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This post is picture heavy. Be warned. So the premise of the party was that O was inviting his friends over to be part of his space exploration team. And since the first question I always ask when starting a new activity is "do I get a new outfit," I decided that I should make "uniforms" for each kid. I created a store to be where they could get their new shirts, as well as accessorize it. It would be another activity to engage the kids and also act as a favor "bar."
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| photo by me |
I created wallets out of black card stock and designed space money. The front features a well-known look of
Ziggy Stardust and the back I created with a hand-made stamp that
Lauren made for O. I had the wallets at the front door with the instruction to head right to the store to pick out their uniform.
The uniforms. I found cheap packs of Hanes white t's at Target and they came out to less than $2.00 a piece (way cheaper than the local craft stores...) Then I used black spray paint or black fabric paints and home-made stencils to create different looks. My intention had been to add trims to the shoulders but well, even I am not THAT crazy.
I did add some to O's shirt (which was also gray so he would stand out a little more) and it turned out really cute.
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| photo by me |
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| photo by me |
My kids wear the leftover shirts all the time. They wash well and are kind of cool to boot.
Since some of the designs were on the backs of the shirts, I wanted to make sure that each kid had a name tag on the front. I used large foam craft letters and embellished with star shaped brads.
I asked my niece, P, to run the store. I thought she would enjoy it and it would add a nice touch to the store atmosphere. She took it super seriously. My intention was to tell her that although each kid was given 7 space dollars, they could take as many things as they wanted as long as each kid got an accessory. But in the craziness of party day I forgot to mention that to her...It wasn't until much later that I learned that she respects policy and procedure and held every kid firm at $7. Which meant that a lot of the hand-made jewelry was left over...as well as tons of cheap loud or flying space toys...my bad.
As Ziggy sported bright orange hair, I wanted the kids to get glam rock'd out if they chose. I had these clip in hair braids for the girls and also gold and orange spray hair color for the boys.
I made several types of headbands, bracelets, cuffs, barrettes, and pins for the kids to choose from. This severely stretched my craft skill limits. I may have turned to vices.
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| photo by me |
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| photo by me |
I tried to incorporate things in the party straight from song lyrics. I'm not going to lie, there were only a few kid friendly lines. I loved that I could work in coloring pages from everybody's favorite 'cat from Japan'. I chose to use only that portion of the line as I couldn't figure out how to make 'well hung and snow white tan' appropriate for a children's party...
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| photo by me |
And of course we had to have 'spiders from mars'. {note - I use a lot of punctuation and grammatical errors in my posts. On purpose. I feel it sets me apart from those nerdy, good-at-school-and-other-important-stuff types}.*/~it"s
I used the same image of O from the invite on the favor bags provided by the store clerk. How cute is that 'Oliver' stamp (also hand-made by
Lauren).
I made this sign for P to put up when she was done playing shop girl. While I saw her run off a few brief times (and I was sent on
Push Cake runs for her) she relished her role running that store. At one point of the party, she ran up to me and handed me one of the favor bags. I had no idea what it was so I opened it and peered in. It was full of space money. I looked back to her for explanation. CASH DROP. The girl took it upon herself to do a cash drop. She's 8. I am going to go ahead and write her a letter of recommendation now. But I won't expect any freebies.
Sharon
All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by
Dez and Tam. They are freaking radical people and seriously turned this mother out.
And super huge shout out to my homegirl, Taryn. She pawned her spawn off on a sitter to come over and help me package up some of these favors for the party. She is awesome. And a ridiculously big shout out to my mommy. She helped me cut an Earth-crippling amount of space money (this is huge because an elementary school teacher commented on her sub-par cutting skills and she's never been able to shake it and I only slightly jest.)
