Marvelous Monday: Parties for Pennies Part 2

I had fun sharing planning parties on a penny part one! I did not get my pics on the post in times so I thought I would follow up with pictures of my great finds.

First, here is a picture of the two boxes that I use all year to collect the items for our personal parties. They are in the top of my closet and when the party comes, everything is gathered in one spot. I will admit that I used to have everything everywhere. I have found this helps a ton.

The second picture is of the party favor bag that cost under $1.00 total. The figure is .50 since I got them on clearance in a pack of 6. The blowers come in at .5 (they were clearance from New Years supplies). I will be using the hats that match for my other sons party later in the year. The skittles were bought with a coupon for pennies and so were the fruit roll ups. This is such a cute idea and far from the $3 a bag I spent last year. This includes the ribbon and bag.

The third picture is a shot of the Tee that I got for $2 at the Disney Store. This was a STEAL and why I am telling you that when you plan in Jan for the upcoming year's parties, your eyes can narrow in on great opportunities! I would have walked right by this tee if we had not planned these parties ahead of time.

I have some fun invite ideas I did last week for the parties. I will do a follow up post on them and some cupcake toppers done for pennies. Happy Planning and Saving!

Imogene

Thrifty Thursday: Parties for Pennies

We've had a couple of posts on birthday parties. Now, how can a mom of two boys that is trying to juggle the world accomplish all these ideas with success-and for minimal cost? I thought I would share a couple of additional points that I've found helpful.

1. Calendar- January plan your parties and get togethers for the year.

• James Birthday ~ Handy Manny (family party)
• Graham's Birthday ~ Diego
• Baby Shower for friend

2. Timeline- Make lists of the supplies that you are going to need for the parties and dates to purchase if time sensitive. This will allow you to purchase things with coupons and jump on deals throughout the year.

3. Storage/Oraganization- Make sure that you have boxes to place these items so when you purchase you will have somewhere to put them. You may also want to put the lists there and mark off items and you collect. By doing this you are going to have a great party with these supplies.

4. Don't Procrastinate- Make sure to do things throughout the month so you are not stuck doing everything the day before. By spreading things out it really allows you to enjoy the preparation and it does not become a chore.

5. Activities- look on websites for color sheet print outs and activities. Note: If you find some and you have color ink in your printer. Print now and place in box. Do not wait till day before because your ink will more than likely run out! Trust me.

6. Party Details- Pick a free place. Your house is always great but you can also look look at parks and pools that will allow you to have party there.

7. Invites-Limit the number of guests. You do not have to invite everyone...maybe just family if there are lots of cousins or your child's very closest friends. Invitations can be done electronically on sites such as http://www.evite.com/. This is nice because you can ensure people get their invitation since it tells you if they've viewed it. You can also check a couple of printing websites such as http://www.vistaprint.com/ for specials and order 10 invites for free or even print your own. These options are good for people that do not have access to electronic invitations.

7. Decorations- Use what you have. Use your child toys to decorate. Example: For the Handy Manny party I am going to use a big dump truck and put the cupcakes in the back and use crushed oreos for the topping. Oh...you could also find a coloring book with the theme of the party for $1 and cut the pages out and use for color sheets as the activity. Keep your eyes open for ideas online, in magazines and as you are around town.

We'd love for you to share any other creative birthday tip you may have. Have fun and happy celebrating!
Love,
Imogene

Free-for-all Friday: Craft time

On Monday, I posted some birthday tips I recently learned and am tucking away in my memory for future celebrations. Donna told me I should post the cupcake craft from the party. It was really easy and you could probably adapt it in some way for any occasion.

Here is what you need:

Any size terra cotta pot and water dish



I got the idea from a Christmas craft my daughter brought home from preschool~a candy cane jar (see... it really is a versatile craft). Hats off to her teachers who were brave enough to let a class of 10 three year olds get into paints!

And here, you have the cupcake pot!



If you are brave like the preschool teachers, you can have the little guests paint their own pots. This time, my sister and I went ahead and painted the mini-pots in the party colors for the girls and boys and glued the "cherries" on top.  Note: in the candy cane pot above, painted wooden knobs were glued on top to serve as a knob to pull the top off. We just used pink and red fuzzy balls and they serve the purpose fine.

Initially, I was going to do bigger terra cotta pots and dishes but I'm glad I ended up choosing the mini ones b/c the fit in a cupcake stand (kinda~if you didn't breathe on them~ha!) and made a nice centerpiece before and after craft time...toppled over and all...wish I'd gotten a pic before the topple.

Sooooo...for the craft, the kids decorated their "cupcakes" w/ stickers, glitter glue and beads. The glitter glue proved me juuuust brave enough for our cute little crowd (ranging from age 2 to 6). :) My fav line as I saw the red glitter glue covered all over one cupcake was, "Look! I made a chocolate cupcake!" Priceless. My other fav line was "When do we get to eat a REAL cupckake?" Again, priceless.

The munchkins were precious as they so diligently decorated their cupcakes. I've never seen eight children so still and quiet so I'd say the cupcake craft was a success!

Let us know if you use this in any shape or fashion for your next celebration so we can join in the fun!

Love,
Hannah

Marvelous Monday: Birthdays Tidbits

It seems springtime is birthdays galore and believe it or not, I don't think we've had many posts about birthdays on RWAV. This past weekend, we celebrated our twins' FIRST birthday. We wanted to celebrate the day they were born, one year of survival as parents of multiples and also make it special for our oldest daughter who has been very patient with us--all while keeping the cost down and "getting the biggest bang for our buck."

Planning a small party for twins was a little different than my planning for one especially since we are blessed to make sure both genders are duly represented. :) Since our twins were born on Valentine's Day and we LOVE cupcakes, we decided to go along with the cupcake theme b/c cupcakes seem to incorporate Valentines and birthdays.

