Diary of a Wimpy Kid Birthday Bash!

Wow - it has been a while since I've posted.  Our summer just flew by so now that we are back to a semi-normal schedule, I can post a great birthday party I had for my older son.  He is CRAZY about the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, so what better way to celebrate with his friends then by having a SUPER COOL Diary of a Wimpy Kid party!!!! 

 

Having a memorable kick-butt party doesn't have to cost an arm and leg, just use your creativity to have a one-of-a-kind party

that your child will NEVER forget!!!

 

The fun started with an invitation that looked like one of the book covers to the series.  I found the blank invite by googling it and saved it as a picture and then just added a text box with the party info.  The wording was pretty cool too - "Rodrick may rule, but you know what's great?  Michael's turning 8 please join us to celebrate!"  And of course on the bottom of the invite, I had to add Rowley's famous line "ZOO WEE MAMA!!!!" 

Birthday Party Invitation

I made these bag toppers to put on the bag of candy that I put into the goody bags that we handed out at the end of the party.  On the other side of this bag topper it says "Thank you for sharing in my birthday!"

 

 

Then I went to one of my favorite stores, Michael's craft store, and picked up a mulit-pack of these DIY keychains (with a 40% off coupon of course).  I printed out pics of Greg and Rodrick and simply cut them to fit.

 

 

Then I picked up plain white bags (also at Michael's, a separate day with a coupon lol).  I attached the keychains to the bag with some cool ribbon, and attached a picture of Greg with each child's name to the bag - viola!  Instant goody bags that everyone LOVED!  And before everyone could pick up their goody bags, they also kind of served as decorations!

 

 

I also used printouts of the characters from the books all over as decorations. 

Below I simply bought some large clear bowls from my local dollar

store and attached pics of the characters on all sides. 

 

 

 

Then I bought a pre-made banner (see below), also from the dollar store, and simply attached all different characters' pics to the banner.  If you wanted to, you could also very easily make this banner by cutting out triangles and attaching them with ribbon or string.

 

To serve as placecards, I got sentence practice strips (I'm sure there is a better word for these, but that is what I call them lol).  I also bought happy birthday decorations and personalized them with pictures from the books.  All of the pictures can be found online and also on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid website.  There you will also find many more great ideas to add to your party.


If any of you have boys, then you know that they LOVE to be active constantly!!!  So I made sure we had plenty of games and activities to keep them going!  One of the games that everyone really enjoyed was Diary of a Wimpy Kid Matchup.  I used my extra sentence strips and wrote quotes from the books, and then I printed a bunch of pictures of the characters.  We split the kids up into 3 teams and it was a race to see who could correctly matchup the quote with which character said it.  There were plenty of laughs and cheering on with this game! 

 

After the Matchup Game, we had a scavenger hunt. I had 10 clues hiding throughout the house and outside (luckily the weather held up that day). After they all worked together as a team and got all 10 clues, they got tickets that they were then able to hand in for their goody bags! 

It kept everyone occupied and the scavenger hunt ended up outside

where we did cake and wrapped things up, so to speak. hehehe

 

All in all it was a wonderful party that my son and his friends still talk about to this day! I hope I gave you some thrifty ideas on how to host a great birthday party on a budget!!! Enjoy!!!!

 

Pretzel Butterflies - yummy spring/summer snack

How cute is this? 

 

All you need to get started is wax paper,  a bag of mini pretzels and a bag of mini pretzel sticks. Then head out to your local craft store (in my case that is Michael's craft store) and get melting chocolates (I did dark for the body and head and then got purple for the wings, but you can do any color you want). Ooh, and don't forget some cute sprinkle to add to the wings!   Michael's also sells these great pastry bags that you can use directly in the microwave to melt the chocolate to use for these tasty treats!  The key to this project is having everything ready to go before you melt the chocolate (the chocolate sets up fairly quickly, so you have to work quickly!) 

 

First I laid out my mini pretzels on wax paper back to back like the above picture.

 

Next I broke the mini pretzel sticks in half and had them ready to go to use for the antennae.

 

Then I piped the chocolate to create the "body" of the caterpillar, which also holds the  pretzels together, and at the top I made a circle for the "head" of the butterfly.  As soon as you make the head, you have to put the mini pretzels sticks in that chocolate for the anntenae so they stick.

 

Then I melted the purple chocolate and filled in the "wings" of the butterfly and

put the sprinkles.  That's it!  Easy and the children in my son's class loved them! 

My suggestion as far as transporting them is to put a layer of wax paper

inbetween each layer of butterflies so they don't stick together.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Make your words into shapes/pictures!

