Jered's 18th BDay

One of my son's turned 18 in Oct. this year and I have been bugging this kid for the last 13 years to let me throw him a Halloween themed birthday party, and he always said no. This year, his girlfriend thought it would be a good idea to have a Halloween themed birthday party...doesn't matter how I got it the point was I got to throw him a Halloween themed birthday party.  Now I had all these plans, and I was going to make so many decorations and goodies, but unfortunately I started back at work Oct 9th...and I couldn't hang.  Although I didn't do all that I wanted to, I think that he had a good time and his friends did too and that's all that matters!  But here is what I managed to accomplish. Most everything I saw on Pinterest so just check out my Pinterest Halloween board if you are interested in doing any of these.

I made little goodie bags shaped like pumpkins.  They were filled with chocolate candies. I didn't hand them out, we just left them on the table since these were big kids  :)

Mummy and eyeball cupcakes.

Finger shaped sugar cookies, don't worry that's not a real one in the middle, it's a prop.

Since I made cupcakes, I went with a small cake.  It's better with the bigger kids, they seem to be messier with cake than cupcakes...go figure.

I made candy holders out of glass candle sticks and glass votive holders I bought at the .$99 store.  I then made faces on my Cricut with vinyl.  Really easy, really fast.  I filled them with the appropriate color candies to represent Frankenstein, ghost, and pumpkin.

I made trophies for the costume contest.  This was a challenge and not as easy as it seemed on Pinterest, of course.

The whole little spread.

Dragon Ball Z Party

I'm back.  I started working and boy is it way harder than I remember.  I could have used a little more time off, but oh well!  Now I'm playing catch up with my blog that I wasn't very good at to begin with and I'm craving that creativity even more :(  Anyway!

It was my son's 9th birthday and he wanted a Dragon Ball Z party.  If anyone is familiar with it, and I doubt it, it's very hard to find anything Dragon Ball Z that doesn't cost you an arm or a leg.  At the time of his party I was still out of work, but already officially hired, so I was (and am) counting pennies.  I decided to make whatever I could.

I started with the goodie boxes.  I used my Cricut cartridge Sweet Tooth Boxes and made these cute little Chinese take out boxes. ( I know it's Japanese, but Origami was to hard!)

The baby blue was for the girls and the purple was for the boys.  My son specifically asked for Gohan, but I thought the girls needed another girl.  I put some fortune cookies, candy, Dragon Ball Z characters I found on ebay, and Dragon Balls in there (bouncy balls)

I tried to make some Dragon Ball cake pops, using dyed white chocolate, but they weren't exactly round. They tasted good and they all got eaten.  I had them as a centerpiece on each table and at the main table.

Next I made some candy sushi.  It's way harder than it looks.  I took the idea from this website, http://pinterest.com/pin/53480314296200758/, but I had to improvise on how I made them.  I ended up just rolling the rice krispie treats with gummy fish inside, cutting in half, then wrapping the fruit roll ups around them.  The kids loved them, a little too sweet for the adults though.

Finally was the cake.  I tried this method of course from Pinterest, http://pinterest.com/pin/53480314295742969/, and it worked wonderfully.  I would recommend it to anyone that is fondant challenged like me.

Here's the overall pic.  I was limited because it was at Pump It Up and they don't let you put anything on the walls or ceilings, so I kept it simple. My son and his friends had a great time and that's all that matters!

Minnie Necklace

I just have to start by saying, why does everything look so easy to do on Pinterest, then when you try it, it's so darn difficult.  Take a simple little thing like a Minnie necklace made from washers.  Should be easy, two small washers for her ears, one for her head.  Modge Podge some scrapbook paper, add string, maybe a bow, easy peasy...not!  Just as an example here is the pic on Pinterest, and the link http://pinterest.com/pin/53480314295662514/

Now here are the pics of my project.

Now I wouldn't call it an epic fail, but it's not where I thought it should be.  It was hard to cut the paper to size, apparently they have many, did I say many, different washer sizes.  Who knew?  Then the Modge Podge didn't work that well to hold the paper or the washers in place.  I needed a stronger glue.  The wire I used was low gauge floral wire, way to hard.  Needed something more bendable.  I ended up using super glue for the bow.  That was the only thing that worked well.  Anyway, birthday girl liked it and that's all that matters.  I'm definitely going to try and try again until I succeed.  Any advice would be much appreciated : )