I'm sure many of you ladies have planned flawless birthday parties that would WOW me big time and how I'd love your tips! I'm only entering my fourth year of birthday party planning experience so this newby is still learning. I thought I'd share the lessons I took away from this celebration just in case it will benefit your future birthday celebrations.

• ALWAYS, always, always order your cakes to be picked up one FULL day (maybe even a day and a half) before the party to leave room for error and repair time! Trust me on this one. Our Karen can attest to this as well. I learned from her a long time ago (click here for a gooood laugh) and she was wiiiiiise beyond her years!
• If you live in the region where Harris Teeter's are located, they provide you with a custom 6 inch "patty cake" (aka smash cake) for your child's first birthday. They even provided one for each of the twins making two free patty cakes. Bless them. If you don't live near HT, it never hurts to ask the bakery at your fav grocery store.
• A couple of my friends are wonderfully impressive cake bakers (cough, cough...Donna) and amaze me with their ease of creating amazing cakes for special occassions. This would not be a strength of mine or something that comes easily (how I wish). In fact, it completely stresses me out. Therefore, I have become a big fan of the ole cupcake cake which looks like a cake but is really cupcakes underneath. For this birthday, we were even able to do a cupcake shaped cupcake cake. The stripes on the bottom were vanilla and the white part up top were chocolate cupcakes.
• VistaPrint is your BFF (best friend forever)-invitations, banners, magnet party favors. In case I've never mentioned it (ha!), I big fat heart VistaPrint! Just be sure to order at least 21 days prior so you can pay the cheaper shipping.
• The heart wreath craft is my other new BFF. Any future occassion=heart wreath craft will be implemented in some shape or fashion. Here is how I milked it for all it was worth for the cupcake birthday. Can't beat a CUTE and inexpensive decoration!

• Having a "candy bar" really makes a great party favor and it just looks soooooo happy sitting there with all of it's colors (special thanks to Dolly for this idea). It was a not only a hit with the kids but adults, too. I might also want to do this for every occassion. Matter of fact, it's still up and I wish people would start scooping away b/c we have candy coming out the wazooooo. Oh....and don't include little things of sprinkles for the children to take home b/c they WILLLLLL get the lid off and it WILLLLL make a mess in their paren't car if not before.

• Have someone assigned to the simple task of taking pictures for you b/c you will be busy and most likely will not. We were blessed to have a sweet girl do this for us. However, all of the above pictures happen to be from my IPhone for some reason.
• Set up as much as you can the day before so you can enjoy "the day of" with the most important reason for the party--your children.
• Be sure you and your hubs (or helpers) kinda talk over a "flow" for how you envision the party going. This way everyone is on the same page and you can each make sure things keep moving despite the excitement. This will also help keep your guests from standing around with awkward quiet moments and forced to say dumb things like "soooooo....how bout those Panthers?" :)
• Just know that probably one or two things most likely will go wrong or just not meet your expectations. Go ahead and decide you are just going to be OK with it. When it happens, rollllll with it, baby. Shake it off. It won't matter by the next birthday party and if nothing else, it will make a funny memory.
• Take a deeep breath and ENJOY celebrating. It is a gift from the Lord!

Now, I've been trying to twist Donna's arm to share some of her amazing cake creations for those of you that are cakemakers and would enjoy the ideas. :) She's humble and doesn't like to brag so maybe ya'll can help me out. Also, we'd love to hear some of your traditions or helpful celebration tips. Do Share. We'd especially love to hear some of your favorite party themes and ideas. I love how we can learn from each other!

Love,

Hannah

Thrifty Thursday: Make that gift list and check it twice!

Time to start your new budget for 2011! Here are some helpful hints for dealing with this year's holidays and birthdays.

Make a lists of...

1....anything you did not have this Christmas that you may want next year. You will find these things 80% off this time of year. We always drive around and see all the lights and get new ideas for our house. So we make a list and go to the store a couple days after Christmas and use some of our Christmas cash to get the supplies. We are getting them at their best price and not cutting into our budget.

2...the birthdays you will have in 2011. I did a post last year on how you can save a bundle by shopping all year long for birthdays and next Christmas. Last year Walmart had their Christmas toys 75% off. You bet I bought ten craft packs and gave them as presents through the entire year. I can not wait to see what they will have this year!:) Keep in mind, though, I've found online specials are the best mid year for toys.

Make sure that you note on your list what months your girlfriends have birthdays. There are usually magazine specials for around $3 for a year subscription on all kind of magazines but will take 12 weeks to start delivery, http://www.tanga.com/products/christianity-today-magazine-subscription--2. Example: my sister has a birthday in April, I will wait for a fun one she will enjoy and order in January.

3....teacher gifts. This is another time to stock up! Bath and Body Works will usually have lotions for $3. They retail for $9. I have two kids that will be in school next year and I will get 4 of these and they will provide a holiday cello bag at no charge. How fun, simple, and budget friendly!
http://www.bathandbodyworks.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2279332&cp=3157625.11101891

Think ahead on your purchases. Another great gift for anyone are books. Make sure to see what movies are scheduled to come out in 2011. Most people who like to read love to read the book before they see the movie. How thoughtful! You can get gently used to 75% off and most of the time you can not even tell. I gave a couple of this for Christmas presents this year and they had no idea. I guess they will now if they read this!

When looking at clearance sections always have your gift list in mind. When you purchase an item, go ahead and mark the person off of this list. Trust me that you will get items at best prices with the least amount of stress. I cut my gift budget by 75% last year by doing this.

Wrapping: save comic papers from your papers for wrapping! Budget and Earth friendly. Kids love reading them as well!

Have fun!

I hope to continue through this year with fun and thoughtful gift ideas for you and your family this year!

Love,

Imogene