Honeycomb Strawberries

This weekend we are having a Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Party for my niece Sophia.

When I found these I knew immediately I could turn them into strawberries.


I de-strung them from the white ribbon and cut the lacy edges off (leaving the hole-punched top section).

I dotted the folded up edges with black Sharpie for seeds

opened up, the seeds are faint but I think it takes the heart look away. 

We had extra stems from another Strawberry project and they seemed to work well at the top. I cut a little slit in the middle and slid the hole punched section through.

I had to fold the curling ribbon to fit it through the hole.

All done. 

we opted to string them individually so we had more flexibility on where to hang them rather than a garland as they came. Planning this party we are realizing how easily a heart turns into a strawberry!

cost: 3.75 for a string of 7 hearts
we got 2 strings

These will look great hanging all over the back yard at the Strawberry Shortcake Party. 

Strawberry Shortcake Party Banner

I made this for the up-coming Strawberry Shortcake Birthday Party for my sweet niece Sophia. I love how the light and dark pinks work so well with the lime green and white stripes, (like Strawberry Shortcake's pants/hat ribbon. Also love how the polka dots sort of look like seeds on triangle shaped strawberries. 

The letters were cut from scrapbook cardstock using the Plantain Schoolbook Cricut Cartridge on Roly Poly at 3 inches. The strawberry stem is the flower in 4-5 inches (I forget) on the same cartridge folded over the top. 

I could have made the pennants but I found them for sale here (and I was ordering other stuff and got free shipping) for less than if I bought paper and cut them myself. I bought 3 different colors, hot pink, candy pink and lime. They came strung on fishing line (3 separate banners) , but I wanted to alternate colors, so we cut them off of the fishing line and hole punched the corners. 

all the pennants were strung on green curling ribbon, which was curled once it was hung on the wall. 

Depending on where we hang the banner, I may split the bottom line in to 2, having a strawberry pennant at the beginning and end of "birthday", I have one dark pink triangle left over. 

I considered cutting letters for the other side, in case we wanted to hang in the window or from the ceiling above the kitchen island, but we will see how much paper/time I have left over first. Because it isn't over the top specifically Strawberry Shortcake, the banner could be re-used for another party, a baby shower or something, the letters should come off easily, or we could use the back. (ETA I ended up using the extra pennant to make a "7th"  at the end of "sweet" and hung in the 2 rows shown.) 

Cost Breakdown

banners: 3x$3, 

3 sheets of cardstock from my stash (calling that free)

a glue stick I had (calling this free)

green curling ribbon (included in other craft budget)

26-27 triangle banner, about 15 feet for ~$9

There will definitely be more Strawberry Shortcake posts to come! 

Ladybug Birthday

Ellie's 1st Birthday

The welcome and goodie bag table

Guest book alternative. 

The dots will be used in scrapbook of the party.

 Simple snacks

The Cupcakes

 This is a CupcakeTree that I have used 7 times so far. It is awesome, super easy to decorate and folds flat in a thin box.

We had strawberry cheesecake, german chocolate, white (with red sprinkles and a black chocolate spot, and marionberry lemonaid cupcakes. The smash cake on top was a low sugar ladybug cake from Pink Princess Cakes. Except for the sprinkles on the head and the antenna it was all fruit sugars! We ordered a few cupcakes to go with the smash cake for the other babies that would be there. They were so very yummy!

The gift table

Pretzel ladybugs were a huge hit!

I embellished a little bib/apron for Ellie to wear over her dress.

 I also made the hair barret with an extra iron on patch from the bib.

For the edge of our driveway, I made direction signs.

The party was held in our home theater, I had a photo slideshow of Ellie playing on the screen. This is easy to do if you have a Wii and a memory card. The Wii has a slide show feature for photos saved to an SD card. I just picked my favorite pictures from birth through the day I made it and popped the card into the machine.

Rachel's Super Mario Birthday Party

When I saw a Super Mario Birthday party on one of the other party blogs out in the blogosphere, and realized my sister was having her 25th birthday soon, I knew I had to throw her a party. I was going to keep the theme a surprise. Then she suggested a mario theme. I fibbed, I told her that I had already started getting Luau stuff and it would be more summery and grown up than a Super Mario party.

I didnt do invitations because there wasnt time to get them out, so I just made a facebook event and called a few people.

She was very surprised it wasnt a Luau when she walked in. I had put pink flamingo decorations at the end of our driveway and on the door to the shop.

The tables were simple green plastic table clothes, circles cut from polka dot napkins left over from Ellie's Ladybug Birthday, gold stars and plastic gold coins.

In the middle of the table were Piranha Plants, a green pipe and chocolate gold coins. 

Power Flowers 

The flower head is just cardstock and sharpie eyes. I decided to make it round instead of oblong because it was easier to find round items to trace than oblong. I found the plastic green pots with silk flowers in them at Dollar Tree. I pulled the flowers out of the styrofoam. I had flower stems/leaves leftover from the butterfly clips I made (and hadnt taken my craft room garbage out yet) so I taped the flower head to a stem and stuffed it into the styrofoam.

