{Tutorial} Birthday Party DIY + TEMPLATE!

My family went on our annual Beach Vacation last week and it completely wore us out.  (Why do vacations do that? Just make you exhausted instead of re-energizing you??)

This is the beach where we were - totally beautiful?! Seriously - BEAUTIFUL!

Anyway, we came home on a Saturday, and baby sweet niece's birthday was the following Sunday.  And she wanted a Hello Kitty party. And we had not planned on this.

Knowing her full-scale party would be the next Saturday and it was rainbow themed, I figured I could make a run to the local dollar store and turn their supplies into Hello Kitty supplies with a little work.

I purchased:
2 accordion tissue flower decorations
1 pack of (3) hanging flower decorations
1 piece of posterboard
1 bunch of bright pink carnations
1 pk of (8) party hats
1 pk of party plates
1 pk of party napkins
1 set of HK sugar cupcake toppers
*** See Template at the bottom of the post! ***

Sweet Niece sporting her HK Party Hat!

The plain but brightly colored party hats came from Wal-Mart. Less than $2 I think. I made a template of a small HK head first, then a bow template.  I laid the bow where I thought it looked best and then made another template that included the edges of the bow on her right ear.  This will give you a place to color your bow and not have to glue a bow on.  It will be part of your template for each HK head.  I place the template face down on the backside of the posterboard, traced and cut it out. Then I used my bow template to lightly sketch in my bow on the front side so I could then color it in with markers.  Add some black ovals for eyes, a yellow oval for a nose (I outlined my nose in orange) and a few whiskers on each side and you are done! 

Once the marker dried, I put rubber cement on the back of the HK heads and on the front of the party hats, let it dry and then press together.  Dried rubber cement is one heck of a hold, so don't think you'll be pulling it off and re-positioning it - oh no, my friend. It's stuck. 

The hats are what people have loved the most. 

These decorations were from the Dollar Tree.  The blue and green tissue flowers were a dollar each. The three posterboard flowers with tinsel and dangling decorations were all three for a dollar.  So that's a total of three dollars hanging up there (no bad!!). 

The tissue decorations came with a flower you were supposed to put in the middle with a cardboard stick that would run in the middle of this poof thing. But I didn't want a flower - I wanted a HK head. Once again, using posterboard I made a larger HK head template, traced and cut.  Colored.  Used a drinking straw that I cut about an inch down the length in four places to splay out like four arms.  I taped this to the back of the HK head, leaving about 2 inches sticking up and one inch taped to the head.  The sticking up part went into the center of the tissue decoration, which let the HK head be flush against the tissue flower.  I have a feeling this isn't making sense, let me take a pic and show you really quick. 

Does that make more sense now? This nub sticking up will go in the middle of the tissue decoration. 

 The flat flowers had pictures of flowers drawn onto them.  That was so easy to cover up by gluing an HK head right over, making sure I covered up all the flower petals.  The dangling butterflies and lady bugs matched the plates and napkins I picked up at the dollar store, so I left those on.  

I did try to make a mask with white felt, glued to a party hat, but it didn't start low enough down her face.  She ended up looking like a cat unicorn. Cute idea, but not executed well. So that decor was a party #fail. But I still like this cute picture. :) 

Lastly, I used another drinking straw and two HK heads, glued together back to back with the straw in the middle to go inside the flower arrangement.  I found the carnations in bright pink, pink, and white for $5 at Wal-Mart. Mom snipped a few flowers from her yard that perfectly match and added to it (Daisies, Queen Anne's Lace and Cone Flowers).  Sweet Niece enjoyed spotting HK in the middle of the flowers. :) 

I didn't take a pic of the store bought cupcakes and the sugar cupcake toppers, but that wrapped up the HK madness. She loved it, I loved making her happy, and there was just enough HK to make it feel like we planned it all that way. :)  Hope this might spark some ideas for your own DIY birthday! :)

OK - Because I know folks want a template for Hello Kitty heads and bows, I'm including one here!  Feel free to download this picture, and do with it what you will.  I left the nose and bow uncolored for you to fill it in.  Or, use the bow image for a little "Pin the bow on the kitty."  Feel free to share what you make with me - I would love to see it (and feature it here!)  beth.covington at gmail.com 

{Tutorial} Toddler Fishing Game + Template

My niece turned two this month.  I'll have another post with more pictures, but today I wanted to share this new toddler game we created.  (I'm sure it isn't NEW but it was new to us.) We wanted to have a fishing game - you know the one with the cardboard and someone hides behind it and the kids toss their lines over the cardboard to get a surprise. I was not wanting to figure out how to hide behind cardboard, etc etc. SO... This is what we came up with instead. 

