With a birthday right after Christmas, Kate has never had a big party. We decided to have one big hurrah for turning ten. And I decided to throw myself into party preparations as if I didn't already have a dozen things to do. (Might as well have fun with it, right?) First up, invitations, with a dragon based on Kate's drawing. I colored the dragons with my Inktense pencils and used double-sided gelli prints for the cards.
I came up with lot of ideas for decorations and party favors. (The kitchen table was a mess for a few days.) I painted a tailless dragon on foam board, for a game of Pin the Tail on the Dragon.
I got these little boxes for favors, and painted scales on the sides and dragons on top.
Stamped table runner (with a craft foam stamp that I made).
This was kind of an experiement--gelli printing right on gift bags. It took a couple tries to get the hang of it (I had some blank spots where the handles connect and had to touch those up), but it worked well and looked really cool.
I made a foam stamp with the kids' names, stamped the bags, and then gave them their stamps in their bags. (I wanted to make some other stamps for them too, but ran out of time.)
Garlands of gelli print hearts on ribbon. (I have not previously owned a glue gun, but got one recently for making stencils and textures for gelli printing. I think this the first time I've used it for anything else.)
Cupcakes by JoLee Watson (JoLee's Custom Cakes).
We put candles in two cupcakes and said they were dragon claws.
We had the party at the Star Center. Room for ten kids--eight besides Kate and Andy--and everyone that we invited was able to come! We'd never done anything like this but everything pretty much went off without a hitch (the only thing I forgot was a bag of clementines), and all the kids had a great time.
Root beer floats.
We had the kids make their own tails for Pin the Tail on the Dragon. (My sister Betsey did this one time--hers was Pin the Tail on the Duck--and I thought it was a great idea.)
Doug made this tail (which he later stuck on Andy).
Ellie set the dragon on fire.
The complete set of tails.
We had an hour in the party room and then an hour to play on the climbing equipment. The Star Center has some fun stuff.
A good time was had by all! It really was a fun party. Success!
