Pony Party Reveal

Well, the big pony party took place this last weekend! There are still bits and pieces of the party strewn around the house, but I would rather be here, sharing the details with you, than cleaning them up! I'm still having a hard time believing A is really three. Ready for a LOT of photos? Okay, here we go...

Due to a last minute change in party dates, I had no time to order pretty party supplies from my favorite places. I was able to order some swirly lollipops and miniature horses as favors (thank you Amazon Prime), but ultimately the local Party City and I had to kiss and make up after several years of avoiding one another. I purchased tons of crepe streamers, a little bit of gold foil wrapping paper, and a few honeycomb balls and called it good.

I recently bought a fun book by illustrator Heather Ross (I mentioned her in my inspiration post) that included a disc full of her whimsical prints to use for the projects in the book. I ended up printing my favorite ones and making party hats out of them. I saved the leftover scraps to make something out of because I couldn't bear to throw those pretty designs away (dorky, I know)!

I couldn't find a pinata I liked (surprised?), so I ended up making one of my own. I free handed a horse head on to an old moving box and cut it out. I traced the shape on to more cardboard and cut that out too. I then taped three inch strips of cardboard from leftover cereal boxes (about 1.5) to both sides, creating a three dimensional effect and connecting the whole thing together. I used crepe streamers, double sided tape, and pipe cleaners (for the eye and hook at top) to decorate the pony. I have to admit, I was a little mad at that thing by the time I was done...

I also made a big prize ribbon out of the gold wrapping paper and some small blank ones for guests to color. The crepe streamers got all fringed up and hung and Addie's horse collection was on display with tiny party hats added here and there. There was also a pony tattoo station and a tiny tall cake (the layers were baked in custard ramekins).

Jeremy made an awesome spread of food and appetizers including potato and bacon bites, pea and mint pesto, pizza, ham and pickle bites, and much more. My children are so lucky to have a Dad who makes everything from scratch, including bread and butter cream frosting!

All in all, it was a great party, even though the almost-three year old had a few meltdowns (see last photo for a visual). Luckily, she rallied and the party ended on a high-note with some winter-coat wearing, starry night pinata bashing! Thank you to everyone who helped and who came to celebrate our sweet Addie!

Holiday crafts with Kids: Frosted Windows

I'm over at Playful Learning today sharing the second installment of my Holiday Crafts for Kids series. Did you know you can grow salt crystals on your windows? The end result looks a lot like icy winter frost. We tried it out this week and my girls loved it! Check out my post here to find out how it's done.

A Gingerbread Party

E turned 5 this past week! She told us she wanted a "friend" party for the first time this year. Somehow (still not sure how!), I was able to distract her from the purple/pink/princess theme that seems to surface in every area of her life. Thus, the idea for a holiday themed gingerbread party was slowly unearthed.

Making gingerbread houses from scratch for 10+ kids may seem like a crazy idea, but you don't know my Mom (aka Nana). She's a wiz at baking and happened to be in town last week. I designed a template, cut it out of a used cereal box, and she took it from there. Once the pieces were baked, we all chipped in to put the miniature houses together. I love how (most of them) turned out!!

The decor was a bit more simple than my usual pile-it-on style of planning parties, but things seemed just about right. A few red paper fans, a stitched garland, and candy-cane striped paper to cover the table. Miniature bottle brush trees and jars of candy served as centerpieces. I also put a few of the trees into glass bowls with fake snow and glitter.

Each child was given a house and a bowl full of icing. The kids had fun dipping the various candy into the icing and then sticking it to their houses. We definitely learned a lesson about hard candy not sticking very well to gingerbread-oops!

We also played "hot potato" with a Christmas ornament/Christmas music, pin the nose on the reindeer (remember this fawn from here?), and had a marshmallow toss. We ended everything with cake, of course!

Happy Birthday Ellie! We love you so much!

Holiday Crafts with Kids: Paper Trees

This has been the first year that my kids have been interested in "helping out" with the whole Christmas set up. Our holiday decor has been pretty minimalistic this year, so there hasn't been much for them to do. Also, wood floors + glass ornaments + a two and five year old= a lot of potential for disaster.

I've tried to come up with a few crafts they can help me with over the next few weeks, the first being these little paper trees, now proudly displayed in our entry way. This craft was still a little bit hard for A, who's not yet three, but E was able to do it with no problems.

Click over to my post at Playful Learning for more details and pictures! I'm curious, how do you get your children involved during this season?

Crafts with kids: Giant Post-it Note Patterns

I'm over at Playful Learning today sharing about these giant Post-it Note Patterns we recently made on the wall! This was such a fun rainy-day activity for E and A. For more info and downloadable patterns to follow, hop over to my post here!

Sail baby, sail.

Can you believe baby Jack will be four months old in just a few more weeks? When I started picking things  for him, I decided that I only wanted my favorite things. It's been refreshing to only have a few, well loved, well chosen things this time.

These sweet baby announcements made by Lovely Lindsay definitely fall into the category of "my favorite things." She did an amazing job, and I'm so happy with how they turned out. So talented, that one.

Thank you Lindsay!

Also pictured: a sweet hat made by a friend, my favorite newborn shirt from flora and henri, and leather moccasins from Freshly Picked

Last minute Thanksgiving garland.

I have mixed feelings about decorating for Thanksgiving. We don't currently host any gatherings, and I tend to save everything for the "big show" (putting up the Christmas decorations the day after). While working on another project yesterday, I had a bunch of 1" wide paper scraps left over, so I decided to make a little Thanksgiving garland after all.

To make, take 1" strips of paper (they can be any length), fold over the top, punch with a hole punch and secure with a brad. Cut a triangle out of the bottom of each strip to make a flag shape. This morning we talked about what we were thankful for. Things such as blankies, milk, and Zeke (our dog). We wrote one thing on each slip of paper and then strung them up on some jute string. So easy, right?

P.S.-I promise she was having fun before I took this picture!

Crafts with kids: Mini storybooks.

If you've been a reader for long, you know I love paper in any form. It seems that E might be taking after me. She's always right by my side anytime I pull out my supplies and start to make something. Her other favorite thing is making up stories. I'm so impressed and surprised by the things she comes up with! Seriously, she cracks me up. We recently started a new thing: she draws the picture and I write the words (as dictated by her).

Every story eventually includes a princess, a party, and some kites, but she loves it! I thought it would be fun to make a stack of blank books that we could grab whenever the moment is right.

Head over to my post at Playful Learning to whip a few of these little gems yourself!

P.S. The cute paper used for the covers is from Fresh Memories Studio and Ado Clip Art.

Make it: Tabletop puppet theater.

What do you do when you have a garage full of moving boxes? Start making all sorts of toys for your kids, of course! I've been so inspired lately by projects I've seen that have started with a cardboard box, or two. I almost made a few sets of fairy wings from our boxes for Halloween until I realized that I live in Seattle. There's no way around all that rain and wetness. The girls were pretty bummed, so I spent some time coming up with another idea.

We saw an adorable puppet show last summer in California and the girls have been wanting to play with puppets ever since. So we made a little cardboard puppet stage to use on the end of a table, and I love how it turned out.

I sometimes find puppets a little weird, so I decided to design a few non-creepy stick puppets to go with our little tabletop stage instead of buying them.

For complete instructions on making your own puppet theater plus free stick puppet downloads, head over to my post at Playful Learning.

Happy Tuesday!