9th Birthday Party: Friendship and Fun
Even when it came to her birthday party, she had very simple requests. Now that she is in the third grade, she has begun to truly understand what close friends are and the joy of having a few good friends to make her laugh and support her. What she wanted was a playdate with her few closest friends and she didn't need much more than that. Together we discussed what it could look like - whom she would invite, and what the activities would be. At one point I offered to cook her and her friends a lovely dinner that they could eat together, and she liked that idea. But before that happened, I got a bit burned out on cooking big meals (had a bunch of events to cook for) so I didn't really want to do it. In the end, I told her we'd do a bunch of fun crafts celebrating her friendships, and she was very happy with that idea.
I'll have to say, this is one of my favorite birthday parties we've had. I didn't stress much and didn't have to prep for weeks in advance. It was SOO mellow, with the girls just sitting around and enjoying themselves, and aside from the totally funny guest who made up silly limericks on the spur of the moment, it was mellow and easy-going.
Decorations
Normally this is one of my favorite parts of the birthday parties, but with the return of Husband, my time has shrunk considerably. I simply didn't have enough time (or any good ideas, although my friend Sillie Smile had me thinking I'd like to do a rainbow theme). I did make her a simple birthday banner, and made #1 put it together for me (since I didn't have the time.) She willingly obliged and it was the extent of the decor.
Friendship Activities
Pendants and Magnets
I came upon this great tutorial on Sun and Moon Crafts website. I thought that these necklaces would be perfect for the girls to make together and design. I ordered the supplies, all through Sun and Moon (spent about $60) and then took some time to practice myself. I wanted to make sure that I would be able to produce what the girls were going to produce before putting them through the process.
Turns out it is very simple to execute and the girls had a fantastic time figure out how to get little images under the glass and essentially "cropping" certain images and deciding what would go under the glass. I found Martha Stewart Magazine to be extremely popular as the pictures in there - vibrant patterns, beautiful flowers, gorgeous prints all lent themselves well to the project. The funniest hit of all the pictures was the idea of putting a small dog under the glass - and suddenly pet food ads were coveted as often times there was a cute tiny picture of a dog somewhere that they could add to their glass.
We made pendants and little glass rounded dome magnets.
The only caveat to this project is that it is time sensitive. You need lots of drying time. You need lots of organized drying time. Initially I wanted the girls to finish their projects and take home completed projects, but within 10 minutes, it became clear that it wasn't feasible. I knew that I could finish the projects on my own, so I told the girls to take their time and choose the images that they were going to like best to put under the glass. We set them out to dry and that was it. The rest was up to me. I took me about 1.5 hours over two days to finish up the projects. I had to cut out the glass from the paper, and then glaze the backs of the pendants, and then attach the bail (the loop) to each pendant. The drying time was significant, and so was keeping the pendants separated. But it was all manageable and I was able to send back the finished projects to school in an unmarked brown lunchbag after school so that the girls could take their projects home.
Photo Keychains
I had this great idea that the kids could make photo keychains of the group, especially since one of the girls is going back to Korea this summer and will not be apart of this group. I thought it'd be fun for them to have a momento of their time together, so I snapped photos of them and got ready to print them on my printer. Unforutnately I ran into a huge technical snafu where the photos wouldn't print and the girls started to get a bit antsy. I told them to find other pictures that they'd like to put in their keychain from the magazine and this seemed to make them happy and they did so.
Photocards
I managed to resolve the printer problem, and there was enough time so I had the girls make photo cards instead of the photo keychains. This was simply printing out the photographs and having them mount them into a card and then the girls spent time writing little notes to each other on the cards and put them in envelopes. It did give me a great idea for a future birthday party, which would be a time capsule project that I think I'm going to have at the 10 year birthday party. (Wait for that one in a year.) The girls loved this too and it was simple and fun. Cards, markers and photographs printed out.
Menu
Daughter #1 had few requests for food. Namely she wanted there to be string cheese, rice krispy pops in strawberry and cupcakes of her choosing with pearl sprinkles. I added bottled water, fruit salad, pretzels, popcorn and the refreshment table was done. She asked for a vanilla cupcake and I experimented with a buttermilk vanilla cupcake which isn't quite perfected, but I'll get a recipe up for that as soon as I can.
Buttermilk Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting (coming soon)
Strawberry Rice Krispy Pops
Fruit salad
Popcorn
Pretzels
String Cheese
I coordinated the food (my only other bit of decor) by using some fabric tape and making little flags (made #1 and #2 do this) for the cupcakes as well as the rice krispy pops. I also embellished the water bottles with more fabric tape.
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