I always let my kids choose the theme of their birthday parties (within reason) and Mia decided this year's theme would be "Arts & Crafts", since it's probably her favorite thing to do. Thanks to my sister Jill, and all her help, the party was a success.
Here was the invitation we gave out. My address was on the back.
I just removed the label (using Goo Gone) and mod podged a photoshop label to the glue bottle. Added some ribbon and a tag... voila!
Here are the decorations...
Nothing fancy, but I loved the way it turned out. Even though it was arts and crafts, Mia wanted a lot of pink. So we did pink everything. Here are the instructions for making these awesome pom poms.
pom pom instructions
You always need an activity as the kids arrive. So we decided to have the girls decorate a "birthday crown" for Mia to wear. It's just a big piece of poster board that they had to cut out and decorate.
Ruby was the first guest to arrive, so she got things started.
Reagan is Mia's cousin and she came all the way down from Utah to help Mia have a fun day. Sweet Reagan was a little shy during the party, but she had a good time.
By the time all the girls arrived, Mia had an awesome crown to wear.
The girls made glitter bracelets. I got the instructions from family fun...
It was fun watching the girls pick the beads.
I didn't realize the mess this craft would create. I wish I would have done it outside. But it was nice that we did it on a plastic table cloth. Aunt Jill just folded it up at threw the mess away.
We also made an awesome necklace out of clear decorator stones and scrapbook paper. Here's the tutorial. Glass Bead Necklace Instructions
And I got this great game idea from the "Real Simple" magazine. You just take a paper cup and cut off the bottom. Then you take a balloon, tie the end in a knot (without blowing it up), then cut the top of the balloon off. You stretch the balloon over the bottom of the paper cup. It becomes a really awesome mini marshmallow launcher. So I just bought the pastel colored mini marshmallows and separated them by color. Then I put them in small plastic cups based on their color. The girls separated into teams of 3 (each girl having a different color). Then I placed three bowls at the other end of the room. The big bowl was 1 point, the medium bowl was 5 points, and the small bowl was 10 points (although my sister Jill was in charge of this part and marked them opposite - with the large bowl worth 10 points. What would she do without her big sis to fix things??? ;) JK - Love you Jill!
The top three scores were the winners. They each got to choose a candy bar!
The last craft we did was GOO (kind of like slime). Mia loves this stuff, so we made it even though it's a BIG mess. The things we do for our kids. This we did outside, even though it was about 100 degrees.
Recipe:
Solution # 1
1 8 oz bottle of school glue mixed with 1 cup of water and 7 drops of food coloring
Solution # 2
4 Tbsp Borax laundry booster with 1 1/3 cup warm water
Mix solution 1 in a cup until well blended. Mix solution 2 in a LARGE bowl (see pics below on my inability to read the word "large"). Pour solution 1 into solution 2. remove the gooey mess from the water.
Obviously I should have gotten bigger bowls.
Each batch was different. We had some that worked and some... not so much. It was fun though.
Lunch time. We had Dominoes Pizza delivered for lunch. No brainer!
Mia decided she wanted to open presents before the cake. She just couldn't wait!
She got some seriously awesome gifts and the most adorable cards attached.
Katelyn made Mia a beautiful scrapbook of their 5 year friendship. It took a lot of work and Mia loves it so much. It's hard to believe they've been friends for so long.
All the gifts were so thoughtful.
All the girls freaked out when they saw the American Girl snowboard set that Reagan got Mia. Lots of squealing!
It's tradition to play "heavy heavy hang over thy poor head"
After the presents, the girls watched a 12 minute slide show of Mia's 8 years. I made it on iMovie. I was surprised by how much they enjoyed it.
Mia picked out the cake and we ordered it from Wal-mart. And I must say, It was SOOOO GOOD! We ordered a half sheet chocolate cake with whipped cream icing.
Happy Birthday Mia!
