Teddy Bear Picnic 1st Birthday Party

A few weeks ago we celebrated KZ's first birthday. Her nickname is "Bear Bear" so we decided to have a teddy bear picnic. It was one of the last warm weekends (even though it was mid-October) before fall has fully set in. It was the perfect day! We had the picnic in our backyard with some of our family members and everyone had fun!

The best part of this party was I only had to purchase a few things! The decorations were all the teddy bears, mason jars, and baskets we could round up in the house. I did purchase the tablecloths (from Party City) but the flowers were leftover from events we attended earlier in the week.

I served sandwiches on kaiser rolls, pickles, chips, teddy bear crackers, and red and green apples. We also served lemonade.

 I had big plans for a beautiful cake but I opted for a simple cake. In addition to the chocolate frosting I used 4 vanilla wafer cookies, and half a pink Starburst. 

For the favors I ordered flavored honey on Amazon, and had gummy bears, and Bit of Honey candy.  The papers said "Thank you for BEE-ING sweet and coming to my party"

Those are some happy people having fun!!

This was one of my favorite parties that I have attended. Mostly because it was the most simple and I got to have fun enjoying the party without the stress!

Frozen Party: Food, Favors, and Outfit

This is the last installment of the three part series about PB's Frozen: Melted 3rd birthday party. See posts about the decorations and games.  Let's get down to the good stuff- the food!

We had turkey and cheese sliders. With the quote "We finish each others...sandwiches!" (idea from here) We also had fruit and veggies, pigs in a blanket, and "reindeer chow" (muddy buddy chex mix).  We had marshmallows (snowballs) and powdered doughnuts.

 The punch was blue Koolaide, sherbet, and lemon-line soda. We put some of the "ice" around the bottom. This was my grandma's idea :)

So the cupcakes were super simple but looked awesome. I used a white cake that I put food coloring in to make purple, blue, and left some white to go along with the color theme. I used store bought frosting and them I added the ice. (For a tutorial go here. It was simple, had a great effect, and was tasty!)

Favors: I was thinking about quotes from the movie that talked about food and I remembered how much Elsa and Anna love chocolate. I made Oreo truffles and put them in baggies and cut off the top of the bag. I tied them with teal ribbons.

Outfit: There is a noticeable lack of 3 year old in these pictures. My angel has told me repeatedly that is is "dis-gussing" and she refuses to wear it. I got a text from my amazing sister-in-law this week with a picture of an awesome costume she made her 4 year old who also refuses to wear it. It must be genetic.

I made her a towel poncho for the pool that has an Elsa dress on it. I bought a bath towel at Walmart along with light blue and teal sparkly tulle. I used teal felt I had on hand.

To make the poncho part of the towel I folded the towel in half and measured my cutie. I measured the width of her shoulders and the length to just under her arm pits. I cut a hole in the towel width wise centered on the crease of the towel. I cut it two inches shorter than her shoulder measurement. I cut a three inch slit to accommodate her head. Around the opening I folded it down 1/4 of an inch and sewed to finish off the edge.  On either side of the towel I sewed about a 5 inch long section on either edge to leave arm holes. It was about 5 inches from the top of the fold.

I pieced together the dress and used the measurement of the length to her chest for where to put the gathered section on the front. The light blue was very light to I had to layer it a few times to see the color. I zig-zagged around the felt and the completely tacked down sections (sleeves). The cape on the back is only sewed on the top and the two bottom corners. The dress on the front is sewn the same way except there is gathered fabric above the felt.

Phew! It was quite the party! I was thinking of writing up some tips about how not to go insane (like I did) while throwing a birthday party. Have a great 4th of July!

Blue's Clues Party- contd.

Today I'm super excited to show you PB's cute shirt as well as how I only paid $6.51 for favors for 10 kids and how I incorporated the Blue's Clues theme into our food.

Shirt
A couple nights before the party I went a little crazy with the puff paints as you can see here and with PB's t-shirt. I first went to buy it at Michael's and they were $6 and sold out. I went over to Target and got a toddler boys shirt for $4. They didn't have any girl's shirts without a picture on the front.

Seriously, could this kid get any cuter? Maybe I'm biased :)

 I did an online search for "Blue's Clue's birthday coloring pages." I found this image and printed it out. I put a piece of stiff cardboard and the image inside of the shirt. I had a bit of a hard time seeing through the shirt but I outlined using the puff paints and used a small paintbrush to fill in the larger areas. I had a color copy of Blue on hand to I could make sure that I was using the right colors and getting the details right.

For the back I free handed the outline and again filled it in with a tiny paintbrush.

Favors
I couldn't have been more happy with how these favors turned out. I first went to the Dollar Store and bought two bags of bubble gum and 4 3-packs of bubbles.

For the bubble gum I counted how many pieces I had and divided it by 10. I got 10 snack bags and filled them.

 I got all of the air out the bags as I sealed them. I cut 10 pieces of 3.5"X 3.5" and folded them in half. I took each bag and folded it in half width-wise.

I slipped the folded piece of paper over the top and stapled the left and right side. I labeled each bag with a child's name.

For the bubbles I measured how big of a label I needed to cover. I went into my photo editing software and whipped up these beauties.

Feel free to add your child's name and use these! I took PB's name off so you could easily do so!

I cut them out and taped them onto the bubbles.

In total:

2 bags of bubble gum $2

3 1/3 packs of bubbles: $3.33

2 color copies: $.1.18

Total: $6.51 or $0.65 per favor :)

Food

Since Blue is well Blue I decided to make our food have a blue twist. We had blue raspberry lemonade.

We had blue licorice (thank you Dollar Store for carrying blue candy).

We had blue speckled cupcakes with blue and white polka dotted cupcake liners.

I know that Funfetti cake is just cake with sprinkles so I bought blue sprinkles and added them to the cake. 

If you have watched the show a many times as we have you know that Steve loves anything banana-flavored. In one episode them make banana muffins and he gets super excited. I made some from scratch and labeled them as such.

I also served fruit, veggies, chips, and mini pizzas. The mini pizzas we let everyone make for themselves. We had BBQ chicken and regular pepperoni. There is no need to let people make them for themselves. Almost everyone wanted pepperoni, a couple wanted plain cheese, a some wanted BBQ.

Check out the invitation and more fun details about the party!

I hope you guys have a great weekend and this inspired you with ideas on how to have a simple show-themed kids party!