Toddler Fishing Game

1 kiddie pool (ours is from Wal-Mart)

1 blue plastic table cloth from the dollar store

multiple colors of paper (construction paper, scrapbook paper, whatever)

scissors to cut out fish

round stickers for fish eyes

markers to decorate fish

paper clips 

a fishing pole of some sort

string

magnet - strong one

pipe cleaner

hot glue

We purchased a kiddie pool from Wal-Mart, a blue plastic tablecloth from the dollar store and made "water" in the bottom of the pool. Using multi-colored pack of scrapbook paper, we made fish (I'm including a fish pattern if you want it) and drew some fish details and round sticker (eye) on each one. Added a paper clip to each fish nose. 

For a fishing rod we happened to have an unopened toddler one.  Threaded some of that baker's twine or whatever string you got on hand.  Used a pipe cleaner for a "hook" and glued a super strong magnet to the very bottom of the hook.  There you go! Time for some FISHING! As each kid caught a fish, they received a prize, which became their goody bags. We had two, three and four year olds and they all enjoyed fishing, with or without prizes.  They just liked fishing!

To use these patterns, just print it out so it fits on one half size of paper. Fold your paper in half, and you can cut out two at once!   The plain one is if you want to jazz it up yourself. The decorated one is how we made ours look.  Somewhere near the smile is where we put our paper clips. 

So there you go! It was really easy and the kids loved it. Everyone caught fish with no problems thanks to a pretty strong magnet.  What do you think? If you try it, let me know how it works out for you, or how you tweaked it! I'd love to hear! :) 

{Tutorial} Sock Hop Party! + Template

Ya'll know I have two blogs - a personal one and this - the Pressed Clovers one.  I like to put all my fun crafty things here, so if you are looking for fun crafty things, you can just keep scrolling through the pages and won't be bogged down with photos from my family and friends.

This post is THE MOST visited post on my personal blog.  The Sock Hop Party. When my sister and I wanted to do this theme we knew we had a lot of space to cover and not a lot of money.  With lots of online research for ideas, this is what we came up with, which was very budget friendly.  I hope you can use it for your own party and please share your ideas with me! Well do it again one day and I'd love to have your feedback and input. :)

Enjoy the Sock Hop Party and have a great weekend!

Sock Hop Party Ideas

When my sister and I decided to decorate for my Mom's 60th birthday party, we really wanted to do the "Sock Hop" theme.  We were, however, flat broke and couldn't spend insane amounts of money on decorations. Therefore, a little creativity came into play. :)

After searching and Pinning my ideas and thoughts, I came up with centerpieces, a birthday sign and a focal point for very little money.  Work - yes. But I can handle work.

** NOTE ** please use these idesa and abuse these ideas! I'm loading them here for you to steal and improve and enjoy! This way YOU aren't starting from scratch like I did! :)

1)  The centerpieces.  I found this picture online of records stacked up with a dancing couple on top. Loved it!


Surely I can re-create this, right?  Indeed, I can. And I did. I used one real record, purchased at a thrift store, for each centerpiece. If I would have had more time, I'm sure I could have stacked.

But anyway, I covered the labels using circles that I cut out from blue poster board. I used superglue to attach the circles to the records.

I also used spray glue and gold glitter to jazz it up, but that was a mess, smelly and a pain. I don't recommend it.

The templates for the people are below. I used their people for a guideline and tweaked it into what I liked just a bit better. Each person took up one piece of 8.5" x 11" paper.  Then I traced it onto a flat box top to use as a template, placing their hands close together, like they were holding hands.  My template piece combined the two people into one solid piece, joined at the hands.  When you print these out and cut them out, you will need to flip one over, so they are facing.  I could get three couples out of one piece of black poster board, thanks to the sticker that I couldn't remove on each piece (otherwise, I could have gotten four). GRRRrrr....

A little note about black poster board - when you cut it, depending on how you cut, there is a white outline on one side of the poster board. This didn't bother me, however, if you are a perfectionist, I'm giving you forewarning.

