Throw a Shopkins Birthday Party

So I realized I never got around to posting about my daughter's 4th birthday party! For her 4th birthday party I threw her a Shopkins party that also featured her first art gallery. For details on how to throw an art gallery party, click here! 

(These were the invitations, I ordered them off on Etsy. I would give you the name of the shop, but I don't remember which one I used!)

I rented a party room that had art framed all over the walls, which gave a lovely backdrop to the birthday party, especially seeing as it was also an art gallery for my daughter. So, we had that for some of the decor, as well as easels all around the room with poster boards featuring my daughters artwork. For a bit more Shopkins themed decor I taped up a poster with some of the Shopkin characters on it to the door where people entered the party, and then they saw this table

I put pink table cloths on all the food/gift tables. This table was the one guests saw as they walked in, inviting them to grab an adorable Poppy Popcorn Shopkin container of Skinny Pop. I also purchased the pdf for those from an Etsy shop. Then I just had to print them out onto card stock, cut them out and tape them together. I made a little sign saying "Welcome to Charlie's 4th birthday party and first art gallery! Grab a Poppy Corn and enjoy the art!" That was my way of giving everyone some idea of what to do when they got to the party, which was to go around the room and look at the easels full of my daughters art. I made the little sign out of card stock, and folded it so it would stand up. I dressed it up with some Shopkins stickers. I also had a big bowl of Skinny Pop in the middle in case anybody wanted seconds, they could just use their Poppy Corn container to scoop up some more. 

I also love to use food as decor, so I kept the food within the Shopkins theme! 

The dessert table started off with some Shopkins napkins and plates, I also had large Shopkins character erasers out on the table for some added cuteness! Then I had the little doughnuts, pictured above, on a silver tray. I ordered doughnuts from a doughnut shop near me, and requested for them to have pink icing and blue sprinkles, just like the Shopkin D'lish Donut. Then I made a little sign for them, again out of card stock and with a matching D'lish Donut sticker. I just thought the stickers on the labels for the food was such an adorable touch!

I also got cupcakes from a cupcake place near me, and ordered some off of their menu that reminded me of certain Shopkins. The first group had little food picks that looked like lollipops coming out of them, reminded me very much of the Shopkin Lolli Poppins so I made a sign saying "Lolli Poppins Cupcakes" out of card stock, along with a sticker of the Shopkin and put it in front of those cupcakes. I did the same thing for the next group, calling them the "Kooky Cookie Cupcakes" 

The best Shopkins decor we had at the party though was probably the center pieces, made by my daughter's super crafty grandma! They turned out just amazing, I was so impressed.

 

 

She made the Shopkins: Netti Spaghetti, Gran Jam, Bread Head, Posh Pear, Apple Blossom, and Strawberry Kiss. Aren't they just spectacular?!

To make the Netti Spaghetti, Posh Pear, Apple Blossom and Strawberry kiss she used balloons. After pumping up the balloon, she either did some paper mache over it, or put some layers of tape on the balloon in certain spots to make the shapes and additions that she wanted for the Shopkin, and then paper mached over that. After the paper mache dried she popped the balloons. The next step was painting them, and then adding on their details. I know she painted some of the details on, and used felt for other details. She then made the stands for the ones that were once just balloons, using Styrofoam circles and the same tulle she used to make my daughters birthday tutu, so it all matched perfectly! She attached the Shopkins onto their stands with toothpicks, and glued the tulle onto the Styrofoam circles. For Netti Spaghetti she added on yarn for the noodles, and made the meatballs/sauce by putting pom poms in red tissue paper and wrapping/crinkling them up in to it and then attaching that on. The fork was made from paper, and silver paint. For Posh Pear her glasses were made out of pipe cleaners, and her purse was tissue paper.

Now Bread Head and Gran Jam were both made a little differently. Gran Jam was made from cutting the top and the bottom off of a 2 liter bottle, so you just have the middle to work with. She then covered that with purple wrapping paper, added on some layers of different colored paper from the Gran Jam face, that she drew on with a Sharpie. The glasses were made of yarn, and there's a checkered piece of fabric put around the top of her. Bread Head was made from a cardboard box, and layers of colored paper, as well as some drawing with a Sharpie for the face. The top of him was made with blue tissue paper, and there are blue polka dots added to it with paint, and it's twisted up and held together with a pipe cleaner to look like the twist tie. Too cute!

Those were a major part of the decor because they were the center pieces for all of the tables the guests were sitting at. They made the party so cute, and we actually still have them in our basement.

