Beach Ball Birthday Party Invitation

Someone in our house is about to turn 10!!! Beach Ball Party Invitations wioth Mudpies and Sunshine Kids Parties

And that someone is having their birthday party at the local swimming pool where you can hire a giant inflatable thingy, have exclusive rights over the water slide and have your very own life guard.  Yes it’s Ebony’s birthday and she is incredibly excited.  And rightly so – turning double-figures is no ho-hum affair.

I had seen a few beach ball invitation ideas on pinterest and decided this was the perfect way to invite Ebony’s friends along to the pool party.

We both had a go at the writing. I was too excited to let Ebony do everything ;)

Writing on the beach ball party invites with Mudpies and Sunshine

Beach Ball Party Invitations wioth Mudpies and Sunshine Smiley Birthday girl

Ebony wanted to put the (deflated) beach balls into brown paper lunch bags which she decorated. The bags were the perfect size for our deflated balls.

Beach Ball Party Invitation Bags with Mudpies and Sunshine

Beach balls party invitations and invitation bags with Mudpies and SunshineWe can’t wait for the party. From a grown ups perspective, the best thing about an indoor pool party is no agonising over the weather forecast. Just sit back and watch the girls having fun.

Beach Ball Party Invitations wioth Mudpies and Sunshine Kids Parties

Happy Birthday if you happen to be reading this on your birthday :)

Thanks for dropping by!!

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12 New Year’s Activities

Christmas is over! We had a wonderful day and we’re all a bit sad to say goodbye to Christmas for another year. However boxing day means New Year’s is fast approaching. Since we are saying goodbye to 2012 I thought 12 ideas for new year’s kids fun would be appropriate! Thanks so much for all the clever and fun ideas I have featured here from other bloggers.

1. Goodie Bags – something we will definitely be doing this year is this simple and brilliant idea from Liz at Hoosier Homemade : New Year’s Eve countdown goodie bags. Perfect for keeping the kids interested during the long hours til midnight! It has been a popular pin on pinterest – and rightly so!

New-Years-Countdown-Bags

2. So what to put in the New Year’s Eve countdown goodie bags? Well I found an adorable list of things to do on New Year’s with kids over at  Hip Hip Hooray blog, including setting up camp indoors (if it’s cold outside), playing boardgames and letting the kids make their own confetti with hole punches. All great ideas – but my favourite (it’s been a favourite on a alot of blogs for a reason) was new year’s bingo! (I have linked to the free bingo printable and with some software magic you could change the years to 2012 and 2013 or create your own if you can find the time!).NYE-BINGO-by-HHH2

3. Garland - every celebration could use a garland and new year’s is no exception. Amanda Formaro has a step-by-step post on how to make this gorgeous felt and sequinned new year’s garland at Kaboose.com. We have supplies of both so I am putting this on our to-do list. New-Year-Banner-Craft-Photo-350x255-Aformaro-006_rdax_65

4.Edible Party Horns - adorable, delicious and easy to make. What’s not to love about these edible party horns from Cooking With My Kid. Kids will love making (and eating) these! nye-horns

5. Glitter Fireworks - last year we made some new year’s eve fireworks with black card/construction paper, glue sticks and glitter. It was before the blog got started so there is no link but if you would like some instructions enchanted learning have done the same thing.New Year's Eve Fireworks with Mudpies and Sunshine

6. Make crazy photos with sparklers! It’s so hard to get a good clear photo when kids are moving – so don’t! Hand the camera over to the kids and let them take pictures and marvel at all the COOL designs made when sparklers are swished around. Do it when it gets dark – it’s heaps more fun! This is one of our photos from last year:)Jan 2012 032

7. Puffy Fireworks – inspired by some amazing puffy paint over at Inner Child Fun we made our own shooting star art for new year’s last year. The photos are inspired by the amazing firework star displays over Sydney Harbour Bridge that takes place every new year’s eve. Puffy Fireworks New Years Eve  - Mudpies and Sunshine

8. Kids must have noise makers on new year’s and I love these over at Make and Takes. Using everyday items and allowing kids to be creative with decorating is such a great idea. We hope to make these too. MakeandTakes New Years Eve Noise Makers

9. Collage - I love a boredom buster unplanned craft where you just pull everything out of the craft box and let the kids go for it. This new year’s collage from the activity village is just that. I love it and we will definately be doing it. My kids love these types of craft the most. Activity Village New Year's Collage

10. Counting down by popping balloons! This is a clever idea from the folks at HowDoesShe. Each balloon has the hour on it and inside are the activities planned for that hour. Here are some of the activities they had planned waaaaaay back in 2009:

  1. ‘Paint’ with shaving cream
  2. Have a snowball fight
  3. Eat a cookie
  4. Ready a story in front of the fireplace
  5. Have a thumb war
  6. Sing a song
  7. Clean the bedroom (ya have to have one chore in there)
  8. Balloon Volleyball
  9. Drink hot chocolate with marshmallows.  YUM.
  10. Call Grandma and wish her Happy New Years!
  11. Turn on the music and dance like it’s 1999
  12. Tell a favorite memory from 2010

new-years-balloon How Does She

11. Love this idea from the ladies at Hostess with the Mostess. A party hat decorating station. So cute – just another beautiful idea I want to try!  The decorating station was set up for a birthday party but as I have seen elsewhere their post has inspired new years eve hat decorating fun as well! Thanks ladies :)  Party Hat Decorating from Hostess with the Mostess Blog

12. Party Poppers – we love Christmas crackers around here or party poppers/bon bons and why not extend that tradition to New Year’s Eve? Over at Little Birdie Secrets there is a gorgeous tutorial on how to make your party poppers which would be perfect for the big countdown.party popper by LittleBirdieSecretsI hope you are inspired to incorporate some DIY craft fun in to your New Year’s Eve. I also have a huge round up of news year’s craft ideas over at pinterest. If are featured and would like to grab a Mudpies and Sunshine button you will find them here. I wish you all health, happiness and peace for the new year. Thank you very much for visiting and supporting my blog. Best new year’s wishes Nicole x

Paper Garland (Part Two)

Welcome to Part Two!

A quick summary – Ebony is hosting a party soon and wanted to make some decorations. In Part One we used colourful paper circles to create a falling or vertical garland. Cutting out those circles created a lot of left over paper that looked too beautiful to neglect.

Here are the left overs (the circles were used in Part One):

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I took the scissors to the chunky part of the paper until I had three rectangular strips that looked like this:

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Once cut, all the strips were then lovingly placed into old meat trays:

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Next up was inviting someone to come and make the garland. Zoe wanted to help out so she started off first.

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We used sticky tape and string as we did in Part One. Then Zoe got tired of making something that was for Ebony’s party and wandered off to do her own thing :)

Enter stage left – big sister.

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We were both surprised at how quickly it turned from scrap paper into a decoration.

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We wanted it long enough to stretch from one side of Ebony’s room to the other.

It’s this long peoples!

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It looks pretty cool off the ground too:

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Here is where the two garlands meet in true coloured paper harmony:

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But what happened to Zoe while all this loveliness was happening? Where did she go? I’m so glad you asked :)

I found a few paper strips on her desk:

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Then she caught me in her room and after letting me off with a caution, she proceeded with the craft she wanted to do:

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And here is the result – a lovely little colourful robot.

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Paper, scissors, adhesive tool – life is good.

Thanks for dropping by!