Bumblebee's Crafty Birthday Party

Whew. I'm exhausted.  Bumblebee had her birthday party this afternoon. Ten girls showed up to celebrate, so we had a houseful of very energetic girls:

*photo of the girls being goofy:

I decided that instead of gambling on the weather and scheduling too many outdoor activities, that we'd keep indoors and do crafts instead.  8 year old girls LOVE crafts, y'all.

*Photo of the girls doing crafts:

 

We decided to do two crafts.  The first was to make rock buddies.

*photo of supplies:

We grabbed a bunch of rocks from our weed flower garden outside and washed them.  I made sure to get large and small rocks so that if kids wanted to glue smaller 'heads' onto larger 'bodies' it would work. I painted most of the rocks a variety of colors. Then I set out some glitter, googly eyes, pom poms, markers, and glue, and we were set.  We also had feathers and other stickers from the other project, so those got use very creatively as well.  The finished product:

*photos of the pet rocks:

These were Bumblebee's rocks.  A ladybug and a bumblebee - appropriate, no?  I hot glued the smaller rock to the larger rock:



Our second craft was to decorate wooden photo frames.  I took a picture of the girls when they first got there, and printed off eleven copies of the photo. These are the supplies we used:

*photo of the supplies:

 

The wooden frames are available at Michael's for $1.00.  We also used foam brushes, acrylic paint, feathers, sequins, markers, stickers, and glue.

The girls painted the frame whatever color they wanted:

*photo of a partygoer painting a frame:

Then they added whatever embellishments they wanted to the frame.  I set out the frames to dry, and once they were, I added the photos to the frame:

*photo of the frame with the photo in it:

Super easy, and they get to bring home a fun keepsake of the party.  In addition to their pet rocks and the photo frames, I sent home a fun little project for them to do at home.

*photo of play-doh kit:

In their goody bags, I put these homemade play-doh kits.  I found the recipe on Pinterest (which is my new addiction). It's super easy, you just put together some salt, flour, and kool-aid mix.  Then you put them in a cute bag, tie them up, and write out the recipe.  All the girls' folks have to do at home is mix the ingredients with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, and voila! they have homemade play-doh.

The girls spent at least half of their time making these crafts, and then they roasted some hot dogs (or 'weenies' as Bumblebee likes to call them):

*photo of the girls roasting hot dogs over a fire in the back yard:

Bumblebee really wanted to have time to watch the movie Soul Surfer, and they gave it a try:

*photo of the girls watching a movie:

See how calm they are?  Yeah, that lasted maybe five minutes, but there wasn't time to watch the whole movie.  Before long, they were off to eat some of these:

*photo of cupcakes:

 As they sang Happy Birthday to Bumblebee, she belted out, "And many more...":

*photo of Bumblebee singing:

Here's to many more fun birthday parties. This one was a success.  As the girls were doing their crafts, one of them said, "best birthday party ever!" and it made me smile.  You can't beat that for praise, can you?