Anatomy of a Rock Star Birthday Party: The final showdown

Autumn's Big Bash has been quite an event to plan and carry out. Now that it's over I can safely say we will NEVER do that again. It was SO HOT, way too hot to have a Costume Contest and a bunch of kids in and out of the house. From now on Autumn has 2 choices: Have the party at the beach or have it during the school year when it's cooler.

Pick and water bottle stickers, made in Picnik and printed on full sheet sticker paper

The Rock Star theme was a good one, I loved all her ideas, but having a birthday during the summer is hard. Anyone who has ever tried to coordinate vacation schedules with a dozen or so families can attest to the craziness, and hurt feelings that can occur. Most of the kids invited were at family reunions or vacationing out of state. We definitely has a good crew, and everyone had fun, which is really the most important thing.

Sunday Bar and Cake Pops

Some of our FAIL craft:

One of our activities was to have the guests all make their own rock star cuffs. Autumn loved the idea, and our prototype came out quite good. In the end it just seemed like 2 much hassle with everything else going on and our last minute venue change (oh yes, the heat was TOO much and we decided we needed a sprinkler, so in true rocker style we had a last minute venue change to Mema's house).

These cute little guitars were going to be sacks of candy, the paper bag patterns came out pretty good, but they never made their way to the stage due to costuming difficulties, we just didn't have the time to decorate them up and sew them all. Autumn designed them all herself, I LOVE the pac man one, it may still have a use someday...

To recap, the even was a success, just not the way we had planned, and that's ok. The venue change made the fact that the band cancelled great, because we wouldn't have had space for them. Mema busted out some fun water ball nerf thingies and the kids spent so much time chucking them at each other to cool off, they didn't notice there wasn't a cuff making activity.

If you missed the DIY stuff, you can find the invites HERE, Backstage passes HERE and an Impatient Crafter's Rocker Banner HERE. ENJOY!

July 24, 1999

"I'm so happy you are alive"
THAT is what Happy Birthday means.

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, beautiful, talented, funny, courageous, fantastic, silly, wonderful girl of mine.

I'm so happy to have loved you the past 12 years.
I'm so happy to know there will be many, many more.

Some shots from the Rock Star Birthday Party:

Strutting her stuff for the Costume Contest Judges

 Cooling off with her sister (it was about a billion degrees in the shade)

 Auntie Dolci doing make up for all the guests (including Dolci's boyfriend who was such a good sport about letting the 12 year old girls dress him up)

Posing and showing off the Rock Star Cuff bracelet she we made (more on this later)

Dear Autumn,

I see you changing every time I blink. You get taller, smarter, funnier. I know that we may fight a little more than we used too, but Mema says that is what moms and tweenage girls do. Since she has had 2 girls, and you are my first tween I believe her. I love you so very much, even when we disagree. I see you putting your mark on this world is powerful and positive ways every day. I am so proud. I hope that even though I know you have lost a lot of your innocence, that you will still believe in magic forever, still be amazed at the stars and always reach for them.

Thank you for making my life interesting :)
Thank you for making my life great.

Thank you for being you,
LOVE,
Mom

Birthday Party Madness!

I am throwing a birthday party today.

For a 12 year old GIRL.
That means there will be MULTIPLE 12 year old girls running amok for 3 WHOLE HOURS.

It's about 90 million degrees outside.
We do not have air conditioning.

If I don't melt or go crazy I will be back on Monday with pictures and the last of our Anatomy of a Rock Star Birthday Party tutorials (see here and here)

Wish me luck!

(PS. Just an FYI, the FHF Linky is still open if you have a post to link up!)

Anatomy of a Rock Star Birthday Party Part 2: Table Banner

I am constantly reminding myself through this process that THESE THINGS WILL NEVER BE USED AGAIN. The best advise I can give someone (not that you asked) when making DIY stuff for kids is to remember that more often than not whatever you are making is going in the trash within 48 hours. Party favors, decorations, invitations all these things are likely not gong to be saved. Don't kill yourself spending tons of money, or countless hours creating something amazing unless you plan to use it again.

This is why I LOVE impatient crafting. This banner took all of 20 minutes, I used the leftover material from the blanket I made for Autumn a few months ago, this way if she wants to hang it in her room later it will match.

We plan to add this to the end of the picnic table where the kids will eat.

What we did:

1. Cut a triangle from an old paper bag to use as a guide (the paper bag is becoming some patterns for another cool project).
2. Fold over your material so you have a double thickness
3. Cut a bunch of triangles
I used 2 types of material so that we could alternate

4. Grab some ribbon and sew the triangles onto it using a zig zag stitch
I layered the 2 pieces of triangle like a sandwich around the ribbon

5. Create loops for the end and stitch into the last triangle on each side.

Some Notes:
- It took about 1/2 a yard total material
- The black loops were made out of the hang strings to a dress - you know when you buy a strapless dress there are thos annoying strings you cut off? Yeah, those. (I save everything, I swear I'm not a hoarder)
- Autumn ties some sparkly ribbon between the triangles and frayed the edges of each one to make it look 'Rock Star-ish'

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Anatomy of a Rock Star Birthday Party Part 1: Creating Backstage Passes

We finally finished our backstage passes for Autumn's Big Bash.

YES, I am fully aware the party is in 3 days, I am a bit of a procrastinator (ie. invitations the night before she needed to give them out). In the next few days we will be crafting up a few more things, so stay tuned.

This is the one we printed for her party guests:

Since we created them as a .jpg file we could add them to a word document to print them 4 up on the page and get them any size we wanted. If you want to use our design, click the one below you will be taken to the BLANK version (it doesn't have the word bubbles). I WILL be posting our other creations for you to add to this if you want to create a whole party.

If you have never used Picnik before NOW IS THE TIME. It's free, easy and fun. I created the background using a mix of Picnik, Paint and Word (2007 version). Instructions on making this background from scratch (so you can add your own photo instead of using mine) are HERE. It was a drawn out process, if you have Photoshop (which I currently do not on my laptop), you could probably whip this up a lot easier. The instructions are easy to follow but it took us about an hour to get all the pieces together.

What to do (using Picnik):
1. Save the .jpg file to your desktop and open Picnik.
2. Upload the photo and click the 'create' button
3. Choose 'Add Text' from the tool bar along the top
4. Add the date of your party in the white space and whatever other words you want
5. Choose 'Save and Share', save the updated file to your desktop
6. Arrange, print and then have your child sign the white space at the top (unless you added their name using Picnik earlier)
7. You can laminate them and punch holes to add a ribbon or lanyard, or if you want to get really fancy you can get some badge holders at Staples or Walmart to slide them in.

Now if you are an impatient crafter like me, you can always just print them as is and write the date in. Done and done.