Our Halloween Gathering of 2016

 A Nightmare Before Christmas party

This year we opted for a fun Nightmare Before Christmas Party :) We immediately began to look for props and look for ideas. We found a cute printable banner and wreath ideas on Pinterest. I created the invitations using clip art and the free Nightmare Before Christmas font that I found here. 

We decided to have guests bring their flashlights and after creepy crafts we watched the movie and then headed outside for a themed scavenger hunt and flashlight tag!

I made a cute little Zero ghost out of pipe cleaners, cheap white fabric, cheesecloth, stuffing, and felt and small imitation pumpkins. Here he is! I love him. there are various tutorials out there but I just looked at a picture and "winged" it. (No pun intended). 

The printable banner was found here. Sally's recipe book tutorial was found here. This woman has so many great ideas and tutorials! She even has things for sale! Be sure to check her out! Her stuff is amazing! She also has free printable labels for Sally's potion jars. I bought glass and plastic jars and sprayed them a matte black then glued the labels to them. 

I was sure to get plenty of gummy worms (Oogie Boogie's Bugs), Twizzlers for Sally's hair, chocolate Chex mix with white chocolate chips for Zero's Kibble, and made little Zero cupcake toppers from fondant. I also made a great cake with jack's face and bowtie. I scanned cyberspace for ideas and settled on combining a bunch of different ideas. 

I used a black tablecloth that I cut into strips and put it across our sliding door as a curtain. I used white foam to cut out 3 skulls and used a sharpie marker to draw Jack's face and placed them in the center and sides of the curtains to hold them open. Zero was put by our slider to the backyard and I hung various purple lights and decor outside.  I got black spiderweb plates, napkins, and orange cups. Purple flatware was placed in black containers and I got a cheap black plastic cauldron and two plastic web bowls for three dollars each at stop and shop that completed the look.

The scavenger hunt cards I created and have shared them with you! Please remember to give me credit for them! Also, I have included the invitation card covers that I used. I got black cards and envelopes and glued on the inner portions and using white gel pens, wrote the guest's names and addresses on them. 
Savenger Hunt Printables
Invite Cover

The invites came out so great!!! 

For food, I made a Jack Skellington cake and used an idea found on Pinterest (I LOVE that site!) that used melted marshmallows strung around the cake to look like spiderwebs! So cute! Twizzlers were "Sally's Hair", and we had "Boo Cheese", pumpkin dip served with apples and graham crackers, little clementine oranges, Oogie's Bugs which were sour gummy worms, pizza, salad, a veggie platter, witch's hat cupcakes, and pulled pork and meatball sandwiches. We also had monster donuts (I took vampire teeth and put them in the center of them) and Caramel Apple Sangria for the adults. The table came out amazing and because I ran out of time, I realized I never took a picture of it set up! I am so disappointed, but it looked amazing- trust me. I do have pictures of the rest of the decorations though and the cake and cupcakes- at least I have those.

The kids arrived and we set them up to do a craft downstairs. 

After that, we had pizza and watched the movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Since it was raining that day, I was unsure if we could do the scavenger hunt, but after the movie, we were able to do it. I hid the items during the movie and then gave 6 cards to the kids and as each item was found, the next child read their card. We then played "Pin the nose on Zero" and used the mayor's pumpkin tie as a blindfold. The kids loved it. We did have plans to do a pumpkin ring toss with glow stick rings and a pumpkin but the kids opted for a double feature instead and "Hotel Transylvania" was shown instead. Finally, flashlight tag was played outside when it got dark and they had a blast! Overall, they were amazing and everyone had fun!

Enjoy!!

Frozen Winter Wonderland Birthday Party!

Kayleigh's birthday is upon us again and I cannot believe it! She loved the movie "Frozen" when it came out and I thought what a fun idea it would be to have a "winter in June" theme. I wanted to use a lot of snowflakes, white snow, and winter birch branches. I reused the birch branches from Christmas and her First Communion. I placed one pot by the dessert table, and the other out by the door. On the porch, I covered it with buffalo snow that I got for 90% off after Christmas. 

We used hues of silver, winter white, icy blue, and lavender to complete the theme. I used many items from my Winter Wonderland party and other winter parties. The white tablecloths and the white tulle table skirt that I made combined with discounted clearance buffalo snow on top made for a beautiful setting. 