Now for the cake!

I made a birthday cake to resemble Wishes the Shopkin. It didn't look like some professional cake by any means, but it was made with all my love, which is what counts in my daughters eyes! For this cake I just made a couple of strawberry cakes in the small round pans. Once they were cooled, I iced them together and then I was able to start icing the outside to look like Wishes. I was also picking some colors for what my daughter specifically wanted. I made the bottom/the part that was her face yellow (which I made by adding just a little bit of yellow food coloring to some of the white icing I had bought), and then put white icing all on the top of the cake. I used one of those Betty Crocker spray icings in pink and put that around the cake where the yellow and the white icings met. I made the 3 white little swirls of icing on top by putting some icing in a piping bag and squeezing it out the way I wanted! To make the face I just used the pink spray icing again for the lips, and then a little black gel icing tube for the eyes. Stuck in four regular candles, and one number 4 candle and it was done!

For the favors I wanted them to still be Shopkins themed, and be something the adults and children both could enjoy, and just take one of on their way out. So what better than...

Some Cheeky Chocolates! Aren't these just adorable?! I also found these little Cheeky Chocolate Shopkin wrappers on an Etsy shop and purchased them for printing, cut them out and wrapped them around some little mini chocolate bars. I had them out on this silver tray, on a table near the dog to leave. I made a little sign (with, you guessed it, a Cheeky Chocolate sticker!) telling people "Thanks for coming, grab a Cheeky Chocolate!" and then a key telling them which type of chocolate bar was wrapped up in which color of Cheeky Chocolate.

Most importantly, my daughter loved her party and had a great time!

Throw an Art Gallery Party

My daughter's 4th birthday party also doubled as her first art gallery. The party had a Shopkins theme though, not an art party theme, so this will just be a little post on how I displayed her art, which you could use to display your child's art at their art gallery party as well. If you would like to see the Shopkins party info, you can find it here. If you're in need of more art party ideas, I'm sure Pinterest is overflowing with them!

So as you can see from this photo, I was able to use several of these big easels to display my daughters art work on. These were available to me from the location I rented for her birthday party.

Pretty amazing that all these works of art were made by my daughter who was just turning 4 at the time of this party! She was very proud to show off her works of art to her friends and family in this way.

So, now to share with you how I made the boards. What I did was I went to Dollar Tree and I picked up some of these cardboard poster boards in black. After selecting the pieces of art that we wanted to use, I taped them onto the boards. Then I had my daughter name her pieces of art, just like artists do when their work is in museums. I wrote the name of the piece, and how old she was when she made it right on the boards, with a silver Sharpie. It worked perfectly and showed up very well.

Once the boards were finished, I taped them together in groups of twos, so I could make good use out of the easels that were available to me.

Hosting a St. Patrick's Day Play Date

I hosted a St. Patrick's Day Play Date for my daughter and two of little girl friends the day before St. Patrick's Day. I'm going to post a bit on the set up, food, and activities.

This was how I had the food out on the counter. For drinks I had Honest Kids organic Appley Ever After Juice. I picked this flavor because it had a green part on the drink. Then we had a cookie cake, "rainbow" parfaits, and spinach four leaf clover tortilla chips. The other mom brought over hummus with a green lid for dip! I also had gold coins sprinkled about for decor.

The "rainbow" parfaits were made with dairy free coconut milk yogurt, and food coloring. I didn't have red or yellow to make red, orange, or yellow. So I used pink, green, blue, ad purple. I scooped some yogurt into 4 different bowls, added some food coloring to each one and stirred each up separately. Then I added a bit of each color, starting with purple into the clear little serving cups. I also had 3 green spoons for the kids to each have one with them!


Now, for the spinach four leaf clover tortilla chips, I will refer you to this recipe


For decor I had this leprechaun taped up to the wall that I purchased at Dollar Tree. I also had green flowers on the table, clover and leprechaun decals on the window, and magnetic clovers and a leprechaun on the fridge. All (except the flowers) purchased at Dollar Tree.

For the activities, we made necklaces, made Shamrock Man, and played bingo 

For the necklaces I dyed some uncooked pasta noodles green, and cut some shamrocks out of green construction paper that I then punched holes in so they would be able to be strung along with the noodles. To dye the pasta noodles I put them in a ziploc bag, then added in some rubbing alcohol and shook it all up until the noodles were all coated, then did the same with green food coloring. Once they were all colored I put them on a foil covered baking sheet to dry. 

