A Glimpse Into An 8 Year Olds Birthday Party

I once had a fleeting thought that I would like to start my own business doing children’s birthday parties. After I had planned and thrown a few I thought they were the cutest things in the world! Fast forward to present day; I still absolutely love planning them and hosting them but I am completely over the notion that I would love doing this as a career. With 3 children of my own, I will have plenty of parties to keep me fulfilled!

The thing I think other parents will appreciate about the parties I throw is the fact that I keep things simple and affordable. Last year, the party I threw my daughter cost a total of $18.00 and that included lunch for 13 children. I didn’t keep track this year but I am sure it was right around the same amount.

Today I present to you my daughter Iris’s 8th birthday party:

Iris all ready for the party to begin!

The Theme Requested: Rainbows

The Cake: Rainbow

Rainbow Birthday Cake

This is a 4 layer cake made out of 2 box mixes. One was lemon cake and the other was strawberry. I made lemon curd for in between the layers. This is not necessary. Frosting or jam works just as easy. I knew I would be eating the cake as well and I thought lemon curd would taste heavenly….it did!

Decorations: I save my decorations from year after year so we have quite an assortment. I also usually make one new decoration each year.

This is pictures of Iris birth to present day except I somehow managed to forget age 4!!!

Tableware:

I made new labels for the soda bottles that said “Freshly Squeezed Rainbow Juice.” I thought I was so clever. Unfortunately, 8 year olds are so sophisticated nowadays and didn’t believe it for a minute!

Loot Bags: This is always a great topic of conversation between my friends and I. To loot bag or not to loot bag? This can be very costly even if you are shopping at the Dollar Store. However, I have chosen to go non-traditional routes. I stockpile little things whenever I see them on clearance. Think after holiday super blowouts! This year after Valentine’s Day I found huge packs of little heart boxes that had cute sayings on them like “Forever Friends.”

Games:

Pictionary: I wrote different objects on pieces of paper and each girl had to pick one and let the other girls guess what they were drawing.

playing Pictionary

All About You Memory Game: Girls this age love to talk about themselves (okay, no matter the age, girls love to talk). I asked the girls 6 different questions and they each got to answer the question. After we were done each girl got a piece of paper and had to write down how much they remembered about each person.

The questions I asked were:

Favorite food, Favorite tv show, Favorite color, Favorite place to go, Favorite hobby, Favorite school subject

playing the All About You Memory Game

Telephone: I came up with sentences and would whisper them in one of the girl’s ears. They would then have to pass it down the line and would we see how different it ended up being compared to the original sentence!

playing Telephone

Snatch: I gathered several objects from around the house (spoon, box of jello, pencil, plastic ring etc.). I spilled the contents onto the floor. Each girl took turns taking one object away while the other girls closed their eyes. They then had to guess which item was missing.

playing Snatch

Ha! Ha!: Form a circle. One girl has to say, “Ha!” the next girl has to say, “Ha-Ha.” Repeat this around the circle. The catch is that no one can laugh. If someone laughs that have to get out of the circle and make silly faces or dance around trying to get the other girls still in the circle to laugh!

playing Ha-Ha

After all of the games we had cake:

Singing Happy Birthday!

eating cake

After cake we opened presents:

opening presents

It was a wonderful party and I think all of the girls had fun! Iris said she had an excellent time!

Iris and her brother Bency!

I look like I’m ready for a nap!

Iris trying to steal a Skittle off of her cake!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tissue Paper Party Decorations

Here is a strange and NOT so interesting fact about myself….I have never bought tissue paper in my life! I bet I got your attention now! I bet you’re just dying to know where this is going!!!

Every present my family has ever received that has tissue paper surrounding it; I have immediately taken the tissue paper out and carefully folded it back up nicely and added it to my stash of “used” tissue paper.

I actually have no idea how much tissue paper is going for nowadays but I’m sure I have saved my family a few dollars by doing this!!

Tissue paper is not only good for using on presents but is a great way to wrap breakables when temporarily putting them away.

I have also begun making tissue paper decorations for parties! This past weekend we celebrated my youngest son’s 2^nd birthday party and I made a few for the party we held at our house!

They are very simple to make, only take about 10 minutes per decoration and best of all they are FREE (if you are a tissue paper hoarder like me)!!!

This is not a new concept. My mom remembers making these for her high school prom! Though in the era that we live in where you can find everything readily made we tend to forget that we can make so many things on our own and save a few dollars doing it!

Directions on how to make Tissue Paper Party Decorations

• Layer 9-10 sheets of tissue paper on top of each other. If they are all not the same size, it’s no big deal but does make things a little easier for the next step.
• Begin to fold your stack of tissue paper accordion style in about 2 inch strips. Fold 2 inches one way and then turn to back side and fold 2 inches the other way. Do this all the way across until you have it all folded.
• Pinch the middle with your fingers and secure with a twisty tie or some kind of bendable wire.
• Now very carefully you start fanning out your pieces of tissue paper. Tissue paper is very fragile so gently do this step but if it rips a little, it’s not a big deal. You won’t notice it when it is all poofed out!!
• The final step is just tying a string around the middle and hanging from your ceiling or desired location!

Tissue Paper Ball at Cesar’s birthday party

tissue paper decorations at Iris’s birthday party earlier this year

 

Birthday Decoration Head Shots

On Saturday we celebrated our youngest son, Cesar’s 2^nd birthday! His actual birthday is this coming Thursday!

We had a great party at our house filled with our family and friends. Cesar doesn’t grasp the concept of birthdays yet but he had a blast and was in his element being surrounded by tons of people!

I think birthdays at this age are more for the parents than the kids anyway. It’s a time for us to reflect on the glorious memories that have been made this year and also a time to wipe our brow and say a blessing that we made it through another year of keeping this child safe!

Even though our family loves celebrating birthdays and throwing parties we don’t go “all out.” We keep things simple and keep to a low budget. We don’t do themes we just make things “festive.”

Here is one of the decorations I made for Cesar’s birthday that was simple to make and brought smiles to everyone’s face!

Our dining room wall filled with pictures of Cesar at various stages from the past two years!

To make this I picked some of my favorite photos and cropped and enlarged them to get only his face. I then cut out around his head. Next I took some scrapbook paper and drew and cut out triangles. Lastly I took a strip of tissue paper, scrunched it up and glued it to the bottom of the party hat triangle and then a little piece to the top of the triangle.

That’s it! All twelve heads took me about an hour to make!

A close up of one Cesar’s “heads”

Stay tuned this week for more glimpses into Cesar’s 2^nd birthday bash!!!