Thomas the Train and Friends partied at my house

Back in May I was all "Let's make as much stuff for the party as we can!" Remember that? Weren't those good times?

Well I was soon brought back to reality from that when one of the kids came down with a sickness. I was busy cleaning up messes, wiping noses, and making a sicky feel better. And then I had to go back to work and face a mountain of stuff that needed to be completed before June 1.

So we went on down to the good old party store and bought plates, napkins, cups, a table cloth, balloons, and most of the stuff for the goody bags. There was no bunting. There were no "I'm the birthday kid!" badges. And the kids still had a whole lot of fun. So those things didn't matter to them as much as they did to me. Go figure.

But! I did manage to make a few things. So as promised, here are a few of the things I made for the kids' Thomas and Friends birthday party.

Ticket Invitation

As you can see, the invitations were shaped like jumbo sized train tickets. I printed them out to be 3 inches wide by 6 inches long. I was hoping to make them actual ticket size, but when I printed them that small the font size was almost unreadable. I think they still turned out really cool. Definitely something for the scrapbooks!

I got the idea from something similar that I saw for sale online when I was looking up games for the party. Since we were aiming to save money, no one had gotten sick yet, and I'm creative I decided to give the idea a shot before dropping any money on buying some.

Ticket invitation version 2: Not chosen

So I made two variations of the ticket invitation and let the kids pick which they wanted to give to their friends. Both kids picked version one. Can't argue with that.

Next I made some signs. My favorite was the big arrow that said "Party Over Here!"

Hey, I think there's a party...over there

I taped it underneath our street sign and called it good. We needed something to make our road stand out because the street sign is camouflaged by tree shrubs (one is pictured to the right of the signs). It seemed to work--no one had any trouble finding us!

I made another sign with our station name, but didn't get a picture before we took it down. Oops!

The party was supposed to be outside, but it rained all weekend so we had to have it inside instead. I had some pony beads set up on one side of the table, coloring books at the head of the table, and foam visors with stickers for the other side of the table. The kids still ran around in circles but it wasn't until after they made something first. Some of the kids worked, ran, worked some more, and ran some more. I have pictures, but don't want to post them because my kids aren't the only ones in them. Just trying to be courteous to the other parents. The main message of this paragraph is that crafts saved the day and my sanity. Crafts are the freaking best, aren't they?

We ate pizza, cake, and ice cream. Here is the cake:

Please, no one send this picture to Cake Wrecks, m'kay?

After I finished the sillouette part and it still looked like a train, I didn't want to mess it up. Not that anyone would have cared but me. Wouldn't that be some funny gossip to listen in on?

"And you should have seen that train wreck of a train cake she was serving at the party, Becky! It looked like she had her 2 year old ice that cake! Who cares that it was served to 2-5 year olds and was eaten in 10 minutes? Simply unbelievable!"

I know the parents that all came to our party and I don't think for a minute that any of them would say that, but isn't it fun to make fun of our insecurities this way? It's always easy to do after the fact. :)

The last fun thing that we did was get a disposable camera that had Thomas and Friends characters and sayings pre-printed on the photo paper. That way we took a picture of each kid, developed the pictures, and then had photos of the kids with Thomas and Friends characters on them to give away with "Thank You" written on the back. Those were a big hit. I recommend shelling out the extra $20 for that. Totally worth it.

So, yeah, we had fun and ate cake. The kids both got way too many presents. They're lucky kids to have so many people that care about them. Thanks to anybody who is reading that came.

Anyone have any good train party ideas?

Make-up posts

I'm going to be posting more often than usual to make up for the posts I haven't posted this month.

Come back tomorrow for the start of the fun!

Kids Birthday Party Teaser

My kids both have birthdays in the month of May, so we're doing a joint birthday party this year. It's something I said I would never do before I had kids.

But hey, now that I actually have kids and know how reality works, we're going to do it.

To make myself feel a little better, I figure they're still young so they don't care that they have to share. When they're older that may change, but we're taking advantage of this now! I'm thinking the parents of the kids' friends probably appreciate that, too...but I care more about how my kids feel than they do so that's not really a deciding factor more a delightful consequence.

So, we're having the birthday party at our house and it's a Thomas and Friends theme.

I've made the invitations to look like train tickets (pictures coming soon!) and we'll have all sorts of Thomas and Friends decorations. Some will be handmade and others will be purchased. I'm not going to lie about which is which either. :)

More to come soon.... (That's the teaser part of this post. Muahahahahaha!)

Happy Mother's Day!

I have been saving these for Mother's Day so the surprise wouldn't be ruined.

This year was a homemade kind of holiday.

Here are the presents before I wrapped them up:

My mother got her ninjas
(and a picture frame like my grandmother's below)

My grandmother got a picture frame with a picture of the kids and some of the batik fabric that they painted and a necklace with their names in shrink-a-dink. 

Sorry no pictures of the necklace--I made it about an hour before we left for lunch on Sunday. 

And since my sister's birthday is May 10th, I brought presents that I made for her, too!

Mushroom in her favorite color: purple

 

Credit card case made out of the tester batik fabric
(the other one is for me)

Everyone was very happy with their gifts. Surprisingly happy, if you ask me.

Is anyone else ever surprised at the appreciation your family shows about receiving your handmade gifts? I don't know why, but I always doubt my presents until the recipient actually opens them. It's weird. I love getting handmade gifts so why wouldn't I expect others to love getting mine? I don't know, but it makes for some sweaty palms until the gifts are opened! That's for sure.

How did you show your mother how much you love her?

More babies? More mushrooms.

There were a pair of babies born into our circle of friends and another friend's child turned 2 years old in the last couple of weeks. So I went to my go-to young child design and personal favorite: The mushroom.

Have you made anything fun lately?