One of a Kind: party foods

Showing posts with label party foods. Show all posts

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Vintage Airplane Party

For my son's first birthday we threw him a vintage airplane themed party. A year later and I am finally scrapbooking his pictures so I thought I would share. It was so fun and I love how the party decor turned out.

Paxton loves airplanes and so does my hubby so it seemed fitting. For the invitations we used airplane boarding pass tickets with all the details of the party for their flight information. All the link details are listed at the bottom of this post. (The scrapbook pages are layouts I cut in half so you could see the pictures bigger)

The Baggage Claim Area held party favor bags

An adorable flight hat my sister made him. So cute! She is so talented.

We hung some of my husband's RC airplanes around the house and a map of the world as well that we already had. Unfortunately Dora is still a frequent guest at our home.

Boarding Pass Invitations: Vintage Airplane Invitation (Boarding Pass Style) for a Birthday Party or Shower by FLIPAWOO - Customized Printable File but I got mine as part of a set with the entire party pack

All vintage printables: Vintage Airplane Party Premium Set by Flipawoo- Customized Printable Files

Pin the Propeller on the Airplane: Idea came from this site here, but I made it myself to save money. Lots of great ideas on that site.

Emergency Exit signs: googled images on google and printed one out

Passports: handmade from supplies at craft store

Large vintage suitcases: borrowed

Mini suitcases holding passports and food: Bought wooden ones from local craft store and painted them and then put vintage stickers also found at craft store (Hobby Lobby) on them.

I hope you were able to find some inspiration for your next party. Thanks for visiting ours! Happy planning!

If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to One of a Kind Gifts here!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Sports Party

When my son turned two he cared about only one thing...balls. I know that sounds weird but if it was round and related to a sport he loved it. So, coming up with a theme for his second birthday was easy...Sports!

~Invitations ~

I found these Football Invitations in a Box at Oriental Trading.

The box itself is the invitation — and each box contains an inflatable football just for fun!

~Decorations~

I started with a football field table runner and used sports themed cups and plates that I found at the dollar store. I cut the top off of a football piñata to hold the plates and silverware.

I finished the look with some hung up lanterns shaped like sports balls (Oriental Trading).

~Food~

The food for this party was easy, because I did traditional stadium food...hotdogs and hamburgers, popcorn, chips and salsa, etc. For the cake I made cupcakes and put caps on them. These cupcake caps are from http://www.cupcakecaps.com/. They are easy to use. You simply bake the cupcakes, schmear a little frosting on, plop Cupcake Caps on top, and Ta Da! They taste kind of like marshmellow and are surprisingly soft to bite into. They made the cupcakes look so much better then if I had frosted them myself.

~Activities~

As the guests arrived I had them sign a soccer ball with their birthday wishes for my son. I thought it was a fun little keepsake for him to look back at. I also got a soccer ball for each of the children to decorate and and take home with them.

What would a little boys party be without a piñata. They kids had a blast taking turns hitting the soccer ball, but loved it even more when the candy exploded all over the floor.

~Party Favor~

Along with the decorated soccer ball, I gave each child a bag of sports related toys and candy with a little note that said "Thanks for celebrating my 2nd birthday with me. I hope you had a 'BALL'".

Everyone had a great time at the party.

And Taye is glad you "PICKED" our blog to read all about his fun day.

If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to One of a Kind Gifts here!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

I think we're turning Japanese I really think so.

Birthdays at our house are a big deal, and we have always pulled out all the stops. But when my son was turning thirteen, he approached me with a dilemma.
Our parties have become sort of infamous in town. Kids start asking Noah what he is going to do for his birthday months in advance, and start jockeying for invites. Their moms on the other hand, really dislike me, but I don't mind. I live to see that grin on my boy's face when I know that once again, we have pulled off something epic. Why do the moms hate me, do you ask? Because we have raised the bar so high, they get in trouble with their kids when they want to have a birthday party at McDonald's. We have had Pirate parties with real treasure hunts where you have to dig something up. We have done Army dude parties where the main event was shooting stuff. We have bonfires and let the kids stay up all night long. I will lay out the plans for my other kid parties another day, which brings me back to Noah's dilemma. He came to me all concerned because he didn't want to hurt my feelings, but he had kids asking what he was going to do for his party, and he was afraid I was cooking up something...babyish. Being thirteen is all about being embarrassed by your mother apparently. He said, Mom, don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything you have done in the past, but I really will die if we play pin the tail on anything.
So I had to get thinking about the mind of the teenage boy. What would they like? Food, yes. Candy, yes. And fun that makes them feel slightly grown up with out being stuffy, boring or too grown up. The other thing I wanted to avoid is giving in to the tendency among lots of parents to treat junior high kids like they are small adults, ready for things like horror movies and co-ed parties.

