazing mother and father in law who volunteered to take the kids two weekends in a row so that I would have plenty of time to get it all done without going a little nutty, I wasn't able to bring all my ideas to fruition. (Thank you!Thank you! Thank you!) I did however, manage to get to the rainbow fruit kabobs and the milk bottle cups with licorice straws. Using glue dots, I glued some ribbon onto the bottles and placed a button in the middle. The straws were inspired by a memory from when I was a little girl. It was a special treat to drink cold milk with a red licorice straw. After I was done with the milk, I would eat the licorice which was all cold and chewy. Yum. Just snip off the ends of the licorice and you have yourself an edible straw. The girls were very happy about the licorice straws that accompanied their fresh strawberry lemonade. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of these bottles. With all the excitement there were several things I didn't manage to take pictures of. I hope the descriptions give you a good enough idea on the things I missed.After cake and ice cream, we all went outside to take a whack at the pinata. To transform it into a Lalaloopsy pinata I bought a flower pinata and added some circles to the middle to make it look like a giant button. However in the picture I managed to get the side without the circles. (Note to self...photograph everything before the party starts) Only two whacks in and one of Chloe's besties, probably the smallest of the bunch, broke it open on her third hit. What an arm! I love the craziness of the kids scrambling to get as much candy as possible in there bags before everyone else scoops it up. Good times.
I sent each girl home with a Lalaloopsy coloring book which I found at the dollar store, some crayons, which I added a Lalaloopsy sticker to, a sucker and their little mouse sewing crafts all wrapped up with the yarn and torn fabric strips in a nice bow.
When I asked Chloe what her favorite part of her birthday party was, I was kind of expecting her to say something about a toy, or the pinata, but her response was "having my friends together with me at my house and in my room". Mission accomplished:)
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