Clown Cuties

My daughter's 3rd birthday is in March and we are having a BIG party!

A circus themed birthday party!!!

We will be having two clowns, a bounce house, hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, a chocolate fountain, and an endless amount of sweets:)

Since we are having about 70 people the food and entertainment has taken a big chunk out of our budget so I have had to come up with budget friendly ideas and doing a lot of diy projects to make her birthday memorable and adorable.

I went with vintage circus inspired colors like light pink, red and aqua.

I made the invitations, cupcake toppers, banners and food labels and some decorations myself using a digital paper and clip art set from Cupcake Cutiees Designs

I also made some little clown cuties to decorate with.
Here is what you need:
some 12x12 scrapbook paper in your choice of colors (cut in 4s)
dowel rods or skewers
a package of Styrofoam balls (you can make the clowns as little or as big as you like)
red poms
and hot glue

First you are going to fold the paper accordion style (remember cut the paper in 4s so you will have 4 small squares)

Then cut in half

Fold both pieces in half

Glue together sides then both pieces together

Then, put a dowel through the center space, you have now made the clown's collar.

Now all you need to do is put some hot glue on the paper close to the rod and push the Styrofoam ball on the dowel. The glue will help both the collar and ball stay in place (careful not to push the dowel all the way through the ball)
Lastly glue on a little red pom nose and you are done!

I made little party hats to go on top of my clown's heads, but you could decorate them anyway you like. Hair, eyeballs and even a little mouth would be cute! You could put them on pop sticks for cupcake toppers or just use them as decorations like me.
You could even make them big for table decor or even centerpieces.
Have fun!

Jaelyn's 1st birthday party

My daughter's first birthday party was a cupcake themed party.

I found some cute cupcake wrapping paper and taped it to the wall for an instant back ground for her 1st birthday photo.

I removed all the furniture from my formal living room and rented some tables and chairs for lots of seating:)

I also made pom poms in different pinks using $1.00 tissue paper from Walmart and hung them from the ceiling. Cute and affordable decorations.

The centerpieces were just Terra Cotta pots from my local craft store filled with pink carnations made to look like cupcakes. Then I found these $1.00 cupcake marshmallow pops I just couldn't pass up!

The banner I made just using coordinating card stock, ribbon, letter stencils and lots and lots of cutting and gluing.

Even the chandy got a little bit of sprucing up with some pink beads:)

I wanted her high chair to be something special for her so I made a tutu for the front of it using tulle and elastic and found a cupcake chair cover from http://www.abcdistributing.com/. I added some balloons and it turned out great!

I made a cupcake using Styrofoam wrapped in ribbon and cake boards top with cupcake wrapping paper. Made a tutu for the bottom tier and added store bought cupcakes.

The goody bags were just simple pink bags and I added a cupcake sticker to go with the theme and also found cupcake tissue paper in the dollar bins at Target.

I knew she would not remember any of her party so I spent as little as I possibly could by doing most of everything myself. It made the party that much more special for me because I knew a lot of heart and love went into it. When I show her pictures in the future I am sure she will appreciate everything I did:)

Have a great day:)

Party Planning

I suffer from "fundsarelow" disease so planning my little one's birthday parties can be pretty tough. I love throwing parties but with a family of 40 people they can become quite pricey. I have them here at my house for the simple fact that it's free, but it can get crowded really fast. I think next year I will be having my daughter's birthday at the park. She LOVES Spongebob right now so I am planning on having her a "Spongebob in a tutu" themed birthday party. There was an episode where Spongebob and Patrick visited a new toy store that just opened up. Spongebob tried on a tutu and Patrick asked him, "Spongebob, why are you wearing a tutu?" Spongebob replied, "It's not a tutu, Patrick, It's a mantu. With extra support."  I felt that having a little girly girl, who loves the color pink, it was appropriate to go with that theme. Here are a few tips to keep birthday parties cute and with a tight budget.

Invites: Make your own!! they almost always get thrown away so might as well make them as super cheap as you can. Noone will care! I admit I don't save invites unless there is a photo of the birthday person.

You can make some cute ones with cardstock and your own computer just be creative:)

Food: For my daughter's birthday we will just grill hamburgers and hotdogs (Krabby Patties and Salty Dogs) it goes so well with the theme.

Decoration: I like to go through the dollar bins at Target they always have great stuff for decorations or goody bags. The kiddos will be walking away with some cute butterfly nets (jellyfishing nets).

I also like to save money by pairing a theme dessert plate with a regular plate and solid color napkins in your matching party colors.

Spongebob dessert plates with regular pink ones

and a mix of pink and yellow napkins.

Serve cupcakes on this cute Spongebob cupcake stand

You can make your own or just buy some from Walmart (only $5.00/dozen) the buttercream ones are really good:)

To go along with the theme let the kids take home their very own "Pineapple under the sea".

I found these super cute Pineapple Cups

Another theme to try is Scooby Doo he seems to be big with the little ones right now.

Scooby plates

You can serve sub sandwiches since he is always eating them on the show and for a fun treat serve bone shaped Scooby snacks (you can find them at grocery stores, they are basically graham crackers shaped like bones) inside dollar store dog bowls.

The kiddos will get a kick out of that! and no Scooby Doo birthday is complete without these adorable

Dog noses

Have fun planning your next party!