SBC Blog Hop

Hello there and welcome to the Scrapbook Challenges Blog Hop! I hope you've found your way here from Cathy's Blog but if you're just joining in, hop on over to the SBC Blog to start at the beginning!

As I'm sure you've seen by now, here's the sketch we've got for you:

And here is my version:

My son was super excited that Santa finally brought him a drum set after him asking for one for two years in a row. :) He's actually pretty good, so I'm looking forward to seeing him develop his talent. I put this page together mostly using the 2012 Advent Collab Kit from Scrap Orchard plus a few extra alphas from various designers to finish out the title.

Of course, we've got some fun prizes for you to win too:
Hop On Prize - This is for one person who complete a layout a based on the sketch and links up in the hop on area of the forum.


New Member Prize - Given to one randomly selected new member who joins the site over the course of the weekend.


Instagram Tag & Win - A small prize given out to one follower and an additional IG user they tag.


Thanks for stopping by! Selena's Blog is your next stop on the hop. Hope you've enjoyed the hop so far.

A Puzzling Blog Hop

 

Happy National Scrapbooking Day/Weekend and welcome to the Scrapbook Challenges blog hop! Hope you are finding your way down the list of blogs with no problem at all.

 If you were at CARMEN'S BLOG last, you're in the right place! 

If you've just joined in, hop on over to the Scrapbook Challenges Blog to get started!

As you may be able to tell by now, this is all one big puzzling mystery! The sketch we used for this hop has been broken into puzzle pieces for you to collect along your way. As always, there are some great prizes up for grabs too, but of course, they are a little mystery for now too!

Hop On Prize 

(for completing a layout based on the Blog Hop Sketch and posting to the Hop On Thread):

Comment on all DT blogs:

 New Member Prize

(One random new members who joins between 5/4 & 5/6): 

So without further delay, here's the piece I have for you to add to your collection!

...and here's is a little sneak peek of my layout I did with this sketch:

So have you got the sketch mostly put together by now? Only one more stop on the list... 

BRYNN'S BLOG!

Be sure to head back over to the Scrapbook Challenges Forum early next week to see the sketch and the full view of our layouts revealed! Happy Scrappin'!

May the 4th Be With You

May 4th... Star Wars Day. I find it all too funny that the big "Star Wars Day" is coming at about the same time as I am preparing for Jonah's Star Wars themed birthday party in a couple of weeks. The theme is running thick here lately! Here are a few sneak peeks of some of the things I've got in the works!

The invitations went out a couple of weeks ago...

I saw these done on this site and replicated them myself with a little creative use of my Sure Cuts A Lot program and the Cricut. The kids LOVED them! I made an extra one to put in his baby book, but *sniff sniff* this is the last birthday that's in his baby book! It only goes up to the 5th birthday. I guess he'll be an official "big kid" after this. :'(

Of the awesome deals I racked up at Target when they had 50% off coupons for Star Wars toys, I picked up the Star Wars Operation game. That's going to be our opening activity... tinkering with the droid where we will find our mission to help Obi Wan Kenobi destroy the Death Star. hehe These younglings will need to become Padawans and train to become Jedis before they can do that though! :)

Our friend, Oscar, has graciously agreed to be our Jedi Master for the day, to teach these younglings the ways of the Force! :) (freeing me up to take pictures! woot!)

Shortly after he agreed to do that for us, I saw this picture and knew I was going to HAVE to have little Jedi robes for all of the boys. ;) 

 I used this tutorial and got some $3.99 fabric half off at Joann's. I have to give a huge thank you to my mom, who helped me cut/press/sew all 6 of these!

 Despite his attitude of not wanting me to interrupt Wow Wow Wubzy to have him try it on 2-3 times during the process, he really does love his Jedi robes.

 Here's a view of the little hood in the back.

There they are, all 6 of them made for less than $30 and in about a day and half's time.

Building your own light saber is somewhat of a rite of passage for every young Jedi, so after they don their robes, we'll have several different sized, pre-cut, strips of electrical tape to choose from to design their light saber's handle. Once they've done that, they can head out back to do some more training with Jedi Master Oscar before graduating from the Jedi Academy and having cake.

They'll "fly off" in the Millennium Falcon, fight their way past the storm troopers, and then take on Darth Vader before heading on to destroy the Death Star...

A basketball pinata spray painted grey. I still have some work to do, painting on the other details, but it's a start. 

  Knowing the pool noodle light sabers and even the plastic Darth Vader light saber wouldn't be strong enough to bust open our Death Star, I painted a wooden dowel rod to look like Yoda's. That should do the trick! ;)

Can't wait to show you more pictures after we've actually had the party. It's shaping up to be just as epic as the Halloween party was, if that's possible! 

The Princess Party

For lack of time and energy in the 3 weeks between her Princess 3rd birthday and his Star Wars 5th birthday, I think I'm just going to fire hose you with the photos. Sorry to not point you to the original sources on all of these ideas, but I can guarantee that I found most of them on Pinterest. ;)

The three invitations, but in the end Carly decided to be Rapunzel instead of sleeping beauty. 

 I guess if I had used this photo of her in my wedding gown like I wanted to originally, it would have been open to interpretation as to which princess she'd be.

 this is the photo I used and here she is sporting her new Rapunzel dress and doll. She LOVES it.

 here's one of the 4 tutu bags I made as party favors. super easy!

 Saw this on pinterest and decided to recreate it on our high ceiling in the dining room:

Here's a close up of the princess friends' table. Tutu bag party favors were the balloon tie downs that helped break up the space between the table and the balloons on the ceiling. We had Bibbity Bobbity Blueberries, Provential Pasta (mac n cheese) and Sleepy Strawberries (dipped in white chocolate and pink sugar to look like the sleeping beauty dress) the table cloth is 3 cheapy ones cut in half lengthwise, and folded in half for extra thickness.

this is what i did with the other half of those table cloths... put them in a 2" binder ring, hung them from a hook in the ceiling and taped the edges out to make a "tent" to go over their party table.

