M's Birthday Party Series: Theme

I have always wanted to a Pirate Themed birthday party. But hubby was not totally sold on to the idea because with the skulls and crossbones and the dark color scheme, it is not exactly a child-friendly theme. But I bargained that if I'm able to find a way to make it look lively, he should allow me to do a pirate themed party. 

First, I asked my brother to make me a pirate character based on Pocoyo. Why Pocoyo? Cause that's one of the very few cartoon characters M is familiar with. You see he rarely gets to watch tv. The only time he got a lot of tv time was when he hospitalized for a week last September for pneumonia. Yes, 2nd hospitalization for year 2011. Unlike when he was 3 months old, this time it was a lot harder to make him stay still. His IV was re-inserted so many times that I lost count. The only thing that can make him stay put was watching cartoons and Pocoyo was one of his favorites. Even now when you show him a picture of Pocoyo he suddenly gets excited. 

This was of our initial peg:

 

I asked my brother to make him look like a pirate and then change the candles from 100 to 1. He gave me this initial sketch for approval:

After I ok'd on the image, he started putting color into the image. It took some revisions before hubby and I both agreed to these two final images:

My brother got what I wanted

This one I used on my cupcake toppers

Cute eh? The kids' yayas (nannies) said the character looks a lot like M. What do you think?

DIY Series: Personalized Apron

During S's 3rd birthday, she had a small school birthday party. I had a lot of plans but again budget was the issue. Unlike during S's 1st and 2nd birthday parties, when I was still working and had money to augment the paltry budget my CFO gave me, this time the "working mommy no more" had to be extra creative and resourceful on how to make the party special at the same time stick to my budget.

S and her classmate getting busy with the activity

Her school only allows simple parties in school so no games and program. But I wanted to add an activity aside from the usual eating and blowing the candles. I decided to do a cupcake decorating activity. The kids decorated cupcakes I ordered from Frupcakes using candies, sprinkles and fondant decorations while wearing these cute little aprons. I got the idea from The Loot Fairy. I initially wanted to order from them but they have a 24 pcs minimum order. It came to a point I was tempted to order all 24 thinking the rest I can give out as Christmas gifts. Tee hee! But at that moment, I did not have the money to order all 24 pieces. 

With no sewing skills, I tried asking my friend if her mom who dabbles in sewing can make the aprons for me. It was fairly easy to make so she asked me to send her the template and the materials. I'm sure your friendly neighborhood mananahi (seamstress) can do that for you.

DIY Party Series

I've been busy lately planning for the little boy's party. And I only have less than a month left. Yeah I know I'm cramming which is so unlike me. S's party was planned 7 months in advance. I initially had a hard time deciding where to do M's, whether to go big or intimate. So until I sorted that out just last weekend, I cannot go into the nitty gritty. Every waking hours now are spent on Photoshop and soon cutting and gluing papers.

Photo Credit: Psprint.com

One thing I love  to do for my kids' parties are the DIY projects (do-it-yourself projects). Aside from these are labor of love and add up personalized touches, it is a way for me to save money. You see the hubby is no believer of big parties. He grew up during the communist times in Europe where everything is rationed. Birthday means a homemade cake and a small salu-salo in the house. No fancy gifts and definitely no fancy parties. Which is so unlike Filipinos who throw big parties during the first and the seventh birthdays. During S's 1st birthday party he set up a budget which made think "Are you serious?" So while my mommy friends had the opportunity to hire party planners, I had to do everything own my own: from looking for a venue, making balloons (there are a lot of tutorials in YouTube) to making my invitations and other decors. 

It is very easy to do DIYs.  All you need is a little creativity and a lot of patience. But it is hard labor too. I know I'm exaggerating but have you tried sitting for 3 hours straight cutting small pieces of pictures for your paper tole invitations? You will also need  to do alot of researching. I usually get ideas from Marthe Stewart and Tip Junkie. Forums such as GirlTalk and Smart Parenting will give you ideas what's "in" in the birthday party scene in the Philippines.

One helpful tool I use is Photoshop. I learned using this during my Multimedia class in college (see Ms. E I did learn something from your class). After graduation, I totally forgot about it then was forced to re-learn it to make S's baptism invitation. I'm still no expert in this and I only know the basics. BUT I do think I'm able to make fantastic invitation layouts (I'll share some of it next time). Back to Photoshop, it takes sometime to learn the software but once you get the hang of it, using it is quite easy. However, if you don't have the time to learn a new software or do not have the intention on investing on buying the software, you can easily do your layouting in PowerPoint or in Paint. These have limited functionalities compared to Photoshop but it can help you accomplish the task.

From time to time, I'll be sharing my DIY Party ideas. Hopefully, you mommies who are planning parties for their kids will learn a thing or two from them.