Light Sabers and Fairy Wings

A full week and a half after the twins' birthday party and I am just now getting back to the blog.  Of course, I put off customer orders for 2 weeks leading up to the party, so I've been trying to dig my way out of that mountain of work, but no complaints!  In addition last weekend we were dealing with Chloe's patch testing (you can read about Cassidy going through this process here and Chloe's recent diagnosis that necessitated the testing here). I'll be talking about Chloe's allergy screening experience in an upcoming post.  For now, I wanted to share with all of you the little day of happiness that we squeezed in among the doctor's appointments and testing.

If you are a regular reader, you know that Chloe and her twin brother Quinn just celebrated their 5th birthday!  He picked a Star Wars theme and she chose woodland fairies.  We had the party at a local orchard, and I really think that a wonderful time was had by everyone.  It was chillier that it has been this spring, but it didn't rain, and since the kids were running around with wings and light sabers, they didn't seem to mind at all.  I posted earlier about making the food all allergy safe, including my favorite baker for ordering allergy safe food when I can't make it all myself.  I'll give an overview of what we served, as well as details of the goodie bags and the party itself.

For starters, we purchased print-at-home invitations packs on Etsy.



Quinn's were these, which you can find here,
  
This party package included tons of stuff, so much that we didn't even use it all!  It was great, and I highly recommend checking out the Etsy shop.

 Chloe's were these. Chloe just loved these, and the pack included favor tags and signage.








 Fairy and Jedi Food

The fairy side of the table held "Fairy Fruit" (pre-cut fruit tray), "Pixie Love Cookies" (allergy safe sugar cookies with pink and purple frosting) and "Twigs and Branches" (pretzel sticks and rods).

The Star Wars side had "Vader Veggies" (pre-cut veggie tray), "Wookie Cookies" (allergy safe star wars shaped sugar cookies) and "Death Star Doughnuts" (Allergy safe mini doughnuts with fun sprinkles)

For drinks, we had juice boxes as well as chocolate soy milk boxes (Cassidy is allergic to apples and therefore most juice boxes) and bottled water.

Each table also had cupcakes.  I bake them using my favorite allergy friendly chocolate cupcake recipe from the Food Allergy Mama cookbook; the fairy cupcakes were frosted grass green with little fairy pics on top, and the Star Wars cupcakes were frosted with vanilla, sprinkled with red or blue sugar and topped with light saber flags included in the party pack with the invitations.  Easy as it gets, as far as I am concerned.  With the exception of the cupcakes, all of the allergy safe baked goods were ordered from HippieCakes.  As I have mentioned before, her baked goods (pictured to the left) are fantastic, and her prices are very reasonable.  We are ALWAYS working on a budget (a normal budget, not a wedding budget.  My thoughts on that in this post!) 


We ended up having enough cupcakes left over for the snack at the preschool the following Monday, which was great since I didn't have to bake another batch on Sunday.

Since everything was basically finger foods, the kids (and parents) were welcome to graze when they wanted to, which was casual and in my opinion, just right for a children's birthday party.



Goodie Bags

The goodie bags were so much fun to put together, and they were probably a bit much.  But each twin had specific ideas, and just as I don't agree with making them share a theme just because they happen to be twins, and because their ideas were so heartfelt and generous for their guests, we decided to let them both contribute.  So we ended up with what were basically double goodie bags for the guests. Each bag contained the following:

From Quinn, Han Solo in carbonite or R2D2 shaped soap with a washcloth (the soap was  simple melt and pour stuff from the craft store, the washcloths I made from star print cotton and flannel) We packaged these in little light saber goodie boxes from the party pack! Also, Star Wars stickers and a push pop decorated to look like a light saber.  The boys also got a chinese yo yo, and everyone got a personalized jedi training pass (also part of the party pack!)

From Chloe, a crayon roll and sketch pad.  Wish I had a picture of these, they were so cute!  If I track down a picture, I'll post it.  Also, a ring pop and a jar of bubbles.  The girls also got a little fairy wand and a personalized hair clip.

The washcloths, crayon rolls and hair clips would have been budget breakers to purchase, but since I sew and machine embroider for a living, they only cost me supplies (I don't charge for time when it comes to my kids' party budgets).  My advice in party planning is to capitalize on whatever craft or talent you have to help keep costs down.



Other Fun Stuff

 As I mentioned in a prior post, the orchard lets the party guests feed the farm animals (the kids especially loved the baby goats!) and takes them all on a hayride. We also made fairy wings and tiny crowns for all of the girls, and everyone (boys, girls and some grown ups!) had foam light sabers made from pool noodles and duct tape.  Many thanks to my friend Becky, for her amazing photography!

