Abigail's Little Einsteins Party

It was a no-brainer to celebrate Abigail's third birthday Little Einsteins style, as she could probably do all-weekend marathons watching the show if we let her. I'm not much into brand-theme party kits, so I tried to incorporate the spirit of the show without the commercialized feel by DIYing as much as possible. This really makes the cost low too.

{Invites}

Front

Inside

Back

Envelope

I kept the design very simple, using extracted images from a coloring book for characters and logoes. Please keep in mind that these are all copyrighted images, so tread with caution; I just used it for a small kid's party. There is no Little Einsteins font out in Internet Land, so I found a font that reminded me of the logo font and put a thick blue stroke over the yellow. I sized the invitation to fit some envelopes I bought on extreme clearance last year.

{Brunch menu}
Freshly made whole wheat waffles, thanks to chef Daddy
Bistro bacon
Mini quiche, broccoli and cheese
Huge veggie and fruit tray
Orange and apple juices
Cupcakes



{Decorations}

photos taken a day before the party

Nothing too fancy here - the main banner is just a paper bunting I made from cardstock that I purchased eons ago. The "Happy Birthday Abby" was printed out on regular copy paper, cut out, then taped on with double stick tape. Child-sized Ikea silverware, plates, and bowls contribute to the colorful nature of the environment.

{Favors}

for Abby's small friends

I loved the way the crayons turned out! I'll be sharing the crayon box template tomorrow - be on the look out for that. The local Dollar store had 8-count crayons in sets of 3.

And markers for Abby's older friends, aka older siblings of the small friends

Markers were also a dollar a pack. I replaced the insert with a personalized design.





I wanted to teach Abby to send thank you cards for the partygoers, so I made one that she could "write out" on her own. See her shaky outlines? I used the free font Print Dashed.

{Activities}

Art made by the children

We opened up the party with art time. The kids were given markers to draw on foiled wrapped cardboard - this was a hit! I'm glad we had plenty of extra boards, because most kids did at least two or three. More on this tomorrow-

making rain sticks with the kids

I took cardboard rolls off some gift wrap I have and cut them to 9" or so. Then I used my Xyron machine to make regular copy paper into sticker paper, and had the little kids color the paper. Adults helped peel the backing and adhere the decorated paper onto the rolls, and the older kids helped the younger kids add rice into the rolls. Adults helped tape the ends together with colored Duck Tape.

We used these to play along with the Little Einsteins Theme song, a CD I borrowed from the library.

"Guess the instrument" was another game we played. I played various instruments behind a screen and had the children take stabs at which instrument they thought was being played. Once the game was done, I laid out the instruments to let the children experiment with them.

After the party, one of the moms told me that her daughter now wants to take music lessons. Yay!

I revised an idea I got off the web search for game ideas and came up with this simple outdoor activity:

a very happy little birthday girl

The older kids were given chalk to draw fluffy clouds, and once that was done, the little kids were given little hula hoops they used as "Rocket". As you can see from the video, it was a great way to get their wiggles out after the indoor part of the party.

Opening gifts on the front porch - plenty of help from friends and big sis

Perhaps my favorite image of the whole party was taken after all the guests were gone:

Post party, and Abby hits the food AGAIN!

For some reason, I hear, "It's my party and I'll eat if I want to" playing in my mind when I view the photo....

A cool gift idea -

I am the hybrid editor and contributor for the ScrapMatters Newsletter, and last month, I got a chance to share a project I think would make a great Christmas gift (or for any occasion, for that matter).

Andilynn Designs' Flora Brushes are so lovely - they screamed for something more than to be used on a normal digital layout. So, I decided to embellish this old turtleneck my daughter had in her closet:



You can actually embellish textile, really. On bags, blankets, you name it.

Here are some supplies you'll need:


Open an 8.5"x11" document in Photoshop and place an image of choice. I offset the brush to the right:


You'll be printing the above image on the paper side of freezer paper. The easiest way to do this is to cut a piece of freezer paper 8.5"x11" and adhere it to a regular piece of paper. Use double-sided tape on the WAXY side.