Boo Balloons

Boo was one of my pinata ideas, but decided to make balloons instead. I just blew up white balloons and drew the faces/arms on with sharpie. 

Chain Chomp

The Chain Chomp was another pinata idea. The only white balloons i found for the Boos were in a multi-pack with black ones so I made this guy pretty quickly. His face is just mailing lables cut up and sharpie for the eyes. The chain is a simple black paper chain  made with card stock and staples. It was funny where he was hanging, he would often jump off and bite at people coming in the doors. 

Star Balloons

at the dollar tree I saw these balloons and thought they would work great as Starmen, then at my nephew's graduation, I saw they used the same balloons in the decorations. My aunt is on the school board so I asked her to see if she could keep the balloons for me to reuse. I figured I could refill them if needed, graduation was Wednesday and the party was going to be on Sunday. They ended up not needing refilled so I got 6 helium filled star balloons for free. All I had to do was add the electrical tape eyes. 

Backdrop

The blue is a baby blue plastic Dollar Tree table cloth. I found the cloud image here, edited it and printed them from home. They were cut out by my hubby. The coins were punched with a circle punch out of a gold gift bag. The stars were a gold star billboard boarder from the teacher section of Dollar tree, I used sharpie to make eyes and cut them apart. 

I downloaded a free Super Mario Brothers font from here and made labels for the food items to tie in the theme. 

Princess Peach Punch 

The punch was 2 cartons of peach/orange/mango juice, a 2 liter of Sierra Mist, a packet of sugar free peach drink powder, and a bag of frozen peaches. 

  

Super Mushroom Cakes 

These are just box cake mixes with food coloring added. Red are strawberry and green are vanilla. I poked holes in the cupcakes with a straw and piped frosting in the holes. I topped the holes with upside-down white chocolate chips for the dots. 

Super Mario Cake! 

Made by Pink Princess Cakes

King Koopa Kookies

I used refridgerated sugar cookie dough, cut out circles and used a smaller circle cookie cutter as a stencil and sprayed on Wilton Color Mist inside the cutter, then baked. While still cooling, I poked candy corn into the cookies to look like Koopa's spikey shell. The colored part of the cookie crackled when it baked, which was unintentional but made the green look more like a shell.

Brick Brownies 

I used a box mix and my brownie pan, which makes individual brownies in squares. I piped on the grout lines. 

Starman Krispies Treats

These are just rice krispies treats cut into stars. 

Lemon Candy Question Blocks

 The recipe for these was on the back of the Chex Mix box, they're a white chocolate version of muddy buddies. I used lemon Jell-O instead of lemon zest.

Mario's Mustache Pops

I ordered the mold for these pops here. They were cheap so I bought 2 so it would be faster to make them. 

I got pictures of most of the guests with  mustaches.

Atomic Fireballs

Itsa Spaghetti anda Meata Ballsa

Power Up Pasta  

(with turtle shells noodles)

Bowser Breath Bread

 (garlic bread)

Although it was a grown-up's party I still wanted the kids to have some fun and goodies. 

I found the pin the mustache on Mario free printable here. I edited it slightly to use less ink when printed at home. 

  

The pinata was a Costco size cereal box covered in leftover brick corrugated cardboard from a fireplace design I made a Christmas. I had perferated the corners but it was still too strong, after all the kids got multiple turns, I tore the box and ended up just swinging the pinata across the floor to dump out the goodies. 

I had felt sticky mustaches for everyone to wear.

Pipe decorations

I had thought to get actual pipes and paint them green but pipe connectors (to make the rim) were kinda spendy. Last minute, I found green can cozys at walmart. I cut them in half, some went on painted green soda cans and some went on crystal light drink mix canisters and a can of beets covered in paper. 

Price breakdown

6 Green pipes 

3 can cozies: $3 (Walmart)

leftover green paint: free

recycled drink cans: free

$0.50 each 

8 Pirahna plants:

3 pack of terra cotta pots x 3= $3 (Dollar Tree)

8 pack of ping pong balls = $1 (Dollar Tree)

leftover red paint: Free (would be like $0.88 for a 2oz bottle)

leftover white paint: (would be like $0.88 for a 2oz bottle)

leftover green paint: (would be like $0.88 for a 2oz bottle)

Black paint: $0.88 (could have used sharpie)
$4.88 = $0.61 each

Power Flowers
plastic pots with flowers in them: $1 (Dollar Tree)
cardstock from my stash: Free (would be like $0.49/sheet from craft store)
garbage stems: free (maybe could have used the ones that came in the pot)

Clouds, Pin the Mustache, Coloring pages:
whatever some 8.5x11 paper, cardstock and ink costs
pin the mustache prizes 2/$1

Stars:
billboard boarder: $1 (Dollar Tree)


Coins:

Gold gift bag: $1

Pinata: Leftover brick corrugated stuff: Free

recycled cereal box: Free

Stuff for inside: under $15 (If i find the receipt, ill update)

goodie bags: $0.50 (Walmart, clearance)