It has been a busy summer! I know I haven't written anything in awhile, but I have been up to my neck in projects the last two months, and I barely had time to keep my house semi-clean, much less work on the computer! In May I decided, after a good bit of thought and prayer, to have a booth in the Chilton County Arts Festival the last day of July. Since I had not made anything to sell in about 7 years, I had roughly 2 months to build my inventory up from scratch. So June and July were spent sewing handmade items and crafting jewelry to sell. The show went well--I didn't sell much, but my children behaved the entire day (a minor miracle that 😉) and I received a lot of positive response and even managed to make a small profit, pretty good for my first time back in the water (so to speak) in 7 years. I'm hoping the next show I do will be more successful as I get a feel for the market again.
No sooner was I done with all of that than it was time to plan Monkey's 9th birthday party. Over the years I've relaxed a lot in what I expect of myself for birthday parties, but last year was a personal low for me--I barely did any planning or preparation for her 8th birthday. Looking back, I think the present I made for her took up a lot more time than I had planned--she wanted a mermaid princess dress to go with her theme--so not a whole lot of preparation actually went into the party itself. Don't get me wrong--she had a great time, and she LOVED her dress--but this year I felt like I owed it to her to put a little more effort into the planning of her party.
Luckily, the planning part was pretty easy. Monkey wanted the same theme as last year--mermaids--so I just used a lot of the ideas that I didn't implement last year for this year's party. I started with making a pretty mermaid invitation on canva.com, the website I use for all my pictures, logos, etc. for my blog.
If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out! It's totally free to use, though, of course, you can pay a subscription fee and get even more access to their site, but there's a lot you can do on there for free! Pinterest pins, blog banners, instagram posts, photo collages, recipe cards, invitations, posters--you name it, it's on the website for you to create and download to your computer, the internet or whatever. I always have a lot of fun using all their different elements to create the perfect whatever-I-need.
Next in the party prep was the cake. Last year Monkey wanted me to make a cookie cake, but sadly, my efforts thereto were not exactly stellar and honestly nowhere near as good as the storebought ones, so this year we agreed to do a regular cake. She wanted strawberry with buttercream icing (totally in my wheelhouse!), and I used these cute silicone molds I found at Walmart and Hobby Lobby to make candy seashells and mermaid tails. Add in some chocolate pearls and some pretty blue and green icing and--voila!--we ended up with a very pretty cake! The best part was the seaweed; I had no idea it'd be so easy to make!
But while decorating the cake was pretty easy, alas, the baking was not so much! For some reason completely unknown to me, the first three layers I baked refused to come out of the pans....except in pieces! (Yes, I greased the pans. 😖) So I got another cake batter together and tried again, this time with the extra step of parchment paper. Success! That is the cake you see above. Meanwhile I had all these cake crumbs just lying there. What to do with them? Make cake balls, of course!
I let the girls decorate them; how'd they do? 😊 (They went a little nuts on the edible glitter; can you tell? LOL)
They may have been failed cakes, but let me tell you--they were delicious cake balls! Yummy!
Once the special food was done, it was time to decorate. I went for the good old standards--crepe paper streamers, inexpensive, but so pretty when done right! The kids are all old enough now that they wanted to help me decorate, and they sure were handy at helping put up all those streamers! The look on Monkey's face when she saw the finished product made all the up and down worth it!
I also showed the kids how to make these fun paper jellyfish from some paper lanterns and matching crepe streamers. Each one did a jelly, and they were justly proud of their work.
Finally, for the table I used this pretty mermaid fabric I picked up last year for Monkey's party with the intention of making it into something for her afterward. It still hasn't spoken to me, so I pulled it out of fabric storage and used it again this year. To jazz it up a bit, I filled some mason jars with black sand and seashells and put them in the center of the table. I'm sure you could dress them up even cuter than this, but by the time I was doing this, guests were arriving, and there just didn't seem any point in doing more.
Because now that all of Monkey's guests had arrived, it was time to get to the fun stuff. And Monkey was quite insistent on what she wanted to do for her party games--she wanted a treasure hunt with riddles that she and her friends could solve! It took some thinking, but here's what I came up with:
1) They were each given a (very) simple math problem that they then had to pair with an alphanumeric code (you know, 1=A, 2=B, etc.) to figure out where their next clue was: in the red LEGOs box.
2) This one was a direct reference to Monkey's dolls, and I'm quite proud of the limerick I came up with! 😉
"Isabella told Stella she wanted a party,
But Stella said that couldn't be.
'Jane must come
If we're to have fun--
A tea party's best with three!'"
Of course, Monkey figured it out right away, and off they all ran to her bedroom.
3) The next one was a little harder, and I ended up having to give them extra clues before they figured it out. Can you guess what it was?
"I'm a box without hinges, key or lid,
Yet in me a golden treasure is hid.
I come in all colors, some white, some brown,
And I'm the most fun when I am found.
What am I?"
Finally, they guessed an egg and headed to the refrigerator.
4) This next clue was a fun one and tied directly to my children's love of all things Scooby-Doo.
"FEED the piano to get a clue;
If you're not sure, ask Scooby-Doo."
If you've ever watched the original Scooby-Doo cartoons, you may remember the episode "What a Night for a Fright" where Scoob and the gang figure out they have to play the notes F-E-E-D on the piano to open a trapdoor; Monkey played the notes, and I gave her the final clue.
5) "'Planes, trains, and gasoline signs--Daddy's space is bigger than mine!' says Mommy." This clue led to Jimmy's workshop (which has all of those things in it) where all the goody bags were hidden.
Next it was time to eat--hot dogs, chips and fruit salad (I have to have something healthy! 😆), and then presents and cake. I was so busy with everything that I didn't even remember to take that many pictures--as usual--but I did get a great one of Monkey blowing out her candle. Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl!
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