Chloe, in her extra special birthday wings, enjoys the hay ride with friends.

Mark (aka Daddy) handing out light sabers before one of many big battles.  Not sure which age group had more fun...the kids or the adults!

Chloe, the birthday girl, enjoying herself.

Fairy wings and a light saber!

Helping my little man, Quinn, (in the red jacket) open his gifts.

Big sister Cassidy, little sister River and a fairy friend.

River and her buddy charging into a Jedi battle!

Fairy size crowns for the girls.  We made these from empty toilet paper tubes.  It was super easy.  Look for that tutorial next week!

Jedi Quinn fending off a rebel attack!

A group of fairies heading over to feed the farm animals.

Quinn, Daddy and crew on the hayride.

Birthday boy Quinn, running and playing.









The day was wonderful, and for my kids as well as some of their food allergic friends, being able to enjoy the party and all of the food  and treats without worry was priceless.  It is really something that you tend to take for granted until you are forced to worry about it first hand!  In addition, we stayed within a low budget and the party was proof that the kids were thrilled to just be kids, and that the over-done bells and whistles are not necessary.  Everyone wins!  Now that's my kind of (kid's birthday) party!

Valentine's Day, Part 2

I have to admit that posting about the torturous process of last year's Valentine preparations was somewhat cleansing.  Rehashing it made me really thankful that I started early and had the Big Kick machine to help cut out all of the shapes for most of them.  The twins, in addition to helping with the assembly process, signed all of their own valentines this year.  Once I got the supplies ready, Cassidy did hers all by herself,  I made River's for her, which was fine with her as long as they had a gnome theme.  Everything in River's world has a gnome theme.  In fact, she is planning on being a gnome when she grows up.

Since the Valentine's themselves were finished with a few days to spare this year, I had a little extra time to let the kids come up with Valentine themed clothing ideas and do some sewing for them.  It was nice because the kids got to come up with the ideas themselves, and then I got to sketch them and disappear into my sewing studio for a few hours to actually make the ideas into clothing.  Plus, since all of my kids are tall and thin, we always have pants and leggings that are a couple of inches too short by the time they actually fit in the waist.  Projects like these are perfect for adding embellishments to the hem of a pair of pants to make them longer and get a little extra wear out of them.




Quinn wanted a Yoda shirt with a heart.  Lucky for him, I had a plain grey shirt that he had landed a big stain right in the middle of the first time he wore it.  I had saved a picture on my phone of one that he liked, but I can't remember where I originally found it.  I just drew out the basic applique shapes by hand and stitched them on, covering the stain.  He loves it, and I'm pretty fond of it myself.











Chloe wanted to wear her favorite ladybug pillowcase dress, but to go with it she asked for black leggings with "BIG ruffles" and a headband with a "BIG heart".  I did my best.  The ruffles are a bit too big for my taste, but the little ladybug is happy, and she does look pretty darn cute.  It's exactly what she wanted.  Sometimes, you have give up grown up taste in exchange for an extra BIG smile from your kid. Totally worth it.















River, I suppose because of her obsession with gnomes, loves red and white polkadot fabric.  She calls it "toadstool fabric".  She asked for a "toadstool fabric comfy shirt" with hearts on it, and "valentine pants".  The shirt was easy enough. I just made a basic peasant top with cute elastic detail on the sleeves. The sleeves aren't really 2 different lengths, by the way.  The picture was just taken at a funky angle.  I don't know what "valentine pants" are, but I dug out a pair of Cassidy's old white jeans with heart shaped pockets.  They were too short for River, so I just added a polkadot band around the cuff that matched her shirt while adding the needed length.  This is what it looked like in the end.  I tried to get a picture of it on her, but she is too fast for the camera! You can see a close up of the appliques at the top of this post.








Cassidy just wanted a headband with heart antennae on it, and she also declined having her picture taken.  Given what the kid has been through lately, including this past week, I didn't push the issue.

As I mentioned, before I could get down to the fun of creating these clothes for the minions, we had to complete their valentines for all of their classmates.  Chloe thought up her own, Quinn and Cassidy adapted theirs from pictures they found online, and River just asked for a gnome theme.  This is what the final products looked like:


Chloe's were little pink handbags made of card stock (cut out on the Big Kick, thank goodness). We stamped a message on the inside, "Friends are flowers that never fade", and attached a small packet of wildflower seeds in each one.  For projects like these with the kids, those scrapbooking glue dots are awesome!  Then she signed them and folded them closed, sealing each one with a heart sticker.  Enjoyable and painless for everyone involved, just like it should be.

