Throwing a Themed Kid's Party

I'm no good at parties.

Don't get me wrong--I love to go to a good party.  But when it comes to throwing a party, I am truly out of my element.

When you become a mom, though, organizing birthday parties is part of the job description. 

Up to this point, the girls' parties have been pretty general--Play Doh, balloons, some crepe paper streamers, and a cake.  For Katy's 4th birthday, though, she had a theme in mind--her very favorite movie, Cars.

Now, Martha Stewart I am not, so I felt no need for handcrafted decorations and table centerpieces.  I headed to Party City and bought some packaged posters of Lightning McQueen and his cinematic sidekicks, along with some coordinating sticker packs and themed invitations.

I arranged to hold the party on a Saturday afternoon in the largest Sunday school classroom at our church.  Many thanks to my friend Tracy, whose daughter held her party at her church, and demonstrated the brilliance of the plan:  large space, central location, and NOT MY HOUSE!

As the kids arrived, they found red and white balloons all over the ground to kick around and play with (another stroke of genius from Tracy).  There was also a rug with buildings and roads all over it, with toy cars and motorcycles, as well as Cars coloring pages and crayons on one of the tables.

After a little free play time, I asked if anyone wanted to make a birthday crown.  (That has nothing to do with Cars, but who can resist a birthday crown?)  I provided pre-cut crowns and loads of sticker pages to choose from. 

After everyone had a customized crown to wear, I announced our first game:  Pin the car on the racetrack!  My husband showed his true artistic talent in the creation of the racetrack. 

The kids were blindfolded and did their best to tape their car the closest to the Finish line as they could.  Everyone got cheered, and left with a little gold "Winner" medal around their neck. 

Then it was on to the bean bag toss. 

I wanted the kids to toss the bean bags into a tire, but my husband nixed the idea because it throws our car into a tizzy when the spare tire is removed.  He thought of using a little toy push car we keep in the garage.  We opened up the "hood" and the kids gave it their best shot. 

One little girl had a particularly solid shot.  Another little girl was having some trouble, and we found her in front of the car later on, practicing!

We tried some toy car races, but the 4-year-old set was having trouble mastering how to slide the car backward to give it some power to move it forward.  It became a brief free-for-all, and then it was time for cake and ice cream.

Someone asked if I had made the cake.  Heck, no!  Our local grocery store did a phenomenal job with a Cars-themed cake, and we added our own little Lightning McQueen candle from the party store.

Next came the gift-opening.  The first gift came from the lone little boy at the party, whose father helped him pick out a remote-controlled Lightning McQueen.  Perfect!  Two party-goers gave Katy sets of rubber stamps (do they know her mother OR WHAT?!), and one gave her a sticker mosaic craft kit.  She also got a Tinkerbell doll, lip gloss (yikes!), and an Olivia book.

After opening gifts, we played a rousing game of Red Light, Green Light--another appropriately car-related game.  When you play that game with 4-year-olds, it becomes a pack of kids surging willy-nilly between two strips of masking tape, running off all the sugar they have just ingested. 

After some kid-created versions of Duck, Duck, Goose, and a game called Monsters, the kids were sent home with favor bags decorated with Cars stickers, containing a Hot Wheels car, a Cars coloring page, a Cars-themed box of four crayons, star-shaped plastic glasses, a whistle, some Fig Newtons, and a bookmark (I'm an English teacher first and foremost, People!).

I hope the other kids had as much fun as our two girls did.  I enjoyed seeing their faces during the different activities, and chatting with their parents.  It is such a joy to see your child being celebrated, and handling it with pretty good grace for a four-year-old. 

It was a nice combination of store-bought and hand-crafted, and I think it maintained the simple fun of a traditional kids' party without all the exaggerated excess of so many shindigs today. 

Many thanks to everyone who through this blog, Facebook, e-mail, and in person helped to celebrate the special day when Katy entered my life!

Craft Show Report!

The big day has come and gone:  my craft show debut!

I had spent about two months planning for the event:  crafting items to sell, determining prices, planning my table display, preparing my business cards and shopping bags.  It was an exciting process for me, because I have been wanting to participate in this kind of event for at least two years now.  I have dragged my feet, asking myself if I really wanted to do it, but truly wondering if I could pull it off. 

It all came to fruition at Ashbridge Manor in Downingtown, PA, on Friday evening at the Mom-Hosted Holiday Bazaar:

There were twelve crafters and "mompreneurs" at the bazaar, selling paper-related crafts (me!), jewelry, flameless candles, door decor, scrapbooking and rubber stamping supplies, decorated miniature Christmas trees, hair bows, baby crafts, and gourmet foods.  We set our tables up around one large room, and welcomed shoppers for four hours, from 5 to 9 pm.

We all offered free snacks or wine at our tables, and I added some candy cane package toppers made from red and white chenille stems.

The first wave of customers were mainly residents of the home where we were holding the event.  One woman in her wheelchair proudly told me that she is 93 years old, and that she has so many people in her family now that she doesn't even bother buying them gifts anymore!  One elderly man happily told his friends and I the story of how I must have gotten my dimples, from all of my aunts and uncles squeezing my cheeks when I was a little girl (which, of course, he did to me to illustrate his story!).  I enjoyed these interactions early in the show.