I dressed up the console table as the birthday girl table... her tutu bag (because how could I NOT make her one too?!) picture of her the day she was born in a frame we were given that said Princess, her new dress and doll, and of course the cake.

I make my own marshmallow fondant and I draped the cake stand too, to give us all 4 princess colors.

They painted tiny canvases in "Rapunzel's Art Studio"

Got their nails painted at "Belle's Beauty Salon"

Listened to the Cinderella story and then looked for her missing shoe. Once they found the shoe they put on their dresses (Don't you just LOVE these tiny dress forms?! They were kind of a splurge, so I'm renting them out, to recoup some of my cost, to North DFW locals if you know anyone who wants to borrow them. $3 each or $10 for all 4. Email me!)...

As I was helping the others get their dresses down, Carly threw me a curve ball out of left field and wanted to be Padme (a Star Wars Princess if you recall) so that's what she did. hehe

Then the girls put stickers all over Sleeping Beauty's Castle (a valentine mailbox I got for 90% off!) this was a good distraction while I cleared the table from the painting stuff and got it ready for lunch.

Then we had some lunch and Carly decided she wanted to be Rapunzel because she kept sitting on her Padme arm veils and couldn't reach up to eat. LOL!

After she opened her gifts, we HAD to immediately set up the princess tent. There was an emergency princess meeting to be held apparently. LOL!

Then of course we NEEDED to try out the Cinderella Duplos, so they did that until time to trade their dresses and shoes in for their tutu bags and balloons. They all had a great time, and I of course, had a great time putting the whole thing together! Here are a few other random close ups...

The princess paintbrush pretzel sticks.

Tulle pom poms hung on the sliding glass door curtain. (9 pom poms for $5, any takers?)

Here's the table cloth canopy with my tissue paper pom pom. (I'm also ready to sell this set up for $6. I can't ship the pom pom though, so it's gotta be someone local.)

Party Tips

You know you're a Pinterest addict when you tell someone about an idea you've had, they say "that's a really good idea" and the first thing that pops into your mind is, "I should go home and make a graphic for that, JUST so I can put it on Pinterest and share it with others!" LOL! If that means I'm a Pinterest addict, I guess I'm guilty as charged.

These probably aren't original ideas, but is there really such a thing anymore?!

I think I probably actually read this one in a parenting magazine a long, long time ago... but still, when I tell people that's our rule of thumb for the kid's birthdays, you can see the light bulb go off in their head! It really does help keep the party from becoming too overwhelming for the little ones. I mean really, how many friends does a 2 or 3 year old really have anyway? People tell me I'll regret this rule when they are teenagers, but I like to throw parties... so maybe not. ;)
 

Our two kids are 2 years apart and their birthdays are 3 weeks apart. I suppose the odd/even thing really only works if they are both odd/even ages at the same time. The reason I say have the smaller individual party on their odd years is because then when you use tip #1 from above, they will even out the kid count. For instance, my daughter is turning 3 and having 3 friends over for a princess party. With her at the table too, I can buy and even 4 of everything like party favors and tableware. My son is turning 5, so we'll have 6 little Jedi running around at our Star Wars party. It makes it simple. As they get older, we'll probably do some of those bigger joint parties, you know the kind.... the bounce house place, the skating rink, etc.

I'm not planning on holding hard and fast to these rules throughout their whole childhood. Obviously, I know there will come a day when they think it's no longer "acceptable" to share their parties (which is good news for me because I have more party theme boards on Pinterest than they have birthdays as it is! hah!) and I know sometimes it might be that they get to take a couple of bff's to Six Flags instead of a party... but I hope these two tips help you calm the chaos of planning your next kid party!

Valentine's Playgroup Party

I normally like to plan my parties out WAY in advance, but for whatever reason, that just didn't happen with this one. I literally started working on it last night, pulling things out of my stash, digging into things I've recently purchased for their birthday parties later this spring... and add in a little sprinkle of pinspiration and what I ended up with was this:

The mirror, dress form, pink daisies, and rose petals were things I've picked up for her soon-to-be Disney Princess birthday party. The black table cloth was bought for his soon-to-be Star Wars birthday party, and I already owned the rest of the red stuff, like the round placemats, red rimmed plates, napkins and cups left over from previous parties, and the artwork hung on the wire to the wall light was all masterfully done by my kiddos. ;)

 I already had a couple of the metal mailboxes from Target and my friend brought hers over too. The heart paper chain is a little art project the kids and I did a couple of weeks ago, and the "so I think I love you" embroidered notebook paper is something I made for dh last summer.

 I can't take credit for the heart sandwiches, or the sugar cookies... I can take credit for eating most of the cookies, after everyone left, though. :-\ oops! I did make the heart shaped veggies and chocolate drizzled pretzels.  

 The envelopes on the wall were both a matter of necessity (to cover some ugly scuff marks along the wall there) and to emulate a wall of envelopes I'd seen on pinterest a few days ago.

 Printed off a freebie valentine subway art and plopped my daughter's 1st valentine teddy bear on the shelf to call this area "done".

 The decomesh over our patio door was from our Christmas tree and I'm sure dh will be happy to see it gone after this week. ;) The heart canvasses were from my baby shower, but I did buy the heart wreath a few weeks ago to fill in the hole on this wall (I normally have 3 prints of spiral staircase photos here)

As usual, I remembered to take pictures of stuff before the party started and didn't really pick up the camera again until it was over. Thankfully Sarah got a picture of Carly and I together!