Quinn's were little plastic sandbox shovels with a scoop of mini Swedish fish attached with a bag.  The tags (you guessed it, I cut them out with the machine!) said "I Dig You" with each child's name.  He signed them on the back of the tags.  I gathered the supplies while he signed his name, then he got to help me scoop the candy and I bagged them.  Again, a smooth and pleasant process for both of us.  We finished all of those the weekend before last, which meant fewer to get done the day before everyone needed them for classroom parties.








Cassidy was even easier.   I busted out about 20 paper hearts on the now famous Big Kick, and punched the holes to attach the pipe cleaner arms and legs on 3 hearts at a time.  I used a heart shaped paper punch to cut the smaller hearts for the hands and feet.  then I gave all of it to Cassidy along with a pack of big googly eyes, a pen and some glue.  She did the rest herself, including stapling a pack of heart shaped fruit snacks to the back of each one.  She is very proud of them, had fun and they are super cute.  Oh, and all of the teachers got little bags with the ingredients to make one s'more.  For the bag toppers, I just printed them out on postcard sheets, folded them in half and stapled them on after we filled the bags assembly line style.























For River's, I got to disappear into my studio with a giant bag of Hershey's kisses, never a bad thing in my opinion.  For each valentine, I put together 3 gnome kisses.  You can find the project instructions including an easy way to make a template for the hats here.  River did get to pick the felt colors for the hats.  She chose pale pink, bright pink and red.  We also got a large Hershey's kiss for each of her 3 teachers and made big gnome kisses out of those.  I cut out the felt hats one night while I was watching a movie with the kids, and on Friday I assembled the kisses.  For a while I had a cute but creepy little gnome army marching across my craft table.  See the big kisses in the back? Then on Saturday, I bagged them all.  For the bag toppers, I cranked out more shapes on my machine and stamped them with little girl gnomes and the words "To gnome you is to love you".  I wasn't wild about stapling them together for 2 and 3 year old kids, so I just used the hole puncher to make 2 holes in each and tied a ribbon in them to hold everything together.  Then I printed stickers out on the computer that read "Gnome kisses for Valentine's Day, From River".  Little Bean got to help stick those on the backs, so I guess she did help a little.





















So that was it.  And I even had time to throw together the cupcakes that I signed up to bring to River's class party.  We survived the preparations without any kid broken hearts, and without me needing a martini last night.  I mean, I had one anyway, but not because of V-day crafting hell.  It was Blueberry-pomegranate, if you must know, and it was delicious.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll share that recipe with you later this week!

My love-hate relationship with Valentines day

February 14th. It's coming. I should start off by saying that my husband and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day.  We usually get a bottle of wine, but the truth is that we just like wine, and we have it most of the time, not just on February 14th.  It's not that I harbor any bitterness about the day, or that we don't have anything to celebrate.  On the contrary, it seems sort of pointless because we treat each other well and are openly loving pretty much every day, which makes it feel more like an over hyped Hallmark holiday.  Like everyone else, we have our moods and pissy moments and we don't always agree. But generally speaking we are irritatingly happy and in love with each other, 11 years (8 of them married) and 4 kids into the whole thing.  So, to each their own, go crazy celebrating, even tell me all about it the next day.  The whole thing just doesn't do much for me, which in this case is a good thing, I think.

However, as a parent, I love Valentine's Day with the kids.  It means themed crafts, fun food, extra thought into why we love each other and planning valentines for school.  I also HATE it.  But only for the couple of days that I spend prepping all of the supplies for the valentines that they all make for their classmates. It was fun when Cassidy was the only kid in school, and in a small preschool class. We would whip up a dozen valentines, then just bake cookies and tape paper hearts onto the wall. On Valentine's Day, even if Cassidy had preschool, it didn't start until 9am.  We also had not yet discovered her eosinophilic disease triggered by massive a-typical food allergies (more on that in another post), so fun little heart themed breakfasts consisted of bread and jam, Valentine themed "eggs in a window" and as a special treat, fancy marshmallows, and it looked like this:

Pretty cute, huh?  It was certainly enjoyed by all.  Then came last year.  Cassidy was in kindergarten along with something like 24 classmates.  And the twins were in preschool.  They had 10 classmates, for a total class size of 12.  Of course, when it comes to something like making valentines, all of the classmates get one from each of the twins (including each other), and at that age they also like to give one to themselves.  Add it up, people.  24 for Cassidy's class and another 24 for the twins' class, for a total of 48 valentines.  No problem, I think to myself.  Mark is always telling me that it is OK to take a holiday off from all things handmade.  I usually argue that the kids are only this little once, and I really want to do this stuff with them, which is generally true. However, I'm starting to see the light a bit now, faced with 4 dozen valentines, undoubtedly in 3 different styles. So I decide that this year, we'll swing by the drugstore and everyone can pick out a box of valentines. I announce, in my best perky mom voice, "How would you guys like to go to the store with Mommy so that you can pick out valentines for your friends?"

