Lalaloopsy Themed Birthday

First off:  I don't know how i forgot it till now, but this is my daughters birthday party from March of this year (2012) lol, long long overdue for the blog, but thought some would gain ideas from it :)

My little girl LOVES Lalaloopsy, and I think they are pretty cool myself, so when she asked me if she could have a Lalaloopsy party, I didn't hesitate to say yes.  I do alot of our birthday party decorations myself, but usually go to local party stores for plates, banners, etc.  Now, there are lalaloopsy party decorations all over the place, but at this time, i scoured the internet and found only those on etsy which were a bit to rich for my blood.  So I put my thinking cap on and fired up the printer and sewing maching, and whipped up a lalaloopsy party, homemade style in just a couple days.

She had to have cupcakes. . . so, I found some free Lalaloopsy graphics online, and using microsoft word, made little circles and put the graphics and a few #6's on them.  I printed em out, and cut them out using my scalloped scissors to make em cuter, then did the same to slightly bigger circles of coordinating colored construction paper.

Glue a toothpick in between the graphic and construction paper with cheap school glue and there u have it, cute little lalaloopsy cupcake picks!!

Finished cupcakes, only thing i didnt like was the cute little yellow polkadot wrappers blended with the vanilla cupcakes (shoulda had chocolate :)

For the buttons on the cake I used fruit by the foot and fruit role ups, lol, i didnt have fondant and this worked, I cut out circle shapes with small objects in the kitchen.

very simple cake, the banner on second layer i printed out and cut out, then laminated it (covered both sides with packing tape and cut around edges ;)) and it just stuck on, the topper was one mini lalaloopsy and the handle off of the box of a larger doll. (im not a cake expert. . . never could get icing slick looking)

I used  my 1" circle punch to punch out construction paper "buttons" drew the holes on with black pen

I made a large banner from material and glued printed graphics on it, made the logo from a piece of white posterboard with glued on construction paper letters. . . trees were cardboard painted, taped to wall.

Here are the cupcakes and the cake

The outfit i did make using old material i had left from her bedding set (little missmatched flat sheets LOL)
I made the skirt using a tutorial i found online for a patchwork twirl skirt, and appliqued the shirt using heatbond sheets and the same material.

I simply drew the applique out, and cut each piece out, 

fused heatbond to one side of fabric, traced cutouts on it (mirrored) and ironed on shirt (I also always do a quick zigzag stitch around edges to hold it in place after washing)

Cali turns 4

So my daughter turned 4 on Tuesday (march 23rd). It doesnt seem like she should have, she's getting so big. When I asked her what kind of party she wanted, her answer was simple. . . "Spongebob"; dont we all love that guy. lol.

For her tee shirt to the side --> I found a spongebob image on google opened it in paint and found a cute font (billo) and wrote "birthday girl" beside it. I colored it to match the theme and printed it on that iron-on tee shirt paper i got from walmart. All you do is print your image out (mirrored) and iron it on! so easy! And she loved it.

Weather was supposed to be bad so i had to come up with an activity or 2 for a bunch of children under 5. . . and i thought. . . yep a cardboard playhouse will be cheap and effective. It turned out really well so i thought i may share it, incase someone elses child just has to have a pinapple under the sea!

What u will need

*really big cardboard box

*grey paint

*3 yellow plastic tablecloths

*grey duck tape

*wire or big stapler

Constructing a "Pinapple Under the Sea"

1- find a really big cardboard box, or 2. (appliance stores have these alot)

2- bend the box to make it more round/octogonal shaped.

3- cut out the rounded door shape, and a few round windows. (i painted the door grey as i went)

4. Now begin to assemble the top. Sorry i didnt have a picture of this, but i just stood all the top sides up at an angle so there was a smaller octogonal shape at the top and i wired it together because the duck tape wouldnt hold.

5. Next I cut a piece of cardboard the shape of the octogonal opening left at the top and taped this down, so the top of the box was closed in. This made the overall shape.

6. Yellow paint would cost way too much to cover this, so i chose yellow tablecloths for less than $2 apiece and taped them on the inside to cover the entire area. These also hid all the uneven areas, so it worked out alot better.

7. i cut out around the windows and duck taped them down, it looked like this:

* The pipe at the side was an old wrapping paper roll i just covered with duck tape. I cut a slit in the side of the house and pushed it in.

*I taped the top piece down with clear tape so it would look nice.

8. for the pinapple leaves on top i cut these shapes (in much larger form ofcourse) out of cardboard and painted them green. (i watered down my paint a bit so it would take less). I assembled them together just putting the larger in the middle, sliding the rectangle onto it in the cutouts, and then placing the taller single leaves into the front and back cutouts on the rectangle.

9. tape the pinapple leaves down to the top of the pinapple

10. lastly, just for looks i made a "nautical wheel" out of an old plastic lid and some small dowel rods that i cut and covered with tape, i put this on the door, then used an orange sharpie to draw the pinapple pattern around the house.

***** another awesome spongebob birthday party decoration i came up with is jellyfish balloons***

all you need is light pink balloons and light pink streamer and clear tape!and its cheap and easy!

*just blow up the balloons

*tape a ring of streamer to the bottom to cover up the tied part

*tape a few long streamers hanging down out of that bottom part

*maybe even draw some darker pink or red shapes on the top of the balloon to resemble the jelleyfish

*use tape and some streamer or string to hang them from the celing!

i know im horrible at explaining things, so, thanks for baring through that, maybe i'll get better at it later!

God Bless!

Ang