Beyblade Birthday Party

This year Big Guy wanted a Beyblade party. In case you don't know, Beyblade is the hottest craze amongst kids right now. It's all about these metal top things that battle against each other.

I had no idea what to do for this party. There were no decorations anywhere except online which I didn't have time to order. I even tried to convince my son to change his theme to a Nerf Gun Party. That worked for about a day and then he was back to Beyblade. I had no motivation or inspiration for this theme. I was struggling big time. I even watched like 3 episodes to try and get some ideas. That ended up being 1 & 1/2 hours of my life I couldn't get back. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me.

Once we decided we were going to have a Beyblade tournament I started with the invitations. I tried to play on the wording in the cartoon.

The front. I photoshopped Big Guys face on the front.

The Back

Next was the birthday banner.

As far as the decorations I tried (tried is the key word) to make Beyblades with paper plates and felt. Then stuck them on the walls and cupboards.

Unfortunately I forgot to get picture of the table scape with the cake when I was done. But I did take a picture of the table beforehand.

I made this beyblade out of felt

In fact I forgot to get a picture of the cake but I did take one when it was in the fridge.

The tournament area that my Love and I put together.

I put these wire cube things around the stadiums to make it look like the cage fighting arenas from MMA.

The tournament rules

Each guest got a tournament lanyard when they got to the party. With these, I just found the clipart online, had them laminated, punched a hole in them and then put some yarn on them so they could go around each childs neck. 

My Love and my brother-in-law has some referee shirts and refereed the matches.

The tournament begins.

  

It finally came down to the final 2 competitors.

After cake and ice cream we had an awards ceremony. I found some certificates online and just printed them out. Then bought a dollar strore trophy which I printed out a tag and stuck it on.

The final results.

When it was time for each guest to leave Big Guy gave them the favors that I had put together.

Each favor had a beyblade coloring book that I made by downloading coloring sheets, some crayons, a squishy hand to represent the "let it rip" saying, a medal and 2 lollipops.

****UPDATE 2/21/2013***

If you would like to purchase the Clip Art for this Beyblade Party you can click on the "Buy Now" button and I would be more than happy to send it to you. 

KEEP IN MIND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THE CLIP ART INSTANTLY. I TRY MY BEST TO SEND IT WITH IN A FEW HOURS BUT THERE ARE SOME INSTANCES THAT YOU WILL RECIEVE IT WITHIN A DAY OR SO. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN ORDERING. Thanks!

Included in this file is

*Arena Signs

*Certificates

*Lanyards

*Tournament Rules

*Lollipop Tags for the Favors

Money Jars

 I know this looks like scrap wood and a jar but it does make something neat. My Love and I have been wanting the kids to have money jars for a while. A visual for them to understand money more. We want them to have a good concept of money. Why not start at a young age? I saw an idea online at "Bits of Everything" website and went with it. All I needed to do was make a crate for the jars.

 

 They each have 1 jar for GIVING. They put 10% of their money in this jar. We have explained to the kids that everything we have is because of God. He is the one who has blessed us with what we have and we should want to give back to him. They were all happy to do this. Our church is trying to raise money for the youth building right now so they love that they are able to contribute to that.

The second jar is their SAVINGS jar. They each decided if they wanted to put 40% or 50% in this jar. This jar is for obviously savings or if they ever want to save up for something. 

The remainder of their money went into the SPENDING jar. This is probably their favorite. jar.

I'm so glad this little system has been working and the kids are willing to do it. Its so nice that they are learning to make good choices regarding their money at such a young age.

Garage Makeover

We transformed our garage into a playroom a number of years ago. We had the idea of doing it right after Bear's Hannah Montana birthday party. We had put carpet in the garage for the dance party and then loved having the extra room that we decided to leave it that way.

Unfortunately we just have too much stuff and our garage ended up being a "dump" zone. We would clean it up and it would look nice again but then it would get messy again. I mean seriously look at how bad it got at the beginning of summer. Yes, that is a piano in our garage. Don't ask.

We ended up doing a garage sale and made a good profit to renovate our garage. Plus we found an amazing deal on this shed. It's a $700 shed that we got for $180 on craigslist. I have been looking for years for a shed. My love worked hard and put it together. We loaded a lot of stuff into it and then were able to start on our garage.