I had my daughter do her necklace in a pattern of two noodles, then a shamrock. 

Puppy Love Valentine's Party for Kids

Hosting parties with my daughter makes me so happy! She loves having her friends come over and enjoy everything we've planned with them! We like our parties to be a bit unique though, so we didn't just have a Valentine's party, we had a Puppy Love Valentine's Party! I chose this theme because when little kids have crushes it's always referred to as "puppy love" and there's so many cute puppy love ideas for a party!

This was the invitation. The Valentine dog stickers from Dollar Tree were perfect for our invites. I liked how I worded things and thought someone else might like to use the same!

First, we have the table all set up. I put a Dollar Tree Valentine table cloth on, and had a centerpiece of a clear vase with artificial pink and red roses that had sparkly hearts with them, and a Valentine balloon on a stick from the grocery store.

At each place setting I put a Valentine heart napkin, paper plate, cup, and heart straw (all found at Dollar Tree). There was also everything needed for the craft we'd be making, a puppy ear headband I made, and on each plate was a personalized collar necklace I made for each of the kids.

To make the personalized dog bone collar necklaces I drew some bones that resembled hearts at their sides on poster board with a sharpie, then I cut them out and punched two holes in the top and strung a piece of yarn through them so it would be wearable as a necklace. Then I used the sharpie to write their names on them.

Each chair had a dog balloon I made tied to it

I just pumped up balloons in a few different colors (pink, orange, yellow, and blue). Then I used cloud scissors to cut each of them a pair of ears out of construction paper in corresponding colors, and taped them on. I also used white paper to give them each a pair of eyes and taped them on the double stick way. After that I took the sharpie to give them each a nose, mouth, and eyes. 

Now, for the desserts. I made Puppy Love Brownies, and marshmallow pops. 

Puppy Love Brownies:

Ingredients:

- 1 box of brownie mix

- Betty Crocker cupcake icing

- Trader Joes Cookie Butter Cookies

- Sweethearts 

- Red Velvet M&M's

- Enjoy Life chocolate chips

- Vanilla icing

- Heart cookie cutter

Step 1:

Make the brownies according to the directions on the box. Once they are cooled carefully take the entire brownie out of the pan and put it on some wax paper. Then use the heart cookie cutter to make as many hearts as you can.

Step 2:

Use the Betty Crocker cupcake icing with the tip that just looks like a hole to give the puppy his ears. 

Step 3:

Crumble up some of the cookie butter cookies to give the puppy some spots.

Step 4: 

Put the vanilla icing into a ziploc bag and cut a small hole in it to put some dabs on the dog for his eyes, and some in between the heart to attach the tongue (the sweetheart). Once they icing is on use two of the chocolate chips pointy side down onto the icing to give them their eyes. And attach the tongue like I said. 

Step 5:

Put some of the pink icing on for the nose and attach the burgundy colored red velvet M&M to it.

Marshmallow Pops:

Ingredients:

- Jumbo marshmallows

- Pillsbury hot pink vanilla funfetti icing

- Chocolate sprinkles

- Heart skewers (can be found at Dollar Tree)

- Wax paper to set them on

Step 1:

Put a marshmallow on a skewer.

Step 2:

Ice the marshmallow.

Step 3:

Dip the iced marshmallow in the chocolate sprinkles.

I put all the different things in bowls so I could have them all out and ready to be iced and dipped! 

They need to be sat on wax paper so the icing won't stick and come off.

For the craft we made this Dog Valentine Craft. I'll just give you the link to the website it came from!

We also played Bingo for the game, I printed the bingo sheets from here 

My daughter loves playing Bingo. We used heart gems from Dollar Tree for the  markers. As you can see she looked adorable in her puppy ears headband. They were simple to make. I cut the headband part from poster board, and stapled it to fit my daughters head. Then I used different shades of brown craft foam to cut dog ear shapes from and stapled those to the headband as well.

I forgot to take a picture of the prize for winning Bingo, it was just a puppy craft thing where you colored some cardboard puppies and they had little stands you could stand them up with. You could also use a puppy stuffed animal or book for the winners prize.

As for the favors table

For each of the kids I got them a heart shaped box of Russel Stover's chocolates that had dog(s) on the front. So perfect for the theme, I was thrilled! I covered the surface with a bit of the table cloth from the table that I had cut off. Then I put out a pink puppy stuffed animal, a decoration, balloon, some plastic hearts, and a pot of artificial pink roses and hearts. There was also silver wrapped chocolate hearts laying out for them to take/for decoration.

