Angry Birds Birthday Party

My oldest son celebrated his 5th BIRTHDAY this weekend!  And what better way to ring in the BIG FIVE than with an Angry Birds themed birthday party?  Everyone had a blast, especially the birthday boy!

The "problem" about an Angry Birds themed birthday party is that the Angry Birds section at a party store is about 6 inches wide [I measured] and shares the space with WWE party supplies.  On top of that, it costs over $5 for a pack of 8 cups, or a pack of 8 plates, etc.  RIDICULOUS!  However, this type of "problem" means that I get to be super crafty, which I love!

I am so excited to share all of the super fun party details!!!  Thank goodness for Pinterest because I really feel like my creative brain is mush after having the baby... it's slowly coming back to me now ;-)  Feel free to steal these ideas so you can throw an awesome [inexpensive] birthday bash too!!!  P.S.  This party cost UNDER $300 including food, so it totally beat having a party at the local inflatable warehouse!  This was made possible by recycling the table cloth from our Tractor-themed birthday party in October (YIKES!  I just realized I never blogged about this one!) and all of the wood was left over from the construction of our fort (blog post on that to come soon) and cups from my sister's wedding over 2 years later.

INVITATIONS:  I downloaded a free printable and used Publisher to personalize it.

Free printable here!

FOOD TABLE:
These Angry Bird balloons made me so... so... ANGRY because they wouldn't all face the same way at the same time... so after 100 pictures, I finally got the majority of them at least semi-looking in my direction!

Angry Birds balloon faces template found here!

FOOD:

Bird food vs. Pig food = all of it was gone by the end of the party!

Bird food:  fruit on a stick and veggie cups

Pig food:  skittles, chips & salsa, cheese balls, popcorn, pretzels and trail mix

SIGNS/LABELS:

I found these little watering cans at the Dollar Tree and because they just HAPPENED to be the same colors as all of the angry birds/green pigs, I decided to buy them and use them.  I put a styrofoam craft block in the bottom and stuck a chop stick (also from the Dollar Tree:  $1 for 5 sets) in the middle.  I stuffed the cans with shredded tissue paper and printed little signs on the computer.  And BONUS!!!  I found a FREE download for the Angry Birds font "Feast of Flesh" here!  I got the stickers from Hobby Lobby...so much cheaper than the party stores.

Lesson learned:  putting fruit on cardboard/paper sticks is a bad idea.  The sticks absorb the moisture from the fruit and they bend.  But it was a really cool idea!  Strawberries (red bird), blue berries (3 blue birds), pineapple (yellow bird), green grape (pig)... all on a stick!

CAKE TABLE:
Cupcakes:  I am NOT a baker and am truly amazed by people who are able to make such cute things that are also edible, so I entrusted the bakers at Target to make the green pig cupcakes (however, they were quite confused about the whole "green pig" concept and made pink pigs at first... long story...).

Cupcake stand:  Bits of wood left over from our backyard fort that we just completed.

Cookie cake:  Half of the cookie cake was designed by the Great American Cookie Company.  I asked them to leave the top half bare so my husband and I could build piggy towers with nutter butters and vanilla wafers.  We used green gumballs to represent the pigs, and blue, red, white and yellow ones for the birds.  And because of the pink/green pig controversy (as mentioned above) we got the Angry Bird cake kit from the Target bakery to add to our cookie.

Cake balls:  My awesome friend Megan has a great step-by-step recipe for cake balls!  I followed her recipe and then immediately after dunking in the almond bark I added candy eye-balls from Wal-Mart and shaped beaks from bits of orange Starburst candy, then after they cooled in the fridge, used black gel icing for the eyebrows.  (1 box of cake makes about 40 cake balls... 34 if you ruin the first 6 ;-)

BACKDROP:  I recycled the backdrop I made for my husband's company family picnic to use for behind the cake table.  I painted over the flags and added some Angry Birds to jazz it up!

T-SHIRTS:  I used iron-on transfers to make their T-shirts.

PIÑATA:  My husband made it and I painted it; we make a great team!

SLING SHOT:  What would an Angry Birds party be without a sling shot?!?

Pigs:  I found these beach balls for $1 each at a local party store and the great big googly eyes at Wal-Mart!

WATER BALLOON EXTRAVAGANZA!!!
A few [hundred] water balloons (600 to be exact), a couple of sprinklers, a plastic pool... what more could a kid want in a birthday party???