So I came up with the idea of an Asian Party. When I first floated my ideas to Noah, he was skeptical. But it turned out to be one of the most fun parties we have ever had. I didn't do much in the way of decorating, other than a black tablecloth and red balloons, because teenage boys don't even see stuff like that, so I could save money for food. We ordered a ton of Chinese take out. I also made up an entire case of Ramen noodles. Let's face it, Ramen is fun, I don't care how old you are. I also made endless trays of eggrolls all night long. For a really special treat, we also brought home some sushi from the specialty grocery store in town.

I got some Pocky and put it in a blue and white vase.
I handed out chopsticks to all. The guys had a great time eating Ramen with chopsticks, and Noah, who has always been a foodie, was jazzed with the sushi. While I got this all together, the boys waged a supersoaker war in our backyard- we have a huge treehouse, and a couple of acres with woods, so this took several hours to render everyone soaked and muddy. They were so glad to come in, towel off, put their pj's on, and shovel their faces with take-out. When they were done, we had a movie marathon which included every Godzilla title I could rent from the video store, The Karate Kid 1,2,and 3, which most of them had not ever seen, Bruce Lee, and this weird movie called "The man with the Secret Kung-Fu" that I found for a buck at Wal-mart.

It turned out to be so bad it was good. I was surprised that most of the kids had never seen the classic Godzilla films, and they had fun making fun of them. I made tons of popcorn, and handed everyone a take-out box full of Jelly Bellies. We also opened and read fortune cookies. By far though, the best part of the night was Bobbing for Ho Hos.

To play, you fill a large bowl with milk, float a couple of boxes of Ho Hos in it, and let them bob for them. Yeah, this was the talk of the head-shaking moms this year. I think if you follow the rule of thumb that you do what the kids would like, and not what adults would like, you are going to have a home run every time.

If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to One of a Kind Gifts here!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Snow Day Party

My son was born in the middle of January. I remember driving to the hospital at 4 am on icy roads and freezing temperatures. So when his 1st birthday came around I thought back to that day and decided to celebrate with a Snow Day Party.

~Invitations ~

I used snowflake paper with snowflake embelishments. The invite read:

Taye was born in the winter a year ago,

It was cold; there was ice and even some snow.

Now it is time to remember that winter day.

Come play in the snow and celebrate with Taye.

(no real snow included)

~Decorations~

I decorated with glittery snowflakes, dark blue table runners, and snowflake tea lights.

I wanted to make these chair covers that I found at Family Fun, but they didn's go with the rest of my decorations. I think they are adorable.

~Food~

Chili with all the fixins (cheese, cornbread, sour cream and tortilla strips)

Quesadillas cut in the shape of snowflakes

Cheese ball shaped like a snowman (complete with carrot nose and fruit roll up scarf)

Powdered Doughnut Snowballs

White Cotton Candy Snow

Pretzel Rods dipped in white chocolate and rolled in sugar

Snowflake Popcorn (recipe from Betty Crocker)

Frosty Grapes (wet grapes, dip in sugar, freeze....soooo good)

Polar Ice Cap Drink (blue kool-aid (prepared as directed), ginger ale, vanilla ice cream)

Some other recipes I wanted to try were Snow Pudding and Berries in the Snow.

~Activities~

As each child arrived we took a photo of them in front of a white back drop. They each decorated a frame with foam snowflakes and we put the picture into the frame for them to take home.

Here are some activity ideas that I would have liked to do, but many of the children were too young:

Indoor Snowman

Create your own indoor snowman. Split the kids into teams. Give each team a snowman making kit including a roll of toilet paper or paper towels, construction paper, elastics, felt, glue and any other items you may find. Each team wraps one team member with toilet paper and decorates with accessories.

Award prizes for fastest, most creative, etc.

Snowball Fight

Make "snowballs" out of white tissue paper. Split the kids into two teams. Mark a line on the floor and each team stands on one side of the line. Play a wintery song - when the song is over, the time is up. The team with the fewest snowballs on their side is the snowball champion.

Snow Globes

Using empty, clean baby food jars, let kids create their own snow globes. Provide decorating essentials like

figurines that can be found in cake decorating stores, and glitter. Attach figurines to the inside of the lid with hot glue (adult job). Fill the jar (about 2/3 of the way) with cold water and add glitter, foil snowflakes or anything else that's snow-like. Put the lid on the jar and seal with hot glue. Flip over and cover the lid with ribbon.

Pass the Snowball

Play like Hot Potato, but pass an oversized foam ball to some fun Winter music.

~Party Favor~

The frame wasn't enough. so I gave each child a goodie bag filled with toys and candy. There were mini rubber duckies, bouncy balls, bubbles and candy with snowflakes on them. Then I finished it off with a ribbon and glittery snowflake.