As for the other decor, right next to the favors table I had a chair with a heart blanket on it with all our cute puppy stuffed animals on display, and a heart chalk board that said "Puppy Love"

 

She insisted her doll be there too!

We also had these adorable Valentine puppy window clings up from Dollar Tree. I bought both the cartoon and the realistic pack. I couldn't decide, both were perfect for the theme.

Hositng the Perfect Christmas Cookie Decorating Party

So, I know Christmas is over but this could still be really helpful for next year or for anyone who wants to have a cookie decorating party anytime of the year, these ideas could be tweaked a bit to fit their individual needs.

We had a Christmas cookie decorating party that included craft time, bingo, and a visit from Santa himself! See how below.

The first step to having any great party is keeping track of what you'll be serving, doing, and what still needs to be done. So I had my list going and then the other important part is letting your child help with the prepping for the party so they really feel like the little hosts/hostesses that they are since the party is for their friends/classmates/cousins/etc. 

 

So, some things my daughter helped me with in preparation for the party were putting the cupcake wrappers in the pan, and whisking the homemade eggnog. Which, I'll share here the awesome recipe I found for dairy free homemade eggnog.

So we had our party at 11am, which would also be a great time to do a "north pole brunch" theme, which I thought about doing. We just did some sweet treats. We had Santa cupcakes (which I'll share how I made), some peppermint chocolate chip cookies, the eggnog, and this vegan hot chocolate. For the vegan hot chocolate I also gave some candy canes, marshmallows, and organ whipped cream. 

Now, I saw some Santa cupcakes on Pinterest that looked pretty similar to this, but I'm just going to share how I made these ones. I had my daughter put the Christmas cupcake liners in the baking pan, and then poured some yellow cake mix into each one and baked them according to the directions on the box. Once they cooled I iced them with some vanilla icing. Then it was time to turn them into Santa's. What you'll need:

- organic coconut flakes

- gluten free dairy free mini chocolate chips

- marshmallows

- red sprinkles

- red m&m's

- a sharp knife

- two paper plates

So I first cut up a bunch of marshmallows in half so they'd be able to be stuck on and look right for the Santa hat's. You can follow how it looks in the picture. The sprinkles made the hat, the chocolate chips for the eyes, and the m&m for the nose, coconut flakes for the beard. I say you'll need two paper plates, one for slicing the marshmallows in half and one for putting on the sprinkles and the coconut flakes. 

We also had water bottles that I put these printables on to make them say "melted snowman" with a picture of Olaf. 

Now, I don't know what a Christmas party would be without a Santa coming! Luckily we have a family friend who dresses up as Santa every year and takes pictures with children and does parties and what not. So, we had him come to the party. 

 He stood outside and jingled his sleigh bells while the kids were doing their craft. Their craft by the way was a big pack I got from Hobby Lobby of a craft foam gingerbread house and lots of sparkly stickers and things to add to it. Toddlers and preschoolers love stickers and since that was the age group I decided that would be good. There was also a lot in the pack, so Charlie was able to make some as Christmas gifts for other family members too. To make them purposeful I also gave them magnet stickers to put on the backs of them so they'd be able to use them as Christmas magnets on their fridge. 

Anyway, Santa came in and surprised the kids. They were so excited! He had a sack with him in which he had gifts for each child (a small treat, a big chocolate candy cane). He also had a list that he looked at while he asked each child their name and told them they were on the good list. Then he took pictures with each child and we got one of all the cousins together with Santa.

After Santa left, we decorated the cookies. I gave each child two sugar cookies along with their own tube of gel icing, and then had some red and some green sprinkles sitting out on the table for them to share. The cookies and icings were grouped together in small cups so they were easily passed out to each child. They decorated and ate them.

After that, we played this Christmas bingo that I printed out. We used red and green m&m's to play it with and the prize for the winner was a Santa tic-tac-toe set from Dollar Tree.

As you may have noticed there is a Little People Nativity set out on the table above as decor and something the kids could play with if they wanted. The counter with the cookies and cupcakes was also decorated a bit.

I had out the Little People Christmas village set, a couple Christmas trees made of tinsel that I got at Dollar Tree last year, the cookies, the cupcakes, and the water bottles. I also had my ipod doc going with a Christmas play list I made.

It really was a great party!

Pink Poodle in Paris Birthday Party

I spent months planning my daughter's Pink Poodle in Paris themed 3rd birthday party and it finally happened a few days ago. It went perfectly and I thought I'd share some pictures and how-to tips for anyone else looking to have a party like this!