I found rolls of ribbon on clearance for $0.49 each and these I used to decorate the wands. Discounted iridescent snowflake ornaments were hot glued to the top of dowels to complete the look. Additional white sparkly snowflake ornaments were used to create more wands. These can be purchased through my Etsy shop here! 

From Oriental Trading Company, I purchased the favor boxes, acrylic clear, pink, and blue ice, and snowflake stickers. From Michael's I purchased white, lavender, and light blue gift bags to put the favors in. I included a baggie of heart and snowflake marshmallows, green and blue sugar crystals (which were the melted hearts, snowflakes, Elsa crystals, and troll glow stones), a crown, a plastic sparkle ice castle ornament (gotten on clearance after Christmas), silver or sparkle blue headbands, and white gumballs. 

I also bought a canvas and using wax paper, ironed a stencil of Elsa's silouette on the canvas and then used shimmer paint to paint over it. Once dry, I pulled it off and behold the masterpiece. This was the centerpiece of the dessert table. I also used a jar and decorated it with snowflake stickers and filled it with shimmery gumballs.

Additional items included, white sparkle clear flatware (Christmas Tree Shops- $2.99 each), stickers on clearance from AC Moore and Michael's, 3 icy look rings that I placed around the glass votive containers, and tons of paper snowflakes that Kayleigh and I made together. 

Food was simple fair placed in clear canisters. I created a gorgeous shimmery white 6x9 inch cake using white buttercream, white cake, and white sanding sugar. It came out amazing! The top layer was white, middle blue, and bottom was lavender. Fondant snowflakes completed it and I didn't want to cut into it! Other treats included:

Olaf's Noses: Carrots

Elsa's Snowflakes: snowflake shaped cookies

Shimmer White Gumballs

Fruit Salad: Grapes and blueberries

Olaf's Arms: Pretzel sticks

Olaf in Summer: Fondant Olaf in blue jello

Frozen Hearts: Strawberries in white chocolate

Games included Pin the Carrot on Olaf, snogie and Sven construction craft, and outdoor play!

The kids had a great time and it was so fun! Can't wait to plan for next year!

Happy 8th Birthday K!!!
xoxo,
Mumma

A Mother and Daughter's Letters to Santa Brunch!

This year I decided to throw my little snow bunny a Mother and Daughter "Letters to Santa" brunch. I also thought it would be sweet to invite the other little girls she is close friends with and their mothers as a nice late morning/early afternoon gathering.

I found a cute little white metal mailbox from Oriental Trading Company and created the cutest little invitations that looked like postcards! The printable can be found here. The color theme was white, red, and blue with pine and brown paper accents. I found these gorgeous letters to Santa place mats from Pottery Barn and thought they would go perfectly with the theme for the party! This is why I love to plan ahead! Ha!

So, we decorated the table with brown paper and used stamps to stamp cute decorations all over it in red and black ink. Kayleigh had a blast making the table cover. We had brown paper packages with ribbon and string for decorations and used the sparkling white snow globe that I had from the North Pole Party last year as part of the décor too. I used my little white tabletop tree and printed out the cutest "Dear Santa" letterhead! The kids took turns at the letter station writing their letters to Santa and had fun with the "Reindeer Games" that were set up to play with.

As favors, I made little elves for the kids to take home. I made little name tags featuring names of elves for the kids to chose from when they arrived at our "Elf Adoption Center" such as Icicle, Candy Cane, Sprinkles, Snowflake, Peppermint, Elfie, Lucky, Kringle, Elfie, Sparkle, Creampuff, Blizzard, Rice Krispie, Jolly, Jack, Chip, and Jingle. You can find this printable here.

I made the elves using a pattern that I found on craftsy.com and they came out amazing! Kayleigh chose hers right away and each child received an Adoption Certificate with their little elf. These were the favors at our little party. Little packages of "Elf Pillows" were there to take with the little elves.

This is a picture of the Elf Adoption Certificate! It came out really cute. 

You can find a printable located here. As with all available printables, please remember to cite where it came from (Me!) Thanks. In addition to the elves, each child was given an "Elf Care Package" complete with packets of Elf Pillows and Magic Candy Cane Seeds. The printables can be found by clicking the link!

We also had plenty of goodies and a cookie decorating station too! What yummy creations!

Here are some of the pictures from the party! Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed this party blog! We had a great time and feel free to comment below!

Ariane :)