(My Lil' Guy)^2

September is going to be one “sweet” month around our place. My oldest is turning 5 in a couple weeks and we are doing a Candy Land theme for his party this year. For those of you who don’t know Sir Q, let’s just say that the boy is a creature of habit and insists we stick to routine.  Well for at least the past 6 months, we have played 2 games of Candy Land almost everyday, right after lunch while Capt C takes his nap.  And even though I’m so very tired of getting stuck on licorice squares, I really have enjoyed this little ritual with Sir Q. Which is pretty funny considering that I have a traumatic childhood memory of the game, but that’s for another post.

So in preparing for the upcoming birthday party, I have been searching the interwebs for inspiration. There are some really great Candy Land parties out there and I really love the idea of creating a life size Candy Land board and having the party guests actually play the game, but alas most of our party guests are from the 3 and under crowd and have don’t have the attention spans, nor the skills, to play along.  Not to mention my house is a bit on the smallish size, but I am however hoping to create a scaled down version that the kiddos can just explore. I wanted to share some of the great stuff I found in case you are needing a little inspiration too.

The invitation is my own design and can be found in my etsy shop. Printable party supplies will be in the shop soon.

1. I found great ideas for making lollipop decorations over at My Creative Way. So easy and yet so cute!

2. Check out this amazing party over at Katherine Marie Photography. So many amazing details and simply stunning pictures! You will get a sugar high just from looking!

3. How about creating a game board cake? This one over at Amazing Kid Birthday Parties is one of the best versions I’ve seen.

4. This Candy Land Birthday by Sarah has a ton of great ideas. I love her table settings!

5. Check out jlund2008′s photostream over on flickr for some more great decoration ideas.

6. Of couse if your guests are old enough, a game of Candy Land would be great for a small group or use the game board and pieces for decorating. Photo found onflickr.

7. Everyone loves cupcakes! So how about some Candy Land cupcakes? I love these by Tishatls!

More ideas, projects and pictures coming soon as we head closer to the big day.

The last day of August and the weather has a hint of fall to it. It makes me happy. This is my favorite time of year! Not only is fall my favorite season, but it is also the beginning of all my favorite holidays.  September will kick us off with my oldest’s birthday. He’ll be five this year! It is a little bitter sweet for me. Five just seems like I can’t think of him as my baby anymore. I still have a year before kindergarten, so I guess I can hold on to that.  Then comes October and of course, Halloween. We’ve already started thinking about costumes…I may try my hand at making them this year. So hopefully the force will be with us.

Then November will be here with FIVE birthdays…my hubby, my youngest, my nephew and my twin little brothers! To top it off 4 of the birthdays fall in the same week as Thanksgiving.  And then of couse I’m already dreaming of all the yummy Thanksgiving food. Gosh, is anyone else getting hungry? Then I’m sure time will fly by and its will be Christmas.  I’ve got plans to make several gifts this year, so I should probably get started soon.

The good news about all this holiday busyness is that I should have plenty of projects and ideas to share with you.  I plan to put my birthday gift (my new camera!!) to good use in the coming months. So I say farwell summer and…Hello Fall!

Where has the summer gone?! I remember wishing it would warm up and now we are talking about back-to-school. I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer. I thought I would share some pictures of what our summer has looked like and show what I’ve been up to…instead of writing blog posts and designing lil’ guys.

We’ve spent a lot of time at our local science museum, which is a fun place to hide from the heat.

We went to a birthday party and it rained.  So we played in the rain.

We went to the theater and saw Toy Story 3 and even got some new pjs!

We went to another birthday party and it didn’t rain, but we still got to play in the water.

And when it hasn’t been too hot, we’ve played in the backyard on the playset. Sir Q is becoming quite the expert swinger.

And he’s teaching little brother all about swinging. He’s such a good big brother!

Capt. C is also learning the fun of sliding. With mom’s help he can climb to the top and go down the slide.

And now as summer is winding down, we are planning one last fun adventure…taking the boys camping for the first time. So hopefully for the next weekend, my summer shapshots will look something like this.

I’ve been working on getting some new designs ready and I’m so excited about them I just have to share. This time the lil’ guys are dressing up as their favorite super heroes and are ready to save the day. My boys, especially my oldest, love pretending to be their favorite super hero. Last Halloween my boys and their cousin dressed up as super heroes and we’re thinking about doing a super hero party for Sir Q’s 5th birthday in September. So you could say that we have a thing for Super Heroes around here. After I drew up my lil’ guys, I showed them to Sir Q and he accurately identified each one, so I think we are good to go. I’ll be working up some invitation designs soon, but for now here’s a peak at the Super Lil’ Guys.

My inspiration

and the Super Lil’ Guys

Hope you like them and keep and eye out for more designs featuring the Super Lil’ Guys coming soon!

As much as I love creating and decorating for parties, my party budget is usually pretty limited. I try to get the most out of each dollar and love to find creative ideas to help make my little guy’s day wonderful without breaking the bank. My oldest is turning 5 in a few months, so I’m beginning to brainstorm for party ideas and thinking about creative ways to make it all come together. I know that no matter what size party you are planning, you probably want to get the most bang for your buck too.

There are lots of sites around the web that have general tips for throwing a party on a budget. They usually say things like keep guest numbers low, make things (like the cake) yourself, and have the party at your house. Today I want to share one of my favorite ways to stretch the party dollars, make items play double duty.

If you are already buying/ making something for your party make sure it can fill as many roles as possible. As pointed out above, if you have an overall theme you can often make practical items (like food and the cake) play double duty by simply finding a way to tie them into the theme. So how would you tie food into a theme that has nothing to do with food? You can always make labels for each item with clever names that reflect the theme (punch = rocket fuel for a space party). Of course the cake usually reflects your theme, but make sure to try to think about other ways to turn your sweets into décor. Cupcakes are wonderful when it comes to getting creative. Dot over at Dabbled.org made some wonderful Clone Trooper cupcakes for her son’s Phineas & Ferb meet the Clone Wars 5th birthday party. Aren’t they cool?

For my oldest son’s 4^th birthday last year, we had a Word World theme and the cake was made to look like it was made out of the letters C-A-K-E, just like the one from the cartoon. We also used alphabet letter cookie cutters and alphabet gummy candy to dress up the table.

Another thing we did for his party was to use his birthday present from us as part of the party decorations. I had found a Word World play set for him, so instead of wrapping it, we set it up on the coffee table for the kids to play with while they were all arriving. I loved that I had a decoration that wouldn’t be thrown away after the party and he loved playing with his new toy. There are toys for just about every theme so you could do this with a variety of things.

Another great place to make things play double duty is the party favors. We all want to make sure that our party guests know how much we loved having them over but party favors can really blow a budget. Find a way to make them be part of the decorations or perhaps an activity and you will get more bang for your buck. If you our doing a little favor bag, make sure to dress it up so that it helps decorate the room. If your doing a larger single favor, you them as part of the decorations. One year we did pinwheels as favors and mixed them in with the balloons until the kids were ready to have them. You can also have the kids make a craft and then take it home as their favor.

Saving money doesn’t have to be difficult. It just takes a little planning and a bit of imagination. If you have any great budget friendly party ideas or links, feel free to share them in the comments.