Series two in the Trent's birthday installments; Decorations! Green streamers, green balloons, homemade posters and streamers. Trent and I spent a week decorating the house, upstairs and down. When we found out how hot it was supposed to be on the day of the party, I had to make the executive decision of an indoor party. It was almost two parties, the grown-up one upstairs and the kids one downstairs, making it so we had to decorate two levels of the house. Monday, a full five days before, we started putting up the decorations.
I had originally wanted to make these very neat vines that I would have made out of brown paper bags, but then I found something better. A lot more festive, I stumbled upon these very cool home made streamers on Oh Happy Day. They were ridiculously easy to make and definitely gave the basement that party feel that I just don't think we would have gotten with the paper vines and poster board leaves that had been the initial thought. Add to that about twenty six green balloons, inflated by myself and Garrick, and it really felt like a party down there!
That wasn't all though! A few weeks before the party I checked to see if anyone on freecycle had anything. Someone responded to my wanted ad with three beautiful home made posters; Diego, Dora and Boots. The Boots poster was also a game of pin the boot on Boots. All I had to do was cut out a bunch of left boots for him. I was very excited about this because I had wanted to make posters, but I knew it would never happen. I just never would have gotten around to it and would have bought some stuff at Party City. It was bad enough that I ordered the helium balloons through them.
In addition to the above mentioned decorations, and before I found the article about the home made streamers, I went to the Dollar Tree. I was actually in search of little plastic toy animals that I could put on the cake and use for one of the games I had planned. I wasn't able to find any (nor anywhere else for a cheap price for that matter) but there were a lot of luau decorations that I realized would be perfect for the theme I had going. I grabbed bird posters and outdoor signs that you stick in the ground; flower banners; an inflatable ring for the pool; green streamers; and goodies for the kids.
I found these adorable animal hats for the kids that were absolutely perfect. I had planned on making each child an animal rescuer t-shirt, but when I saw the hats I realized the time and money I would save myself by getting them. I was also able to get Diego and Dora stickers and some fun drinking straws for the goody bags. I still had a lot of Chinese yo-yo's left over from Hunter's party and those also went into the bags.
What is a party favor bag without a special little yummy treat inside? While a birthday party is about sugar, cake and ice cream, there is no reason that you need to completely sugar up everyones kids. You have to deal with wound-up children excited from a birthday party, why add to the insanity from the standard sugared party fair. No, I did not put candy into their bags, but home made animal sugar cookies. I know, not much better, but I feel a very special and personal touch to add to those bags. There is probably less sugar in the cookies then would have been in the candy anyway.
One last note on the favor bags. I absolutely do not use those bags that a party store would have you buy. I use brown paper bags. Why? What's the fun in that? Well, no it's not fun, but I think it is what's inside those bags that count! Plus, you spend all this money on bags that people are going to just throw out anyway? No, I don't think so. I think I got twelve bags assembled for around twenty dollars. That includes the hats that I got for the kids.
One last note on decorations before I wrap this up. As the final touch to the wild animal feel we were going for, I went through every single one of the stuffed animals that we have in the house. The kids have accumulated stuffed animals and they have inherited the stuffed animals from my childhood and Garrick's. I hadn't realized how many we had. The animals tossed decoratively all over the basement gave it the perfect finishing touch.
I think I'm getting good at this kid party thing.
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