If you needed them (homemade sugar cookies) you needed to have started (making them), like, yesterday."  Lisa Kothari of Peppers and Pollywogs was quoted in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  It's not only cookie baking that takes time, but every aspect of kids' party planning can often be time consuming.  

Just because we lost an hour with daylight savings this weekend, doesn't mean you can't gain that hour when planning with these ideas & tips!  Happy Spring!

The Luck O’the Irish be with you! I am already thinking of dancing an Irish jig, plucking a few shamrocks and wearing green! When people arrive, have a sign attached to a large rock, i.e. your Blarney Stone, “Kiss Me, I’m Irish!” To enter the party, have the kid kiss the good luck charm!

Have a limerick contest. Have the kids write limericks and red them aloud! Play Irish music and have an Irish Jig contest.
Serve clover snacks and make leprechaun dust. Send them on a treasure hunt looking for all of those things that are truly Irish. Serve your goodies out of green leprechaun hats. Send the kids home with chocolate gold coins, rainbow pencils, erasers, small notebooks, and Leprechaun hats.

Everyone is Irish on St. Patty’s Day! [more...]

Easter falls on April 8th this year, and perhaps you will be celebrating a kids’ birthday at this same time of year.

For invitations, use a rabbit cookie cutter to trace the outline onto pastel colored construction paper. Decorate the bunnies, using cotton for the tails, googly eyes, and yarn for the whiskers. On the bunny’s backside, provide the party details. Use bunny language, i.e. “Hop on over to our bunny trail for an Eggs-tra Special Celebration!” You can place “Bunny Trail” signs outside of the front entrance leading to your door.

The central game of this party will be the classic Easter Egg Hunt. Fill lots of plastic eggs with candies, coins, and small toys. Hide them throughout the party area, preferably outdoors, and have either baskets of pastel-colored buckets available for collecting the eggs .Make small egg salad sandwiches cut into ducks, rabbits, sheep, and Easter egg shapes to keep it festive. Send the kids home with the plastic Easter eggs they found during their hunt, and some real colored Easter eggs if the kids dipped some. [more...]

Does she love to draw pictures? Cut out pictures? Make collages? Finger Paint? You just might have a little artist on your hands. If it is a favorite class or activity for your kid, a great budget-friendly, easy-to-plan party is to invite your kid’s friends to a Potluck Art Party. Send a palette invitation to your guests, cut out an oblong shape from white construction paper.

As the host, have basic art supplies available and enough for each kid, construction paper, paints, glitter, markers, crayons, sequins, glue, kid-friendly scissors, etc. Whatever you can think of to help the creative artists. Have everything laid out on the table, and when the kids arrive, they add to the art goodies and share them with each other. The party is all around the kids creating their works of art. The kids can take home their art pieces as their take home goody. The kids will really enjoy creating.

Serve cake, an Artist Palette cake would be perfect! [more...]

Some Pig, Terrific, Radiant, Humble. All words that Charlotte spun in her special web to describe dear little Wilbur, the runty pig whom a little girl stood up for and cared for. If you are looking for ideas to bring this story theme together, send out a red barn invitation that has flaps that open, and provide the party details inside. Make sure to hang spider webs throughout the party area.
Charlotte’s Web uses lots of different colors. The storybook has mainly light, pastel colors, such as blues, greens, pinks, creams. If this is for a first birthday party, this may be the color scheme you choose. Play Pin the Nose on Wilbur, using a pig cutout and piggy nose. The kids can also make a barn using wooden popsicle sticks. Have the kids color it red. This craft can be taken home as a goody. For the goodies, send the kids home with T-shirts with Iron-Ons from the official site. [more...]

A birthday marks that each one of us is another year older. What’s a year? It is the Earth taking a 365 day journey around the sun. If you want to teach your kids a little lesson about the planets, while celebrating her birthday, a fun idea is to make a big Sun Pinata.

During the party, have your kid walk around the sun for how many years old your kid is, i.e. if he is 3 years old, have him walk around the sun 3 times. Explain to the kids that each year marks another 365 day journey completed around the sun. After the party kid takes his birthday walk around the sun, have each kid at the party do the same for how many years old they are. Explain that since it isn’t everyone’s birthday, everyone is in different places around the sun. You may find that a simple paper mache sun that can be used annually and is a better alternative so you only make it once and can bring it out on the kid’s birthday to take one more walk around the sun. It is educational and fun, and can be something to look forward to whether a party is on or not. [more...]