First, let's start off with the cake. I found a picture of a cake that I really loved when I googled "pink poodle in paris birthday cakes" I gave the picture to the baker at the place we had the party, and she made a cake that looked very similar..and even better!

I didn't make the cake, so I can't say for certain how she did everything she did to make it this amazing looking and taste even better. I can say that the balls were some type of bubble gum, and the 3 was made of white chocolate. The icing was fondant on top. We picked vanilla for the flavor, and had hot pink butter cream icing inside as well.

We didn't just have the cake for a sweet treat though, we also had strawberry macaroons that we picked up from a french cafe.

I left the macaroons in their box. I thought they were the perfect touch to a Pink Poodle in Paris themed party and my daughter loves macaroons anyways!

You can see the small pink cups next to the macaroons, those were all filled with Skinny Pop and sat on silver platters from Dollar Tree for people to grab and munch on. I can't find a picture of that right now, but if I do I will add it to this post.

Now, while we're on the topic of food I guess I'll discuss the drinks.

So, my daughters favorite pink drink is Sparkling French Berry Lemonade from Trader Joe's so we had a few bottles of that out, along with pink plastic cups. We had a bucket of ice next to it as well. Then as you can see we can had water bottles. To make them Pink Poodle in Paris perfect I took off their original wrappers and put some Duck Tape I had found with Eiffel Towers on it on them instead.

Now, for the birthday outfit!

Have you ever seen a more perfect birthday outfit? I haven't! I ordered one last year very similar to this style for my daughter's bug themed birthday party and my mom told me she could make one herself. So, this year she did. I know she found the plain white shirt with the bow on it at Target, and then added iron on Eiffel Tower and pink poodle. She also added the iron on letters of my daughter's name, and iron on rhinestones to make a 3 for her age. I'm not sure where all the iron ons ended up being from, but I know she shopped at Michael's and Joanne Fabrics.

For the tutu she used a tutorial she found on Pinterest and used hot/dark pink and lighter pink tulle (as I requested), and a pink satin ribbon to tie a bow in the front. With the left over tulle she did quite a few other things. She made the bow with the left over tulle, then sewed an iron on pink poodle onto it and added a bunch of stick on rhinestone gems (they come in a pack from Party City for $1, I love them!!!!) The bow was perfect! She attached it to a regular hair clip to put it on and off.

The tulle was also used on this number 3 that you can barely see that's sitting on my daughter's present table.

It was a number 3 cut out of cardboard, and then wrapped with the tulle, and a strand of fake pearls that I found at Hobby Lobby. We also got those balloons from Party City. I chose black and a pink that was a bit metallic looking before it was blown up. Made them shiny! You can't see them in any of these pictures I don't think, but I also had a big silver number 3 balloon, and there were 6 of each color balloons.

But for the present table in general it was just a black table with a pink table cloth on it. She got to sit in an adorable pink chair to open her presents.

For entertainment I hired a mime. It was so worth every penny! I don't know what we would have done without him. The entertainment was great. The kids were amused, and the adults really got a kick out of him too.

For games we had people guess whose birthday is the same as the Eiffel Tower. (It's me). We gave out pink Paris hand sanitizers. We also had a dollar store jar that was really pretty, with a piece of pink tulle wrapped around it, filled with silver Hershey's kisses. Another dollar store jar was filled with pink slips of paper that people all wrote their guesses on for how many Hershey's kisses were in the jar. The winner got to keep the jar of kisses.

For favors we gave out these Eiffel Tower cookies.

They came from the same french cafe that the strawberry macaroons came from. I had them individually wrapped in little bags with pink and black ribbon so they'd match the decor.

Speaking of decor, my favorite thing we had was this banner.

So, the banner itself was purchased from Party City, but the sparkly silver letters were purchased from Michael's. You can't see it put there was also silver Eiffel Towers at the ends that had suction cups on them that we used to attach the banner to the window with. We had it say "OOH-LA-LA CHARLIE'S 3" obviously. 

As far as other decor, there wasn't a whole lot we needed to bring since the place was kind of already themed like what we were looking for. They had the walls painted pink and black with Eiffel Towers painted on them, they had black metal Eiffel Towers on all the tables, we used them to tie the balloons we brought to. 

I'd say if you're having your own Pink Poodle in Paris party at home though buying some metal Eiffel Towers for decor is a must. They have some pink ones and some black ones at Hobby Lobby.

It was such a great party!