Monkey Birthday Party

Yeah...I finally have another party to post about....Last weekend we had a monkey birthday party for my 7 year old daughter. We had a great time and did lots of Monkeying around. The birthday invitations started at school with a snack and and an invite. I used the containers I bought for the party banana split party and packed in a banana and the invite. Super cute and easy invitation. The little "fake" bananas were sent to those that were not in Natalie's class. We decorated with lots of banana and monkey themed items. I created fake palm trees out of wrapping paper rolls, balloons, and green posterboard. I stuck dowell rods down in some round flat foam pieces and placed the wrapping paper rolls over them. I then placed monkeys around the trees and placed bananas around the table. I found a few fake plants to tie the yellow and brown balloons too and used green, yellow, and brown for tablecloths and accent colors. I bought green, brown, and monkey printed fleece when it was on sale and created simple scarfs for one of the take home goodies. The looked great around each of the chairs and even the adults liked them and took one home. It was a great alternative to the tulle seat decorations and it was something usuable. The best part is I made 30 of them in about an hour and it only costs me around $10.00. We also had a banana split bar. I used an old crate I had laying around to place the bananas on and some baskets as well. It turned out very cute and it was the hit of the party. I found some monkey sucker molds and lots of fun stuff from oriental trading to dress up the tables and the kids...lol. We had a monkey coloring page out on the activity table when the kids got there they could start coloring. After they were done we hung them up on a clothesline with clothespins to display and for more festive monkey decorations. The goody bags were just plain brown lunch bags with welcome to the jungle wrote on them. I think they looked really cute lined up together. I also saved up toilet paper rolls for months so the kids could create binoculars at the party. We had a monkey dance contest with some songs my friend downloaded for me from madagascar 2 soundtrack. We also played bingo. It turned out to be a great party. I hope you enjoy the pics and are inspired for your next party.

Fishing Birthday party

We had a fishing birthday party for my nephew at a local fishing lake. We held the birthday party on a Thursday afternoon because the Lake gets crowded on the weekend. We got lucky and had the place to ourselves and the weather was perfect. We had lots of goldfish crackers and gummy worms on skewers. We used the goldfish cracker boxes for the goodie bags at the party. They turned out really cute. This was a great way to recycle and keep within the theme for the goodie bags. There is some great packaging out there just keep your eyes open. I made a huge fish out of fabric and stuffing and a sign that said I caught the big one at Hunter's Birthday party. I had each person fishing hold it up and took a picture for the Birthday scrapbook. I found a chipboard fish shaped book at Michaels that I took apart and ran ribbon through to make a banner for the party as well. I made big red/white fishing bobbers out of white bowls I found at dollar general. To make these you will need two bowls the same size. I spray painted one of them red and flipped it on top of the other. I drilled two tiny holes in the red bowl and strung a ribbon through it so I could hang the bobber. Then I took white duck tape and taped the bowls together. This turned out really cute. I also made several smaller versions with smaller bowls I found marked down at Walmart after the 4th of July. All in all this was a great party for an 8 year old and we caught lots of fish. ENJOY!