I don't think anyone needed to cool their Jets… it was more like light a fire and cuddle up to stay warm ..for us adults anyway. The boys ran around enough to stay warm and watching them and keeping up was enough for us not to freeze! We celebrated Ethan's birthday on his actual birthday yesterday! It was a great time and was a perfect excuse for me to make something aside from cards and scrapbook pages! Of course those are fun too and I will be back with his birthday card to share but for now I'll share his birthday and the projects we made to decorate and to give away for favors. All these little things also gave me an excuse to use my Stampin Up! product in a variety of ways! …not like I really need excuses!
I should add that up until a week ago, we were going to have his party at a pottery painting venue which was going to allow/require very little prepping or decorating on our part… but with the unusually nice weather here we couldn't resist attempting to throw Ethan his first ever outdoor party! So, with under a week to prepare, we threw the original plans out the window and pulled out all the stops (or tried to) to give him a Jets (our local NHL team) themed Back Yard Mini Sticks party! HE was TOTALLY thrilled!
I joked that I put as many hours into prepping for his party and got as little sleep getting it ready as I did for his birth (although that isn't a joke, it's true!). My labour with him was about 51 or 52 hrs (I lost track) and I'm sure that in the days immediately leading up to his party I put at least that many hours into the crafting (along with Ryan just like the labour was <wink>) to get ready for his big day! I have to say that although I'm exhausted now, I'm really happy that recovering from the party is much faster than recovering from his birth! Every. Single. Second. of both events has been absolutely worth it! It makes my heart smile to see the smile(s) on his face!
I have to admit that I go in spurts with using our digital crafting software, My Digital Studio (MDS ~ YOU can try for FREE for 30 days by clicking here) and really need to use it more often. It made some of these projects do-able! The theme wouldn't have been quite the same with out these little details! After creating his invite we decided we'd create 'player cards' for the kids to each take home. Using Jets symbols that Ryan found online, we came up with this player card. Unfortunately iphoto wasn't co-operating with us, so the kids will receive theirs next time we see them (after Spring Break)! I've mounted the front and back together and have laminated them for durability. The cousins got to take theirs home last night and were pretty happy with them!
Here are the front and back views
I think one of Ethan's favorite parts of his party were the 'jerseys' that he gave to all of his friends when they were 'drafted' to a team. I used the Serif Essential Alphabet and the Big Shot Fabric Adhesive Roll to create their names for their jerseys. This made it much simpler than sewing them on! We played 'pick a number' (the captain chose a number between 1 and 10 and the first player to guess the number was on that captain's team) to determine who got drafted to each team. As the players got drafted, they received their jersey and then had a photo op where I took their photo to be inserted into the template I had ready to go for the player cards. The captains took turns until all the players were drafted and I had taken each player's photo. Then, the game was on! Ryan was the ref and came up with reasons to send them to the penalty box or subbed them off to sit with me while I 'interviewed' them and filled in their stats! It was fun. One child's favorite number was 100,000,000! They were so much fun and it was kinda cool to hear all of their different answers and to see the trends amongst the kids and hockey!
We also gave the kids Trophies with a lanyard to use to attach their player card to if they wanted to. Inside the trophy was a bag of Oreo's. We gave those out in keeping with the theme of Ethan's cake, an oreo ice cream cake and because we had read somewhere in our scramble of looking for Hockey Themed party ideas that Oreo's make a great 'puck' treat/favor. Not sure if the idea behind them would be interpreted or not, we came up with this tag to attach to the the bags.
My Digital Studio totally saved me with prepping for this party! This tag literally took me 5 mins from the moment I decided it needed a tag, to designing it to printing it and punching them all out! Did you know that if you apply a 'punch' to your MDS project, it will print out in the actual size of our punches. This made is super simple to create these tags and get them on the bags! MDS also made customizing each trophy a breeze! It took more time to apply sticky strip to them so that I could adhere them to the trophy!
Here they are!
While the kids got to take their favors home and as such might have noticed a theme there, I'm sure the decorations are not something most kids (aside from the birthday kid) will notice. THIS birthday kid, TOTALLY noticed and was right into it. His words to me as he came into our room on his birthday morning after seeing a banner hanging in the living room along with tshirt pom poms were, 'I love all the stuff you made for my party Mom!' THOSE words were music to my ears and made every single detail and every single second worth the efforts. He is one boy who definitely appreciates all these little things! We were so happy to do this for him! We have a decent sized yard for living in the city and while the decorations definitely don't fill the yard, they filled our boy with happiness!
Here are the yarn balls that hung near the trophy table! I found a few tutorial on Pinterest and then just had to wing it/improvise! They were so fun and we're already planning more for Lennon's Pirate Themed Party in July!
Here are the banners we made in the colors of the Jets to decorate the fence. I was really hoping it wouldn't rain and it didn't thank goodness. These did look really neat blowing in the wind!
I also found a tutorial for these tshirt Pom Poms on Pinterest (my new favorite site) and thought they went great with the two Banners Ethan already had in his room. We'll hang the set in his room together now. He already has a place picked out!
If you remember the invite that I shared last week, I wanted to share it again with a new twist to show a new bar code that I created. I realized after I shared it that Ryan had used someone else's ticket (that he found online) and 'cased' it to come up with the first one I shared. So, even though I had already shared it here, I wanted to come up with my own barcode. It was very easy to create in MDS. I've attached it below the invite here. (turned landscape to save some space). Ethan also wanted me to update his photo!
I had quite a few more photos I wanted to share, but they were adding up so I put this together instead. The photo of all the boys all lined up totally cracks me up…pardon me for saying this, but it looks like they are 'taking a break' of the potty kind on my fence! I have also included a couple of Ethan all geared up to be goalie and a shot of the sticks that the kids all tossed in a pile in a hurry to run for cake! Enjoy!
Here's one last one of Lennon keeping watch!
Thanks for sticking with me! Hope you enjoyed the party and that our party has given you some idead for your own party! I'll definitely be back between now and then, but I'll use some of these same ideas for Lennon's party in July and will be sure to come back to share what some of this will look like with a Pirate Theme! Have a great week! I might even be back later with my Apothecary Art and Framelit Labels Class! …if I don't fall asleep before then, I'm exhausted…all this partying has tired me out!