 

OK, so I found this on pinterest and I have to say I LOVE it - you can turn any of your words into tons of shapes.  The site is called Tagxedo (http://www.tagxedo.com/ ).  You can basically write almost any amount of words and then choose a shape and it will do it for you!  Check out the great one I made above - I plan on framing it and hanging it in our house.  Also makes for a thrifty but thoughtful gift idea - think weddings, anniversaries, or even baby stuff!  Enjoy! 

100 Day Project Idea

Looking for a creative, interesting school project to do with your child for their 100th Day of School?  My son loves Spongebob, so it was a no-brainer when it came time to do his project.  He knew he wanted to do something involving his favorite cartoon character.  He also loves Skittles candy so we decided to use both to make this wonderful 100th Day project.  

We started with a small cardboard box, and covered it with yellow construction paper.  I drew circles on paper for the eyes and had my son cut them out.  He also cut out the pineapple and jellyfish to use for the project.  My son had counted out 100 yellow skittles (and ate the other colors while we went along lol), and the only time I didn't let him help was when I hot-glued the skittles to the box (those glue guns get mighty hot!).  Spongebob's "arms" are just extra cardboard cut into rectangles and covered with the same yellow paper we used for his body.  We also used extra cardboard for the base, which we covered with foil.

I let him write Happy 100 Day on paper, and then cut it out and attached it to the jellyfish.  

On the pineapple he wrote his name.

He also enjoyed writing this message on the base of the project.

Here is the finished project with one happy little boy!  

His teacher loved the idea and creativity used for this project!

Yummy sausage appetizers - easy and delicious!

Picture & recipe courtesy of www.bettycrocker.com

This is definitely one of my "go-to" recipes when I want to make a ton of appetizers.  You can make these ahead of time and freeze them - then just pop as many as you want onto a baking sheet and into a preheated 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, and in no time you will have delicious snacks/appetizers for your guests.  

These would be a great addition to any Superbowl Sunday menu!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of Bisquik® mix
• 1 pound of uncooked bulk sausage (out of casing)
• 4 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (16 oz.)
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley or 1/2 teaspoon dired parsley
• BBQ sauce or chili sauce for dipping (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
• Lightly grease bottom and sides of a jelly roll pan.
• In a large bowl, stir together all ingredients, except BBQ sauce, using hands or spoon (I like to use plastic gloves and mix by hand).   
• After mixed together, shape into 1 inch balls and place on jelly roll pan.
• Bake 20-25 minutes or until browned.
• Serve warm with dipping sauce.

Want to make these savory cheese balls ahead? Your options are many! You can:

Cover and refrigerate unbaked balls up to 24 hours. Bake as directed.

Cover and freeze unbaked balls up to 1 month. Heat oven to 350ºF. Place frozen balls on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until brown.

Bake as directed; cover and freeze up to 1 month. Heat oven to 350ºF. Place frozen balls on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until heated through.

Bake as directed; cover and freeze up to 1 month. Place 6 frozen balls on microwavable plate. Loosely cover with waxed paper. Microwave on High 45 seconds to 1 minute or until heated through.

Michael's 12x12 scrapbook case on sale this week - Use for LEGOS!

WHAT A DEAL!

These are the scrapbook cases from
Michael's on sale for $4.99 each (reg. $8.99 each).

 

This is the case Toys R Us sells for $13.99 (not including the legos shown in the case), and it does include a small base,
which retails for $4.99, so the case alone would still come to $9.99.

     This week in Michael's craft stores, they have scrapbook cases on sale for $4.99 each, which would be great for storing your children's legos.  If your children are anything like mine, then they live and breathe legos, and those little tiny pieces can get all over the place! LOL  Why not organize them while not breaking the bank?  You could even color coordinate according to the lego colors (the scrapbook cases usually come in a variety of colors).  This size case should fit the small square lego bases in them as well.

     To make these even more special, buy some stickers for your children to decorate them with, or some paint markers to write their names on their very own LEGO cases!  For this price, you simply can't beat it!

DYI light-up Christmas tree lawn decoration

LOVE this idea and totally going to do this for next year.  Take a tomato cage and put it upside down.  Then wrap string lights starting at the top all the way to the bottom and you'll have yourself an adorable light-up Christmas tree lawn decoration.  What's even better is you can get a couple of landscaping fabric "staples" - I call them staples because they look like huge staples that you use to hold down landscaping fabric - and use those to secure the "tree" in whatever spot you'd like on your lawn.

Thanks so much to www.lowes.com/ for this fantastic idea!