Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Bodybuilder Birthday Party

I had a customer request a special party package for her husbands 30th birthday.  He happens to really be into bodybuilding and Erin was hoping I could come up with something that would tie his favorite thing into an awesome theme for his birthday.  I knew this was going to be a challenge but it turned out to be AMAZING!  We decided on taking a picture of Ben and making a magazine cover for his birthday invite. It came out way better than I could have dreamed! Erin had them printed actual size of a magazine and sent them to her guests. 

She also had the awesome idea of making the display area look like a display at an expo. I made a mock book cover for the center of the display.

 Erin had this custom bicep cake made with Ben's initials on the arm. 
 We came up with these Hershey's wrappers that resembled nutrition bars as favors.
 I love the way she even wrapped a supplement bottle with Ben's custom "Health bar" logo.  So creative!

 A close up of Ben's cake.

This was an amazingly creative and personal way to celebrate Ben's birthday!  Erin is a rockstar wife for coming up with this perfect theme for her hubby!  Thank you Erin for letting me share pics of your fabulous display!  If your in Australia, Erin has a wonderful Lolly Bar Business named Sweet Lolly Designs. You can find her Facebook page here: Sweet lolly Designs Facebook page




Sunday, February 24, 2013

How to make a zebra striped number pinata



For Drew's Safari party, I had envisioned a giant number 2 pinata with some sort of animal print.  Well, they don't seem to make these so I decided I would.  After my friend made her daughters pinata for the tutu party last month, I figured it couldn't possibly be that hard.  Thankfully after the holidays, I was left with a ton of boxes to choose from to make the base.  I had my hubby draw a giant number 2 on one piece, cut it out and then trace it onto another.  Then he cut some long strips out and wrapped and taped it around the entire number to hold the two pieces together.
We initially used masking tape like all the tutorials I had seen suggested but it started to lift so I went over it with packing tape.  It was really sturdy! 



Before you finish taping down the second layer, push a pipe cleaner through the top of the number to create a loop for hanging.  We taped down the ends after twisting them to make sure it was secure.  Then finish sealing your frame.

Once the frame was all done, we cut long strips of green streamer to wrap around in rows.  We fringed the bottom of each row to give it some texture.  Do this part BEFORE gluing it down.  Speaking of glue...make sure you use sticks of glue and not the liquid kind.  That just makes a huge mess.  We learned this the hard way when we made the Lego one.


 Took awhile but finally the bottom layer of green was complete!  
Time to add our stripes.  This was a little tricky because I had to come up with a way to add them without looking weird.  We finally decided to cut them out of brown streamer and glue them straight onto the green frame.  The best part is zebra stripes aren't perfect so once we cut them all it, it didn't take much time at all to finish up the pinata!

 It came out even better than I could have imagined!  No one could believe we made it!  And it held up through a couple of rounds of the kids swinging at it!






Sunday, February 10, 2013

Grammy night!!

Now that we have 2 teenagers in the house, we though it would be fun to have a little family Grammy viewing party! I had some dough left over from last weeks party so we whipped up these cute cookies! Stars, music notes and and an ice cream cone turned microphone were perfect for the event! We also downloaded some Grammy ballots from People.com so we can place our own votes. Should make for a fun night!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Drew's 2 wild safari party

My baby boy turned 2 over the weekend!  Drew LOVES LOVES LOVES animals and so we planned an animal safari for his big day.  We called it "Drewsie's 2 wild safari" and it was adorable!  Thankfully we had awsome weather for the day too!  A perfect 65 and sunny February day!  Gotta love California! 

This was Drew's invite:




I found this Giraffe print tissue paper at a local store and used it to cover a wooden A for the entrance.  The green zebra print is a bandanna from hobby lobby I added for a pop of color.

I was obsessed with these cupcakes for months and couldn't wait to do them for this party!  Thank goodness for my mom who helped me make them.




Andrew's main cake was difficult to narrow down.  There are so many cute safari ideas!  I decided on this giraffe print because I really wanted to stay away from fondant and it seemed easy.


The give away favors were these super yummy chocolate covered "zebra tail" pretzels.  
Andrew's special banner
The snack table included Tiger Tails (Cheetos), Zebra cakes, Gorrilla grub (Banana pudding), Sugar cookies, animal crackers (which happened to be jungle edition!) and marshmallow grass pops.
I made a ton of vines to use for the backdrop.  I have a tutorial here: Jungle Vines tutorial


Loved this don't feed the animals sign. :)

I left the hungry hippo out in case anyone wanted to play.  No one did though.
My Genius hubby decided fruit was an awesome centerpiece and yummy too!
The paper bag safari vest and paper roll binoculars I made for all the kids were a hit as well as the Pith hats I found n amazon.com.  The vest tutorial is here: Safari Vest tutorial
I found 2 foam Pith hats that were a little softer for Drew and Matty to wear so I added their names to them.
I made these passports for all the kids to add stickers or color in for the activity tabel.  There were also make your own scene safari sticker sheets and decorate a mask kits on oriental trading co.
E.J. made this pinata to match the theme since I really had no desire for the kids to smash an animal to bits.  It was actually pretty sturdy and no to hard to do.  Just very time consuming.  You can see the tutorial here: Zebra striped pinata tutorial
We even dressed up our play structure with a table grass skirt and vines to look like a hut
Some of the animals we used were left over from Matty's circus party.  So glad I kept them!
Our Jeep even ended up as decor!  

I found this alligator ring toss at walmart for less than $5!  We didn't actually play the game, just used him as decor.  He may make a reappearance at this summer's pirate party!  We'll see!

Jungle Juice (Pineapple juice and 7up) and Swamp water (Ice tea)
Zoo pals happened to have a Safari edition out for their plates and cups.  PERFECT!
Old starbucks jars repurposed with some burlap, twine and scrap paper.  I found the green paper straws at celebrateexpress.com



E.J. took the kids around the backyard for a Safari tour.  He came up with cute facts and names for each animal.  It was AWESOME!!
My favorite part was when someone asked how much Henry the hippo weighed and he replied "He doesn't like to talk about his weight.  It's an issue" HAHAHA!

Andrew actually decided to join in this activity!

Cute water labels at the watering hole
Cake time!!!  Wait until you see what's inside...
Zebra Print cake!!!  How awesome is this!?!?!?  Took forever but well worth the wow factor!


So that was Drewsie's big day and I have to say that was his best party Sooo-fari!!!  LOL!