My efforts to create a handmade party within a trademarked theme went over pretty well, I must say. My 5-year old loved her "Littlest Pet Shop" party. But then again, the
presents were her favorite part. I could have had soggy streamers & booger cupcakes & she wouldn't have cared. As long as there were
presents. I admit I stressed & felt guilty that I couldn't buy every "Littlest Pet Shop" birthday decor ever made. But, I got over it. I was even rushed at the last minute & didn't have time to make a banner, hang balloons or create our traditional birthday sidewalk chalk messages. But, that's OK. That's one thing I realized when trying to come up with ways to plan this {somewhat challenging} party: the most important part of any party is the person you're celebrating.
With that said, let's get down to the details!!
The invitations: I LOVED how the invitations came out. Even if they didn't turn out how I expected. They turned out BETTER than I had planned! They were a great start & perfect feel for the party theme.
And! Oh. My. Golly. I just got these back from Walmart. I ordered them online, the same time I ordered the 1-hour prints for the invitations. I took one of my Littlest Pet Shop photos & had it made into stickers!!! Twenty 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" stickers cost $4.77 with tax. They turned out SO SUPER CUTE! They'll be the "seal" on the back of the envelopes when we send out the thank-you notes. I am very impressed & will be using this service again!
The personalized photo invitations & stickers were my favorite detail of the party.
The food: My mom & I were able to shop for some yummy fruits & tasty homemade breads the day before the party at the Farmer's Market. Party guests munched on strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, raspberries, pineapple, Bing & Rainier cherries, guava & apricots. Blueberry bread, apple bread, zucchini bread & cheese bread were also served.
I also invented (OK, not really invented) a delicious punch that tastes like an orange creamsicle! Just mix vanilla ice cream with orange flavored pop. You can also see from the photo that we decorated the cups with Littlest Pet Shop stickers.
The first thing the wee party guests received were little tags, each embellished with their name & a different colored heart.
Set up in one corner of the room was an "Adoption Center". I displayed Pazely's Littlest Pet Shop centers & scattered packaged pets all over. Each pet also had a tag attached to it. The kids got to go over to the adoption center & find the pet with the tag that matched the one they received with their name on it.
The craft: the kids got to decorate little white wedding favor boxes (12/$1 @ The Dollar Tree) with markers, jewels, stickers, paper, etc as homes for their new Little Pets.
Here's how some of their boxes turned out:
And I had to join in on the fun too:
The game: I stole this game idea from my friend Jules. Pazely helped me color some Littlest Pet Shop character pages that I printed out from
THIS WEBSITE. I randomly scattered the pages all over the floor. As I played music, the kids bounced around like bunnies or hopped around like frogs etc. & when the music stopped, the kids found a colored picture to remain standing on. I had all the pictures also printed out in smaller versions that I stuck in a hat. I pulled out a picture & whoever happened to be standing on that picture received a prize! That person was out of the game & I continued on until everyone won a prize.
The prize? I
made playdough & the kids got to choose the color they wanted. I purchased a 4-pack of small plastic containers at The Dollar Tree & attached (with double-stick tape) some pictures I printed out & colored. I also named the colors: Puppy Purple, Lizard Lime, Tabby Cat Tan & Bea-u-TEAL-ful Butterfly. My fingers ended up being as intense & colorful as the playdough.
I used the Neon food colors made by McCormick. I really like using them.
Next was cupcake time! I crafted up more cupcake picks like I made for Pazely's birthday celebration at preschool a month ago. I just cut 3 different sized circles from random patterned scrapbook paper & glued them to bamboo skewers cut in half. You can use this idea for ANY theme.
I had these really cool candles I was waiting to use for a special occasion. I got them at Liquidation World. They are thick & made of plastic & the flame is colored!! Green, pink, orange, blue & red.
After cupcakes were consumed, it was time for a treasure hunt!
Handmade "Littlest Pet Shop" party bags were filled with stickers, glow-in-the dark bracelets, magnet scene sets, a mini coloring book (that I made by resizing the images I used from the game & stapling them together), crayons & bubbles.
For the bubbles, I purchased a 9-pack of wedding favor bubbles at The Dollar Tree & wrapped them each in a strip of paper & embellished with stickers.
The treasure hunt was really fun & perfect for kids who can't read yet. The day before the party I took pictures of some items around our house & sent them to the 1-hour photo processing at Walmart. At the party, while the kids were eating cupcakes, I set up the treasure hunt by first hiding the party favor bags in a secret location & then I hid the photos in the proper spots. When the kids were ready for the hunt, I gave them the first photo clue: the garden hose. So, they ran to the garden hose to find ANOTHER photo clue: the pink picket fence. They ran in the backyard to the pink picket fence & found ANOTHER picture clue waiting for them. And so on & so on. The last picture clue led them to where the favor bags were hiding! And they were a hit!!! Pazely is still dragging her bag around with her wherever she goes.
Here is a picture of Pazely finding a picture clue in the mailbox.
After all the fun indoors, the kids were set free to play outside in their swimsuits. Otter pops were ordered up & water fun was had!
I was very happy to take on the challenge of a Trademarked themed party. It stretched my creative party planning process & I would happily do it again!
♥
Last night I decided to fix some BLT's for din-din. (Ok, they were BLAT's. I added avocado.) While the bacon was sizzling I had a fun idea! I love getting those fancy fringed sandwich toothpicks when I order up a tasty sammie at a restaurant or deli. (It's the simple things that make me giddy.) So, I decided to make up my own version of them.
My old-school Dymo label maker was all I needed! Make 2 labels & stick 'em back-to-back, with the toothpick in-between. 
If you don't have a label maker in your crafty stash, you can create a similar look by simply stamping letters/words onto circle dot stickers. Again, adhere 2 stickers back-to-back.
Here are a couple other version I came up with:
You can totally personalize these for baby showers, weddings, birthdays, etc.
I really could have gone crazy making silly sandwich toothpicks. But I found out that doing this during the prime hours of tummy grumbling is not such a good idea.
♥
I didn't create the scalloped edges all the way up---since 18" of the piece of felt will not even show.
I tried making this easy by labeling the pieces with letters---from biggest to smallest. The largest piece, "A", is the main felt piece that all the other felt pockets will be sewn onto.
The project simply calls for newspaper. That's it. BUT, the girls & I painted a watercolor wash over ours to make things a bit more schnazzy. You can do your painting before the crown is cut out, or after.