FLAG:  Found at Wal-Mart in the tinsy tiny Angry Birds section.  This was the only thing (besides stickers at tattoos) name-brand that I bought.  I think it was $10... or around that.  It has now found a permanent home on the fort.

This party was such a blast for both kids and adults!  Not too bad for starting the party planning just 2 weeks ago!  It makes all the hard work worth it just to hear my big boy say, "Mom, this is soooo cool!"

HELPFUL HINTS:
1.  Latex Balloons:  Dollar store balloons break easily or have holes already in them.  I know this because every party I try to save money by buying balloons from there... BUT NOT THIS TIME!  This time I bought the really expensive ones from the party store, you know, the ones that come like 75 to a pack and are all separated by color?  BROKE MY BANK ACCOUNT!  But lo and behold... HOBBY LOBBY sells balloons in assorted colors and they are a good quality that don't already have holes in them!  So guess who went BACK to the party store to return on the balloons I bought from there?  So, spent a LITTLE more money than normal, but got more bang for my buck... or better balloons for my buck.

2.  Water balloons:  Party stores sell bags of water balloons with different amounts inside.  For some strange reason (probably because stores bank on our stupidity to earn more money), it was cheaper to buy packets of 60 balloons versus the ones with 250.  Be sure to check the math before purchasing them!


3.  Lesson learned:  Do not EVER serve gum or gumballs at a birthday party!  Kids do not know what to do with gum and either swallow it or spit it out in your back yard... or maybe it's just my kids since it was the first time they had chewed gum.


4.  Fruit on a Stick:  I am going to reiterate this one here.  Because we wanted to keep the fruit fresh until the very last minute, we did not test the fruit on the cardboard/paper sticks until minutes before the party started.  Still a really cool idea!  Maybe I'll get chop sticks next time.


5.  Cake Pops:  dipping the sticks first in the melted almond bark before sticking them into the cake balls helped the balls stay on the sticks... if not, they just slid down them.  Thank you, Meg, for your amazing tips and step-by-step instructions on all things cake balls!  (That's 2 plugs on my website).


6.  Reuse/Recycle:  Find whatever you can around your house (i.e. an already-painted sheet of plywood) to use/make over for the party!  You will save mucho dinero!

Under the Sea Thumbprint "Coral Reef"

Thumbprint Trees are a hot item to have at baby showers and are quickly replacing the traditional guest book.  Using a green stamp pad, guests use their thumbprints to make leaves on a bare tree and then sign their names on top of the leaves when they dry.  At the end of the shower, the Mommy can frame the canvas and add it as a special, personalized touch to the baby's nursery.  (Check out the "Thumbprint Tree" link to the left to see different trees made by Kidspired Creations.)

But, what do you do if a tree would just look really out of place in the baby's nursery, yet you love the concept of the thumbprint tree?  You think outside of the box!

That's exactly what I had to do when I was presented with the idea of making a Thumbprint "Coral Reef" for an Under the Sea themed shower to complement a baby girl's nursery with the same theme.  I'm not going to lie, I had NO idea how to even attempt to paint a coral reef/tree for thumbprints, so I was a bit intimidated by this request.  However, I absolutely LOVE how it turned out and cannot wait to see it hanging in Baby Starlee's nursery!!!  Instead of the thumbprints making leaves for a tree, the thumbprints were turned into FISH that swim around the reef! 

After all the thumbprints and signatures dried, tails and fins were added to the prints to make them look like fish - my mother and sister-in-law's idea, not mine, so I cannot take credit for it.  And since I was not able to make the shower myself, my sister-in-law added the finishing touches (and some sparkle) to the fish!  I think it turned out fabulous!!!

Speaking of fabulous, the shower looked AMAZING!!!  My mother and sister-in-law are truly talented when it comes to decorating and even catering showers, banquets, birthday parties, and other events.  Here are just a few pictures:

The sign-in table

The cake from La Baguette, decorated by my sister-in-law (Caruso's Catering)

Lollipop Starfish displayed in "coral" made by melting sugar!

Sugar Coral!!!

Jellyfish paper lanterns hung over the centerpieces

Sign-in table for the thumbprint coral reef

Gift table.  I LOVE the jellyfish paper lanterns!!!

Alice in Wonderland Un-Birthday Party

We celebrated my sister-in-law turning 30 with an Alice in Wonderland Un-Birthday Mad Hatter Tea Party!  This party was so much fun to plan and prep... and even more fun to attend!  What better way to use your creative side than with a theme that is famous for its extreme and limitless imagination?!?  

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would, you see."                ~Alice

As a surprise to you, I added a special "how to" to make your own game of flamingo croquet!  So keep reading!

