Let me start by saying, even though I put a lot of time and effort into this party I still didn't get even half of the things I wanted done for it in time........ I ended up scrapping a bunch of ideas, one of which was the adorable Happy Birthday banner than was halfway finished. Sad. :-( I guess I really need to work on my time management skills if I want to make this into a business...... Anyway, here we go............
When I decided to do a Ladybug theme I had a
brilliant idea to make the invitation into a Ladybug......... apparently I am not the only person to have this idea since there are about 15 other ladybug invites I found online. I scraplifted some ideas from different ones that I liked, then threw in some of my own ideas, and ended up with this.
***Edited to add: These LadyBug Invitations
are now for sale in my
ETSY shop!!***
I wanted the invitation to be square, not ladybug shaped, but just sticking the ladybug onto paper didn't appeal to me, so I added a cute punched border. The wings are hinged with brads to open and close. They are embossed with a raised swirl design and I made the black dots with black embossing powder on cardstock cut into circles so they are really shiny and
plastic-y. I don't think that's a word....lol!
I found the clever wording somewhere and thought it was adorable so I just customized it to fit our party. If you click on the picture it will take you to the pic where you can see it larger.
Had to have googly eyes of course, and I added the beaded antennae strung onto wire so they are moveable. The invites were just so fun and interactive that several of the little girls loved playing with it!
This is just too cute not to share, my friend wrote this to me......
"Sophie and I will be at the party for sure. She can't wait. She was showing Claire
(1 month old baby) the invitation telling her that she gets to go to a party and Claire was following the invitation with her eyes. I guess she likes the black and red and white. Anyways, now whenever Claire cries, Sophie runs to get the invitation to make her stop crying. It's pretty cute!"
So Sweet! Moving on.........
*WARNING!* Like all my other party posts, this one has over 30 pictures....heehee.
I made little tutus, wings, and headband antennae for all the children to wear. It was soooo cute!
Once again, I didn't have a photographer.... so this picture was taken after most the kids had already arrived. When you walk into the house, I had the tutus lined up on the edge of a table with the wings and headbands lined up on top. I made 12 sets of wings, 8 tutus (for only the girls), and 15 headbands. As the kids arrived I dressed them all up by the door and they went off to run around with the other ladybugs. If anyone is interested, here's the links for instructions to make the tutus and wings.
Wings,
Tutus,
Ribbon,
Cutting Tulle
I only had one game for them planned, it worked out since they were going to have dinner there wasn't a lot of time for games. We had two Elefun games going at the same time. The Elephant blows a puff of air and some little butterfly thingy's fly out of this long plastic trunk. Then the kids run around catching them in their nets. It was chaotic, but fun.
Of course you also have to pick them up and put them back in the elephant to keep the game going lol!
There was also a bunch of toys around the kids played with.
At the beginning of the party this part of the ceiling was COVERED in ballons. But, the kids were having a great time trying to get them down, so it looked like this by the time I got a picture of it.
For dinner we made Spaghetti and Meatballs with Garlic Bread for everyone, kids and parents too! I figured at least if they got messy it wouldn't show on their red and black clothes! Lol! :-) I put some black spots
(made with vinyl) on the glass pitcher that had red Kool-Aid in it and on all the children's cups.
By the way, my husband cooked the dinner! He was such a big help doing that for me!!
There wasn't a lot of candy or treats, since most of the kids were under 3 and I figured with dinner and cake and ice cream we didn't need a lot of sweets. So there was cake, cupcakes, and cookies. That's it.
I tried my hand at making a ladybug shaped cake. Not too bad I think... Nothing glamorous or anything, but turned out cute.
Ethan was so sweet helping EmmaLee blow out the candles and clapping for her! Then chowing down on some cake!
EmmaLee got cold in her short sleeve shirt so we borrowed a sweater
(which kills me that it doesn't match) while she was opening some presents. Plus it was sad that it covered up the shirt I made for her in all these photos.
Oh yeah, I made her a "6" shirt. I used a scrap of the shiny red fabric I used for the wing elastics and table cover. I just printed out a 6 from my computer (reversed) and glued it to the back of some fusible heat and bond. Then ironed the heat and bond to the back of the red fabric. Cut out the number, peeled off the backing of the heat and bond, then ironed it onto the shirt. I wanted to sew around the number so it didn't start to peel off while she wore it but since the shirt was cotton I was afraid it would stretch weird in my sewing machine. I just ironed some interfacing to the inside of the shirt before sewing and it worked perfectly!
I asked my artistic friend Carolyn
(black and pink baby shower) to make a cardboard mushroom for me to use as a prop and portrait background. She did an amazing job!
I had Tyson attach some boards to it so it would stand up on its own, but I made sure to crop the boards out of most the photos. The grassy background is a roll of paper I bought at Michaels. Who knew they had stuff like that there!!?
You can see the roll of paper in the photo below.
And, lastly here are some of the cute portraits I got. I'm no photographer.... so if you know of someone who will do it for me for a future event
(cheap), I would love to hear! But... I can't afford $50 for someone to take pictures for 30 minutes.... That's like paying $100/ hour! It seems that's the going rate right now for an amateur photographer. Which is a killer deal for family portraits, or baby photos, or whatever.... but a little over my current party budget. :-( Maybe once I get an actual paying gig........ Did I just say "gig"?!!! HaHa!
Sadly, I didn't have time to make my signature "matching shirt", which is something I want to do so I will coordinate with my party's theme. So I'm in red and black.
Thanks for looking! Hope you liked my party! Pass along my info if you know someone who wants help throwing a party!! I really need some clients! Lol!
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