I didn't make a large number of sales, but I went there ready for any possible level of success, so I didn't feel disappointed.  My mother had shared with me a few weeks ago something she read from the book Blink about how people make decisions "in the blink of an eye."  Experiments were done at a gourmet food shop where sample jellies were displayed. In the instances where 3 different jars were offered, 30% of the customers purchased one of the products. When 12 jars were available for sampling, only 3% bought anything at all. The theory is that with a small selection of like items, impulse takes over and people buy without really thinking about it (in a blink), but with many varieties of the same type, choosing takes over, people take time to decide which of many is "best" for them, and end up deciding they don't really need any of it. This phenomenon wasn't a one-time experiment -- it's been true many times.

When I heard about that, I knew I might be in trouble!  I have just a few of LOTS of different things, rather than lots of a FEW different things.  I'm pretty sure I could see the dynamic my mom warned me about playing out at the show.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to change that, though!  I don't have a lot of interest in just producing lots of the same thing.  Something to think about, though, in terms of future success.

The most successful items of the evening were the Scrabble tile and flower gem magnets.

One woman bought three of the jumbo embellished clothespins as gifts for her grade-level teaching partners, which I thought was a great idea since they make such fun desk accessories.

I also sold several gift tag sets, which makes perfect sense for this holiday season. 

Several people asked about my stitched journal cards, but not a single one of them sold!  And no one looked twice or commented on the collaged vintage bottles, which are some of my favorite things!

One of the most commented-upon items were the Gratitude Gift Tag booklets.  Many people thought it was such a great idea to start a new holiday tradition where family members record the things they are grateful for that year--something to both keep the purpose of Thanksgiving at the forefront (besides stuffing ourselves with food!) and give something fun to look back on in future years.  I only sold a couple of the booklets, though, and I suspect several people figured they could use the idea and fashion something similar for themselves.  (I could see the wheels turning in their brains as they looked them over!)  Obviously I would have loved the sales, but I enjoyed sharing the ideas quite well, too.

Gratitude Tag Booklets are at the front right of the photo.

I had a wonderful time spending the evening with these other creative and entrepreneurial women who were part of the bazaar with me.  I felt proud of myself for tackling a challenge that I have had in place for myself for quite a long time now.  I was excited to have earned some money for my handiwork.  And I benefited from a number of observations and lessons that will help me, I think, be more successful in future craft shows! 

Here's a peek at some of the other wonderful women who were a part of the Mom-Hosted Holiday Bazaar:

Melissa, representing Tastefully Simple:  She was our fearless organizer, so generous with her time and talents to get all of this put together!

Meredith, of MerJoy Designs, selling handmade cards and jewelry

Kelly, of Scentsy

Laurie, with her decorated miniature Christmas trees

Kris, with Stampin' Up

Jen, with handmade hair bows for her company Elephants on Parade

This experience has given me the motivation to pursue additional show opportunities in the spring, and I am planning to open an Etsy shop in the new year. 

Onward!

My New Toy

For quite awhile now, I've been wanting a binding machine to create my own books.  I love the idea of using old book covers--both paperback and hard cover--to create new books, and of putting together all kinds of interesting papers to create a book that is almost a collage itself.

Rather than waiting around for someone to pick it from my Christmas list, I decided to treat myself to the Cinch. 

Two fun packages arrived over the past two days...

binding wires from JoAnn, and...

the Cinch v2.0 from Amazon!

Normally when I get a new toy like this, it sits around for awhile.  I shove it from place to place, eyeball the instruction booklet, and put a million other tasks ahead of figuring it out.

Not this time!

Maybe because I had a few dozen things I ought to have been doing (to get ready for my craft show tomorrow night, and my daughter's birthday party the next day), I decided to mess around with the Cinch immediately.

It helped that I had watched a couple of videos on YouTube to compare the Cinch with the Bind-It-All, as well as the original Cinch with the version 2.0.  I recogized how all the parts worked, and in what order things needed to be done.

I found an old book of Mark Twain short stories that I bought at a library book sale, and decided to use its cover and some of the interior pages.  The most tedious part was cutting papers for my book, using Strathmore drawing paper that I raided from my kids' crafting cupboard.  I am definitely putting a guillotine-style paper cutter on my Chrstmas list now, because my Fiskar's paper trimmer and X-acto with a straight edge got old fast!

Debris from my project, and from testing out my new Cinch

Overall, the book came together more quickly than I expected.  One of my character flaws traits is the desire and expectation that I will be able to do everything perfectly the first time.  It quickly became apparent that this would not be the case with this project.  There were a few issues with my hole spacing, as well as with the cinching of my wires.  But here was the result:

Front cover

Back Cover

              
                       

Spread with text page

The reviews I read and listened to for the Cinch mentioned that it is difficult to get the wires to bind with a perfect circle, and I found that to indeed be the case.

I am hoping that with some additional practice, I can get a better shape to my wires.  I think it would be fun to create books to sell, and I don't think I could sell something with this much distortion to its shape.

I like the circular holes that the Cinch punches better than the rectangular holes of the Bind-it-All, and my pages turn very easily on these wires. 

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase, and I look forward to playing around with it some more.  I might even make a few Christmas presents with it, if I can get the hang of it a little better!