 Tea Party

After searching garage sales, thrift stores, antique shops, we finally got enough mix-matched tea pots and kettles to fill the table!  We used floral silk scraps to cover the metal chairs and table, and put a beautiful purple bouquet in the largest tea kettle.

Tasty Treats

Topsy Turvy Cake!  Perfect for a Mad Hatter Tea Party!

Handmade "Drink me" labels for all of the Kool-Aid bottles.

"Eat Me" sugar cookies.  I used food writers to write on the cookies.

Entertainment: Flamingo Croquet

Supplies:

$20 croquet set from Target

Pink paint

Black Paint

White paint
Giant Playing Cards

Lawn Flamingos

Tape

How to:

1.  Paint the croquet mallets pink.

2.  Paint 3/4 of one side of the head of the mallet black to make the beak of the flamingo.

3.  Paint an eye on each side of the head of the mallet.

  4.  On the balls, paint a cute little hedgehog face using the pink paint.  Use white to make "quills."

 5.  Tape 2 wickets to the back of each of the cards (see image below)

I'm pretty good at using MS Paint, huh?

6.  Place the wicket cards and lawn flamingos randomly throughout the yard.

(The lawn flamingos are wickets too!)

 

Rules:

Anything goes!

That's me following the rules.

And don't forget...

Your Mad Hats!

Me and the Hubs... despite the umbrella on his head, I love this picture of my husband :-)

 P.S.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KRISTEN!!!

"Cars/Cars II" Birthday Party

My son, James, just celebrated his 4th birthday this week and we threw him a pretty awesome Cars themed birthday party!  Kachow!

James and his friends had an absolute BLAST.  It warmed my heart every time he discovered a new party element and would say, "Oh, that's so cool!  Thank you, Mommy!"  I think he will remember this party for a long time... and so will I!

 The highlight of the party was the CAR WASH!  If you follow Kidspired Creations on Facebook, you may have seen me post, and repost, and repost this awesome idea (not my idea, by the way):  Deluxe Kid Wash. 

I used a hack saw, a power drill, and my mean arm muscles, and followed the instructions on the website.  All in all, it took me about an hour with two toddlers "helping" me.  The car wash was a huge hit!

I used strips cut from a plastic table cloth to hang from the entrance.  I also added pool noodles to the end of it by tying them on with zip ties.  James told me this was his favorite part!

 My absolute favorite part of the party was Flo's V8 Cafe Drive Thru!  Instead of pizza like we originally planned, we decided to do a  healthy lunch of PB&J sandwiches, apples, bananas, carrots, string cheese and goldfish.  The kids got to pack their own "to go" boxes inside of cardboard cars that I purchased from a local restaurant that uses them for their kids meals.

The adults got to make their own sandwiches so I had an assortment of meats, cheese, breads and add-ons for them to use.

I turned the kitchen island into a highway for the to-go cars to drive on.  I used black plastic table cloths that I got from the Dollar Tree and colored masking tape for the road lines.  I found cute logos online to print out for centerpieces and used orange cones (also purchased from the Dollar Tree), cut slits in the top of them, and stuck the signs in the slits.

We used the cardboard cars again for party favors.

James was fortunate enough to have TWO birthday parties (one in Oklahoma and one here at home) and his first party had a Cars II theme.  He got to go on a scavenger hunt as Spy Mater to help find his presents.  He had so much fun searching for different landmarks around the yard.

Another idea that I had that was ruined when it started raining, was my chalk-drawn road map.  I bought cars from the dollar tree for the kids to drive around on here, but the rain washed it away.  My secret for not getting chalk all over the kids?  A light layer of clear acrylic sealant spray or hair spray.  That'll keep the chalk from rubbing onto the kids, but even a light rain will wash most of it away.

I made this invitation on MS Publisher.  And the logo on the top on Paint!

Themed Party Ideas

I LOVE throwing themed birthday parties.  I get really into it and have to stop myself from spending way too much money on cute ideas.  It can get way out of control, but in the end, everything always comes out looking just the way I want it to look.  After posting the latest birthday party pictures on Facebook, I was encouraged to share them on my blog.  So stay tuned... my plan is to first write about the following themes:

Cars/Cars II

Twilight

Alice in Wonderland

Sailboats

Hollywood

and more!

My friend, Robyn, of CoraBells Cakes in the New Orleans area, plans some incredibly awesome parties and she has given me permission to share her ideas as well (the Twilight and Hollywood themes were both hers).