Silence. 3 sets of wide, unblinking eyes. A feeling of confusion hanging in the air. (theirs and mine...)
Then Cassidy, with all of her 6 year old wisdom, speaks up for the group.
"Oh, you mean the crafty store.  Don't we need to decide on a project and make a list first?" This time, the wide eyes and stunned silence are on my end.  I ask her what she means, and her reply is simple.  We all have to decide what kind of valentines we want to make this year. The twins nod in agreement.  Yes, Mommy.  This year, we get to make valentines, too!  I force another perky smile, and explain that with so many valentines needed this year, I thought we could pick out some really cool ones from the store, and I begin to rattle off a list of heavily branded characters that adorn the drugstore valentines.  Mickey Mouse.  Strawberry Shortcake. Hot Wheels. Spiderman.  Hello Kitty.  As I pause to take a breath, I realize that it is way too quiet, with no happy squeals coming from the kids, no excited questions about additional favorite characters and their availability.  I glance up at Cassidy, and see a trembling chin and wide green eyes welling up with tears. "But...we can't make them this year?  We always make them.  Please, mommy?" and then the tears actually start to roll down her cheeks.  Within seconds, the twins follow her lead. I'm completely stuck.  I try to explain that it's the thought that counts, but they aren't buying it.  I cave in, wipe away tears, and we decide on which valentines each child wants to make for their classmates.

Chloe went with flowers, specifically made from 3 hearts held together at the pointy end by a lollipop. Quinn wanted dinosaurs, and we found a cute idea online that had little plastic ones leaving heart shaped footprints. Cassidy, finally allowed to chew gum on rare occasions, was determined to incorporate that into hers, so we made butterflies with a stick of gum for the body and hearts for the wings. I think we found all 3 ideas on the Family Fun website. Please excuse the terrible background.  I originally just took pictures to text message to Grammie and throw up on Facebook for a few friends.

All of them were very cute, and the kids were very happy with them.  They could also pretty much assemble the projects themselves, at least once I did the basic prep work, like cutting out the peices and neatly writing on them  Also, since I refused to pay $7 for a miniscule heart stamp or buy a $20 set of stamps which included a tiny heart, I carved one out of a pencil eraser.  It was really fast and easy, and I'm pretty sure the website that had the project on it suggested the idea.  So overall, a piece of cake, right?  All of you preschool and elementary school teachers out there are laughing out loud at THAT comment, aren't you?

Quinn's each needed 1 heart, Cassidy's needed 2 each and Chloe's needed 3 each, plus a leaf.  Let me save you a little math, folks. That totals 12 leaves and a whopping 96 hearts, all traced onto cardstock around my heart shaped cookie cutter and cut out by hand, one at a time. It took an insane amount of time, and my hand is cramping up just thinking about it.  In a nutshell, it sucked.

I both experiment with and make a living creating many different things in many different mediums.  But I don't scrapbook or do much in the way of paper craft like that.  I like to make my own plantable paper with seeds in it from shredded junk mail, and I occasionally make a card to go with a baby shower gift, but that's about it.  So I didn't own a die cutting machine to streamline the process. I do now.  Not a snazzy, fancy computerized one.  I have a Sizzix Big Kick, and I got it on sale.  I also buy the used dies most of the time on Craigslist or Ebay. But rest assured, this year when V-Day rolled around, I was ready!  I also use it to make pretty felt and satin flower hair accessories, like this:

I'll post a tutorial on making these soon, I promise!

So for Valentine's Day this year, everyone either picked a project or came up with an idea on their own, and I made my crafty store list early.  This year, all 4 kids have school, which means instead of 48, we have 58, and Cassidy really wants to do something for her teachers, including the art, gym, library, music and regular class teachers as well as the school nurse who she sees fairly often these days. She shared this plan with her younger siblings, so now they all jumped on that bandwagon. Add 14 teacher valentine treats to the list.  That damn die cutting machine was worth EVERY PENNY, for this holiday alone.  I used it to prep for 3 sets of valentines and half of the teacher surprises, without a single hand cramp!

Maybe by the time I write my next post with pictures of the valentines for this year, I will have lost some of my disdain for the holiday of love...