The Invitation

In our family, Birthday Parties went away at about age 8. Instead we have spent the past few years going out to nice dinners and shows or activities. This year is different. This year kiddo will be a (GASP!!!!!!) teenager. Yup, lucky number 13 has arrived my friends. And in honor of this (still gasping!) milestone year, we agreed to a party. Heck, we even said she could invite as many people as she wanted. She came up with a whopping 8. (whew!!)

Step one to any good party - the invitation. Our theme is the Mad Hatter's tea party - but more Johnny Depp and less Disney. I wanted to come up with a fabulous invite, and I think I did pretty well.....

These have screw on bottoms

She liked the vintage feel of these.

First we got these at our local Hobby Lobby. She liked that they were all different (mom liked that they weren't expensive). 

The Burlap has a paper backing

Jewelry Boxes were the perfect size. 

After cutting the burlap in to strips that were small enough to fit in the boxes, I wrote out the invite information on the paper backing. 

I tried to keep the language in theme. 

Rolling up the burlap was pretty easy and it gave me enough space to write all the information and still fit in the box. 

The "high tech" tool (rubber band) kept it rolled while I tied my fabulous little twine around it to keep it from unraveling in the box. Now it's time for assembly. Remember those cute little trinkets from the first photo? Well.......

Turns out, they look just like little door knobs. Don't forget those keys either.....

Ready to Deliver!

This key was one of the bigger ones. I like the smaller ones better, but all in all I think these were some great little invites. She was most pleased that they didn't look like the whimsy ones that she saw on the net while browsing. She wanted something more Victorian. I also think these would be great, maybe without the key, for a Monsters Inc party. 

Ready to Deliver!

As a side note, the two that I did have to mail, I used a padded envelope just in case. It cost me $1.10 to mail each of them.

4 in 14 February - Project

For our Valentine's this year we did some searching on Pinterest. There were lots and lots of ideas. Obviously we could only pick one. Bummer! We were armed with a couple different ideas when we went to the store.
Lil' Miss was super pleased to discover this little gem of information - Kool-Aid doesn't have sodium.

Red is her favorite, but we got an assortment

 These six packs were only $1 each. So, for $4 I bought everything I needed for a class full of Valentine's. Not too shabby if you ask me. Once we got back home, it was super quick and easy to make them.

Made on my computer, printed & cut out. 

These only took a second to make, and Lil' Miss picked the colors, words, and border clipart.
Then came assembly:

Love curling ribbon!!

The transportation was a concern, because this was heavier than it looked. So I just happened to have an old file box sitting under my work table from a previous cleaning adventure.

Perfect Fit!

Easy tote handle!

The box was still heavy, and she had to take in her treats for the party. Luckily enough we had parent-teacher conference the night before. So, we took the tote and left it on her desk. Valentine mission accomplished.

Froggy Fun - Snacks

Still continuing the frog theme for the party, I decided to make a couple fun snacks. These were really more about table decoration than actually thinking they would get eaten. They were fun to make. We happen to have one of those "every old fashioned candy you forget ever existed" stores near our house, so that made things easier.
I should mention that other than the actual snacks, and one $1 spool of ribbon from Michael's craft store, this project was made out of stuff I already had here.
First was this easy tag:


Why is my photo rotating??? Grrr....

 Which I put on to this jar and filled it with green grapes. Healthy snacks are important at a party too! Now lets get on to the tasty treats!!

The frog eyes were little green and white sour gummy circles and the pucker up label was on these cute little "kissing frog" gummies - both of which I put in some extra canning jars I had on hand. I will say that being able to screw the lid on and take it with me to the party was super handy!