 

The plan for the garage was renovating it into a playroom / sewing room / man cave my hubby and his buddies. I have a really hard time committing to colors. I absolutely love bright colors but the problem is I love to many color schemes. I decided that the first thing I needed to do was pick out the colors I wanted in the garage. I decided on these fabrics. I thought pops of orange and lime would add some funkiness to the garage.

Here is what our garage looked like in the very beginning.

And here it is now. So exciting. I LOVE the way it turned out. We got everything for super cheep or free which makes me love the transformation even more.

We got to re-carpet the entire garage. Someone we knew had some connections with a guy that was getting rid of 2 year old carpet and padding.

 

The couch we got at a rummage sale for $4. It was an old couch from a youth group room. Not so pretty but super dooper comfortable. I made some pillows to spruce it up a little.

This SA-WEET orange recliner we got from craigslist. We actually found this recliner on craigslist after we were done with the garage but when I saw it for $5 I had to have it. It was perfect. Nothing yells out "Man Cave" like an orange recliner. The lady was just happy to get rid of it that she ended up giving it to us for free. My love LOVES this thing.

The door well other than paying for the tiny $2 samples of paint it was free too.

This side of the room is way more organized too.

Our more than organized shoe shelf. Not many changes in this area.

 

The lockers...you all know these were free. And the bike rack we got a while ago.

Now for the other side of the garage. The organized shelves. We were able to put an entire gorilla rack in the shed so that gave us a ton of extra space.

Okay this is the most exciting part. At least in my opinion. Its my personal favorite part of the garage. My sewing area which is hidden behind the couch. I turned my old sewing chest that was in our kitchen into a toy box for the kids. Just painted it lime and had my love put some new slow closing hinges on it. It works perfect and holds a ton of toys.

My sewing desk was a garage sale find. The cabinet drawers were from craigslist and fit perfectly under my desk.

My new sewing cabinet was also a craigslist find. It was exactly what I was looking for. I was so excited when I saw this. It fits all of my things perfectly. I spruced it up with some clearance boxes I got for $2 at IKEA and one of the buttons from Bear's Runway party.

I loved how everything came together. Our family is constantly out in the room. It literally feels like the fun room and we are always hanging out out there. My love and I sit out there just to talk about our day and we have even had a movie night already out there.

I'm so glad it turned out like I had imagined. Now if I can only get my bedroom done.

Switch it up

 When we were renovating our garage. I made myself a sewing area. I happen to be at the craft store one day and this caught my eye.

 It was originally $19.99. Then clearanced down to $5.00 and then 75% off of that. So for $1 and some change I couldn't pass it up. But what was I going to do with some wooden letters that said "SMILE"?

 Then it came to me. Take out some letters and switch up the others. I took out the "L & I" and turned the "M" upside down and got  "SEW." Perfect! Right? I painted the letters and set them up. I really like the way it looks.



Before and After

A while back I was driving home and saw a "FREE" sign on something on the sidewalk. I always get a little excited when I see signs that say "FREE." Usually its junk but this time it wasn't. At least it wasn't to me.

Actually there was 3 of them that were sitting out on the street. I'm thinking they were shelves but I didn't quite know. Anyway I told my Love about them and he went and picked them up for me.

I didn't end up using them right away for what I had planned (which I will get to) but I did make good use out of them while they were sitting in my garage. I used them for each of the kids birthday parties. First for Bear's 50's party. A record display and jukebox stand. 

For Big Guy's Lego Party they were made into giant Lego's.

And for Monkey's Monster party I used one of them for pin the eyeball on the monster.

So hey, I didn't get to my project right away but I did make good use out of them. Okay back to my great plan for these things.

I had mymy Love take off the random diagonal board on the back and nail a backing to them. He sanded them down for me and I primed and painted them. Pretty soon these..... 

Turned into these. Wa-La.....Lockers for the kids. Are you as excited as me? I have been wanting to have some sort of place for the kids to put all their backpacks and sweatshirts after school and knew these would be perfect. I love the way they turned out.

 Not sure what the fourth one will be for. Right now the kids say its daddy's locker.

The kids are lovin' them too. Everyday they come home to this sign that I made.

And within a few minutes I see this.

Goodbye to backpacks and sweatshirts on the floor! Hello to a very happy mommy.