PIE BAR

Looking for a great idea for a sweet treat for you'r next party...
How about a Pie Bar?

I did this for my son's last birthday party and it was a big hit with the kids!

It's pretty easy to put together. Here's what you'll need:

• Mini pie shells - you can get them pre-made or make them yourself. I used mini foil pie pans and a basic graham pie crust recipe. 

• Pie filling - snack size pudding cups, they come in a variety of flavors. I had several different flavors so l used a permanent marker to write the flavor on each pudding cup.

• Whipped cream - you can use the ready made one in a can. I used the kind you whip up with an electric mixer,  I find it holds up better if it's not refrigerated (but keep it in the fridge until you are ready to use it). 

• Toppings - Let your imagination run wild! I used oreo crumbs, mini reeses pieces, mini gummy bears, chopped peanut pieces, toasted coconut and chocolate candy. You can use any toppings you like. You also change it up the to match the season (i.e. candy corn at Halloween or crushed candy canes at Christmas)

 Set everything out and let you guests create their own custom dessert.

REGATTA LAYOUT

This is a layout I did of my son and I while we were on one of the rides at Legoland.

I used the REGATTA paper pack and compliments from CLOSE TO MY HEART.

I also used die cuts from the Cricut cartridge Life is a Beach.

Colors used: Glacier, Pomegranate and Sapphire from CTMH

"Boating School" Using CTMH Regatta Paper

BOTTLE CAPS

These fun little crafts can be use in a variety of ways! You can turn them into necklaces, bracelets or earrings. They can also be use as a keychain or zipper-pull. They can be customized with any image you like. Super heros, favorite character, a name, a team or even a photo. The internet is full of free printable bottle cap images! I used Pokémon images for mine.

 

Pokémon Bottle Caps with a Lanyard Clip

 

You will need the following supplies:

• Bottle caps - I got mine at Michaels with the holes already punched or you can get them from a store that sell beer making supplies
• Jump rings
• Lanyard clips (or chain if you will be making it into a necklace
• 1" round images
• 1 inch Circle Punch (or a pair of scissors and a steady hand!)
• Pliers
• Bottle cap hole punch OR a hammer and nail.
• Mod Podge or similar. I used Close to My Heart Liquid Glass
• Ink and Sponge Daubers - Optional

 

1. If your bottle cap does not already have a hole, you will need to make one. This is where you will attach the jump ring so you can then add a clip or chain. You can make the hole be either using a bottle cap hole punch - yes it does exist. The other method is to use a hammer and a tiny nail. I found the hammer and nail method left sharp edges around the hole, so I gave it a few gentle taps with the hammer to flatten the sharp edges.
2. Next get your images ready. You will need to cut them out with a 1 inch circle punch or use scissors. The ones show in the above photo had a white background, so before I cut them out I inked around the edge of each image with a coordinating Ink color using a Sponge Dauber. I matched the colors pretty closely to the color of the Pokémon so I didn't have to worry too much about smudging. You can see this in the photo below.
3. Using a tiny amount of Liquid Glass attach the image to the bottle cap. Make sure the hole is lined up on the top of the image. Then flood the image with Liquid Glass making sure it doesn't spill out through the hole. I left them to dry overnight.
4. Once the Liquid Glass is completely dry you can attach a jump ring and lanyard clip or chain. You can also add a magnet to the back (just skip step #1)

Supplies used to make Bottle Caps

POKEMON PARTY

 

     Gotta catch 'em all!

 

My youngest son Chase, recently turned 10. Oh, where does the time go? We chose Pokémon as the theme for his birthday party. I had a lot of fun planning this party...my oldest son, Kyle, told me I was having too much fun!

We agreed on the general design of the cake with a Pokeball and Minun & Plusle. The night before I was to make the cake, Chase informed me that he also wanted Piplup on the cake...what's another 1 - 2 hours making another fondant figure!

I love the Pokémon birthday banner I was able to print off along with a bunch of other free printables from Halegrafx.com 

   





What's a party without food!

I got the idea to make food labels from Pinterest, and then spent way too much time searching the Pokedex to come up with new ones. They are a little hard to read in the photos, but the drinks were:

Buizel Beer (Root Beer), Jolteon Juice (Peach Fruite), Squirtle Spit (Blue Hawaiian Punch), and of course the non-sugary option of water, aka Horsea H2O.

Water Melon was called Maganium Melon. We also had Charmander Chips (Doritos), Charizard's Fire Balls (Cheese Balls) and Cinccino Chips (Potato Chips).

Instead of awarding prizes after each game, the kids would have to collect badges to get a prize. I found free printables for the Pokémon labels and badges. The containers were from the dollar store. I attached a Pokémon label to the top and printed the kids names (in a pokemon font of course) onto labels and attached them to the front. For each game we played the kids earned badges and keep them in their containers. At the end of the party we tallied the badges and awarded prizes. The kids with the most badges picked first, we keep going until all prizes were handed out.

 

 

 

The kids really enjoyed the Pokémon Scavenger Hunt! I printed out a bunch of Pokémon images, as well as a list of all of the Pokémon that were hiding in our yard. Each party guest was given a list of the Pokémon and sent off to find them. The first person to find all 18 Pokémon was the winner.

 

Gotta Catch 'em all!

Piplup at the
Bird Feeder



Caterpie in the
Veggie Garden

Snivy hiding in the grass






It does get quite warm when your having a backyard birthday in mid-June, so to keep the kids form overheating, we gave them the option to spend some time inside the house where we had the AC blasting. I printed off some Pokémon activity sheets form various websites as well as some paper fortune tellers. I also printed some blank Pokémon cards and pre-cut them so the kids could design their own Pokémon Cards.

 

 

For some of the other games we played, I went back to the classics and to some of the party games we played when I was a kid.

We played "Pass the Pokeball". The game of "Pass the Parcel" with a Pokémon twist.

We did the "Exeggcute Egg Run" Basically an egg and spoon race.

One game that was more popular than I expected was the Potato Sack Race! We had 12 kids and 6 sacks, so we paired them into teams of 2 a did a relay style. They had a blast!

 

The last event of the day (before we tallied the badges and awarded prizes) was the Balloon Pop! I blew up about 20 balloons and placed Pokémon arm bands inside 4 of the balloons. We emptied the huge bag of balloons and let the kids pop them. The kids who found the arm bands got to keep the arm band and also got some extra badges. 

 

 

 

I thing I really enjoyed making was the Bottle Cap Tags that I put into the loot bags. I found some free printable bottle cap images and I also created some of my own. The ones I made were a bit boring with the white background so I use my Close to my Heart inks and sponge daubers to ink the backgrounds. They turned out really well! I also used CTMH Liquid glass to seal the images.

 

 

The Pokémon party was a success! I had a lot of fun planning it, and it did take a bit of effort to put together, but most importantly, Chase had a great 10th birthday party!