Skylander Party

This year Monkey really wanted a Skylander Giants birthday party. I don't know much about this. All I do know is that it is a video. I did some research and found out that these "creatures" live on islands in the sky and battle it out. 

For the invitation I kept it simple but special for him.

Next thing I worked on was his banner. I tried to mimic the elements that I had made. 

The decorations were what I was most excited about. I made a bunch of elements put up on the cuboards. These were out of my famous felt, hot glue and paper plates idea. 

I hung them up all around the kitchen as well has vines to give it an "island" feel.

I took the lanterns that I had from other parties and spray painted them. Then I tried my best to make them look like Skylander Characters.

The skylander gang 

I ended up hanging them in the kitchen.

 I kept the present area pretty simple

I made Bouncer out of felt and posterboard 

I wish I would have gotten a better picture of the table scape. But here is what I did get. I decorated it was some fake rocks made out of paper bags and spray paint.

 Monkey said he wanted a portal as a cake. 

For the actives we did a Skylander's Trivia. The kids really enjoyed this.

After trivia we did the funnest game ever! I had made a bunch of these pretend rocks out of paper bags, newspaper and spray paint. We were just going to use them as decorations but then my love thought of a great game the morning of the party. Since they throw rocks in Skylander video game, the idea of the game was to lay all the rocks in a line in the middle. We divided the kids into 2 groups and then had them take 15 steps back. When my love said "GO" they had to try and throw as many rocks as possible on the other teams side of the court until the time was up. Then the team with the least amount of rocks on their side won the game. Let me just say this was a SERIOUS hit! 

 For the favors I decided to just keep it simple easy. I gave a personalized candy bar away at the end.

 It turned out to be a great party!

Ninjago Tooth Fairy Pillow

Poor Monkey has been waiting for this for a while for this. I think he has lost at least 4 teeth and hasn't had a tooth fairy pillow. He has been asking for a Lego Ninjago one. So here he goes.

Kind of a sad one but I whipped it up in about 20 minutes. Lol.

Homemade Christmas

Every year I like to make my nieces and nephews one homemade gift. Now that Christmas is over I can share what I did this year. Luckily this year I was able to make some homemade gifts for a few others as well. 

These were some homemade coasters for  some family friends.

The kids made personalized coffee mugs for Bama, Papa and Mima. 

My sis-in-law got this birds nest necklace. I think I want to make one for myself as well. I loved the way it turned out. Thank you Pinterest!

One of my nephew's got homemade play-doh. 

I made my niece some cute pom pom pens and a special notebook.

My nephew got a special Ninjago pillowcase. 

And my little neice got a shape stretcher game. 

I hope everyone loved their gifts. I sure loved making them.

Ninjago Costume

This year when the boys told me they wanted to be Lego Ninjago Ninjas I knew I was going to end up making them myself. Due to the fact that I didn't have alot of time and wanted going to spend alot of time and not wanting to spend a ton of money. The boys wanted to be Kai and Coal. Unfortunately Coal didn't work out when I tried dying his white karate gee black and it turned out purple. Oops. So next best thing was Jay.

These were so easy peasy to make and guess what? Total cost was $5. I already had the karate gee's and black material. All I needed was the gold martial, brown leather fabric and dye. So with sales and coupons all of it was under $5. 

I braided the leatherish fabric to make it look like rope and then hot glued to the gee's 

Wa-La! Introducing Kai & Jay. 

Ninjago Birthday Party

It was no surprise when Big Guy told me he wanted a Lego Ninjago Birthday Party. He is obsessed with it. First off I needed to come up with an invitation. I found one I liked online and then tweaked it to what I wanted. Here was the end result. Actually when I picked these up from Walmart they told me I was going to need a copyright release form. Guess they did turn out good. Ha!

 Now for the banner. I wasn't sure what I was going to do and then this idea popped in my head. Big Guy really loved the way this turned out. 

Decorations! Decorations!

I kept all those Chinese lanterns from Bear's Chinese party and thought maybe I could possibly use them again but the only problem is that they were pink and white. So I thought maybe, spray paint? Yep! It worked perfectly! After spray paint I printed out the Ninjago eyes. I had one giant lantern which I spray painted yellow and made some eyebrows and a beard to make it look like Sensei Wu.

I also found some cheap gold place mats and cut out gold ninja stars. The ninjas all over the cupboards are just dollar store paper plates covered in felt. Cheap easy decorations, I'd say!

Now for the table scape. 

This was my favorite part of the food.

And for the cake. He wanted Jay and Jay is what he got. At least the best that I could do.  

The front room I decorated only a little for where the presents would go. 

This Jay was made out of poster board, felt and puff paint.  

This table was the "What's your Ninja Name" table.  

The kids had to take the letters in their names and figure out their Ninja name. 

When the guest arrived they were welcomed by Sensei Wu and No-ku-fu-chi-mo-to. Luckily Big Guy's birthday is right by Halloween so I was able to find a Sensei hat at the Halloween store. With a homemade beard, some thrift store pants and a white shirt, Sensei Wu came alive!

After the guest were greeted the they got their personalized ninja bands that I had made each friend with scrap fabric and a sharpie. 

We let the kids play and run a muck until everyone got to the party. Then the fun began!

I printed out this Sensei Wu picture on the computer and then made a bunch of beards so that we could play "Pin the Beard on Sensei Wu."

When everyone got their beards I took a picture because I couldn't pass up on a chance to take this photo. Too funny. 

 A training session with Sensei Wu. I had made some nun chucks for the kids out of foam tubing stuff I found at Home Depot, some duct tape and yarn  Again super cheap. 

The training session begins.

When it was time for the guest to leave they each got a Ninjago Bonezai favor.

I made these from marshmallows, pretzels and chocolate covered rice krispie treats. 

Carnvival Cakes

Recently I had the chance to make some cakes for a friend of mine. Her kids were having a carnival themed birthday. She gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted. Those are the best cakes to make. These are what I came up with.

Ferris Wheel.

Merry-Go-Round. 

And the popcorn cupcakes.  

These were some of my favorite cakes I've made.