Once the design is printed on the freezer paper, you will cut it out using your Xacto knife. My design was very intricate, so it took me forever:






Don't forget to keep the negative space pieces. Because my pieces were tiny, I collected them in this cup and numbered each piece:


Now iron the freezer paper onto your garment. Do you see where I noted the placement of the negative pieces?




Place a piece of freezer paper under the place you will be painting, then lightly load your brush and stipple the area (If you add textile medium to your acrylic paint, I hear the design will last through many more wash cycles without fading):


Peel off the freezer paper design once the paint is dry:


And voila, you're done:

"Happy birthday, America!"

That's what Amanda greeted me with this morning. We decided to celebrate with a special Red, White & Blue drink, which we saw featured in Family Fun Magazine. Love that magazine, by the way.

::Happy Birthday America Drink::

Cast of characters:

-cranberry juice (I bought the no-sugar added kind)
-blue Powerade
-club soda (the original recipe calls for diet 7up, but I refuse to give my children diet anything - bad stuff)

-pretty glasses filled with ice (the taller the glass, the more dramatic the end result)


Directions:

1. Pour cranberry juice in the bottom of the glass.
2. Carefully and slowly pour the Powerade onto the ice - this will ensure that the colors will not mix.
3. Pour the club soda/diet 7up onto the ice until the glass is filled.

The end result:




The judge's verdict:

"I give it two thumbs up, America!"

Saying goodbye to friends, and a tutorial

This month, we said goodbye to a family from our church that really touched our lives. We shall miss them, but know that they are only an email - or a few plane rides - away. I had the privilege of making a little address book for them as a going away gift.

Here's a little tutorial on how to create one of these address books in Photoshop. I happen to be a CS3 user.

1) I opened a new 12"x12" document, and divided it into nine 4" squares using the blue guide lines:



2) Then I opened a new 4"x4" document. This is where I created each of the 18 layouts, flattened them, then moved them onto the 12"x12" document. I had two 12"x12" documents when all was said and done:



3) Be sure to save a .jpeg form of these layouts at this point. I took them to Costco to be printed. Once I brought the two 12″x12″ pages home from Costco, I cut them down to 18 indvidual pages and set them aside. I took the cardboard insert included in my prints envelope and cut them down to 18 4″x4″ squares, and painted the edges with white acrylic paint to give them a finished look.

4) I then adhered the photos to cardboard pieces with double-sided tape to make each page hefty enough to be handled without creasing. If you are concerned about acidity, you can use the Make It Acid Free Spray on the cardboard to do just that.

5) Using my trusty Bind-it-all, I added the coil and bound all the pages together. Voila!

The finished result:












If you get a chance to follow this tutorial to make yourself a similar project, I'd love to see it!

Expressions of love

Art Princess #1 has been in a whirlwind of creating. Valentine's Day just does that to her, apparently. :)

Love letters

Amanda breathlessly exclaimed, "Mom, I need you to tie the ribbons here, but pretend you didn't see the cards." Dutifully I tied the ribbons on the ornate envelopes, still wet with glitter glue. Then she scurried off for a few minutes, later emerging with these:


"Open it, open it!" Inside Amanda wrote:


We wondered aloud why shy wrote "love" twice, and she shrugged her shoulders. "It's because I have so much love for you, Mom. And for Daddy too."

Valentine boxes

Since Amanda hasn't seen her Bay Area cousins for a long time, we decided to make something special for them. We decorated cigar boxes from Michael's with a few licks of acrylic paint, stickers on the lid and inside, and used ModPodge to glue down decorative paper. Amanda did the lion's share of the work, and I did touch ups, sticker arrangement, and the lettering. They came out nicely! Amanda was happily covered in pink and blue paint.

Puppet show

Another Valentine's Day gift from Amanda - a puppet show:

(click photos for larger images)