The long tabs are where you will bend the paper and glue it to the record. (This is where the glitter caused havoc, making my people not want to stick to the record.) I also used superglue for this. I spread their legs apart a ways to help steady them on the record.  I also tied a piece of pink ribbon around her ponytail for cuteness.  My picture is on this page... one that I didn't glitter. I do recommend waiting until you get to your location to do this, because it is very hard to travel with these.

Don't make fun of my shoes and say it looks like a drunken monkey did it. I couldn't see their feet on the example, so ... yeah. Just make yours look better, ok?

I also used this same template and a projector to make life-sized people.  Instead of carting the fridge box everywhere, I taped wrapping paper to the wall with the white side up and copied the people onto that as a template. The girl requires two strips of wrapping paper because of her skirt. Then we traced it onto the cardboard and used an exacto knife to cut. When it got dull, we used an old bread knife, which worked pretty good!  Instead of tabs on their feet, I just made them into a large rectangle at the very bottom, so I could glue/tape a box to the bottom for steadiness.  It worked great. We did have to put a brick in one box, but that was pretty much it. For the girl, just to make sure she was ok, I used a piece of cheap pipe from Lowe's and taped it up her back. This was cheaper than dowel rods.  I also bought some yard sticks for .69, but didn't end up using them. Of course, you need to spray paint your people.  I also used a scarf to tie around her ponytail. Here is the entire focal point section below.

The checkerboard backdrop was purchased at Party City, 40 feet for $20.  I didn't use all of it. (The green you see is a chalkboard - our event was held at an old school/now community center). The "records" were huge pieces of round cardboard that I got from work. But with some spray paint and labels from poster board added, they made a great decoration. Superglue didn't work well for paper-to-paper, so hot glue and spray glue was used. The Rock and Roll sign was part of a set of "Scene Setters" at Party City, which included a huge jukebox, 2 guitars (which I didn't use) and the Rock and Roll sign.  The jukebox is at the far side of the stage, but I didn't get a picture of it. Sorry!

For the Happy Birthday banner, I did buy a "make it yourself" type of banner at Party City, so I would have the vinyl background and sticker letters.  Then I used black poster board to make records and orange paper for the labels, so Mom's name would stand out.  So it wasn't quite as cool at my original idea (see below) but it was an acceptable substitute on short time.  Another thing that you want to finish assembling at your venue.

The original idea...



My substitution

I found this great decoration idea somewhere that was a clock/record that had this "Rock Around the Clock" theme. I had to have it. But not at that price.  So, with another piece of round cardboard, I tried to be creative and do a shortcut. I glued a black plastic tablecloth to the circle.  Just don't do that. It's wrinkly and messy.  Spray paint instead. Oh well, live and learn.  However, I found these record plates at Party City on sale!!! Small ones and big ones, which was perfect! More blue poster board and some hot glue and we have our very own Rock Around the Clock theme!  Again - finish it at the venue. This was a very last minute thing, so make yours look better, ok?

Their clock

My clock

In honor of mom, we did a photo collage of pictures throughout the years.  Added a record from poster board from the top with the words, "Barbara's Greatest Hits" on the label.  This cardboard came to our office with posters inside, so it was a solid back and the two sides folded to meet in the front. Perfect - it would stand on its own. You can get these display boards at Wal-Mart, too.  I glued a themed tablecloth from Party City to the cardboard and made the border from black poster board.  We glued each photo to black or blue paper to make it stand out on the background. This is what people loved - photos of mom from baby to 60!  I'm so glad we did this.  Thankfully, I had already scanned in many of her baby pictures and 20's pictures for another project and could just print them at Walgreens for quick pick up. 

For the tables, the venue had white paper tablecloths and we just used cheap plastic ones for the dollar store, cut into diamond shapes, to add some color.  Add the centerpieces and you are good to go! We later added the smaller records (45's) to each side.  The kids loved them - they had never seen records!!

I really hope this helps someone have a great party - at least using this as a jumping off point.  We had a great time, add some oldies music on an ipod with some decent speakers and my Mom and her family danced half the night!!! It was great!

If you do use any of these ideas, or if you have some great ones of your own, PLEASE SHARE some pictures or just the ideas themselves!! I'd love to see in case I ever do this again! :) Thanks!!