Rose's Pinterest inspired half birthday party

It's been a Pinterest summer, at our house.  Let's start at the beginning.    Last May I hurt my back, while at work and when all was said and done I was basically sent to bed until I felt better.  Sure, that included trips to physical therapy, MRI's, EMG's, epidural shots, ect....  but for the most part I was in so much pain that I could not drive myself anywhere further than 10mins, or sit or stand for much longer than that.  I work with children for a living, and I don't do "stay in bed" very well.  Luckily, with fun apps on my phone and kindle, I didn't have to "just sit there".  I was determined to give my kids a fun filled summer of learning and exploring with things we had around the house, amongst other things.   I have a Pinterest app on my phone, and belong to a garage sale site on Facebook.  
       So, here's how it goes.  I created a board on Pinterest to pin things that would be fun to do with my 7yo daughter and 10yo son, as well as an established board for projects to do with the kiddos I work with.  
First up was how to give my 7yo daughter a great half birthday.   I know what you are thinking, "spoiled little girl!", and I would agree with you.  This is the deal.  My daughter was my Christmas present, the year she was born.  She was literally delivered to me in a stocking!  She is a December 22nd baby, and I find it difficult to give her a party on her actual date.  Most people are busy with family parties, or out of town, or just don't want to add another gift to their list at that time of the year.  Sure, at home, we do a birth day and she gets a cake and a few presents and then people skip over her on Christmas because they gave her a gift.  That was something my friends, that were born on this holiday, from high school always complained of; not having separate celebrations.  This year I decided she would have a half birthday, with a party and her friends over.  Make sense now?  Alright, so here we go...
    My daughter is extremely eclectic, she gets that from me.  She loves to sing, she loves to dance, she loves to ham it up for a photo, she loves creating her own clothing to wear, she loves to cook, she loves to create art, and she loves treating people with kindness and love.  How do you pick a party theme with all of that in mind?  She kept changing the theme every day!   In the end I went with, cooking, dress up, photo shoot, and creating art.
   So now you're wondering how Pinterest fits into all of this, right?  It fits in lots of ways, not everything I did was Pinterest inspired but a good portion of it was.

So I said that Rose loves to cook.  I have a great friend (who is also a Jennifer) who sells Tastefully Simple.  If you haven't heard of it, no worries, you can reach her page with lots of products and information by clicking on Tastefully Simple.  It really is that, too!  Rose is pictured making beer bread, but during her party she and her friends also made smoothies, and dips that they shared with all the mommies who came and stayed to watch the fun.  I was inspired to add the creating yummy things to eat portion of the party when I discovered how easy it was to make these great tasting items.  You are only adding an item or two to a mix and stirring, how could I deny my little chef the opportunity to make yummy things with her friends with such easy recipes like these. They really are Tastefully Simple.

 I am a Starbucks junkie.  It's sadly true and everyone who knows me refers to this as my "crack".  The first time I told my son I had to stop at the "crack store" his eyes got huge and said "mommy, that's not good for you, you shouldn't do drugs!"   lol.  I did explain to him that it was okay, that I meant coffee, at which point he asked for some too.   ANYway...vintage milk containers are all the rage, as are mason jars.  I found cure curly straws in the clearance bin at Michaels and put them in a mason jar and added some paper and tulle that I had lying around to girly up (that's the technical term) the containers and Rose and I made "girl juice" (which is really just fruit punch and a clear fizzy drink for the bubbles).  I really like the way they turned out and the paper made it easy to label so girls knew which drink was their's.

I saw these wands on Pinterest and could not wait to make them!  I used felt, buttons and ribbon that I already had on hand and went to Home Depot and had them cut a dowel into 12in sections.  I love the way they turned out and they were a big hit in the goodie bags.

The flip flops.  Years ago, I made a few pairs of these for my nieces in school colors.  Back then I didn't have a girl of my own to spoil with cute accessories so my nieces had to put up with my antics.  This was one project I was definitely going to put in the goodie bag for Rose's friends to take home.  I am really pleased out these turned out too!  

 I found this great project making flowers out of coffee filters, and took t further when I added green streamers to make it look like the house was full of vines of flowers.

 There had to be a banner.  I like to decorate for holidays and special occassions so banners are very big in my house.  With Rose's birthday banner I decided to actually sew the letters onto each pennant and then embellish with flowers, buttons or ribbons.  She was very excited!

 It's time for a photo shoot!  I found the perfect photoboooth background on Pinterest!  It called for dollar store plastic table cloths and that's it.  The frame came from Michael's on clearance and was painted pink on one side and black on the other and then I used sparkle mod podge to make it, well, sparkle.  We also used a variety of hats, clothes,and masks and let the girls ham it up.

If you've trolled Pinterest as much as I have, I'm sure you've come across this colorful project that includes crayons and a hair dryer.  We bought 8x10 canvases and I glued the crayons on in a variety of patterns and let the girls pick which they wanted to work with.  This is a fun project, but be prepared to scrape wax off of everything.  We did this at a table with a plastic table cloth on it and I wax on my clothes, the hair dryer and the floors, as well as the table.  This is also a great teaching tool when you are teaching kids about primary colors and what happens when you mix certain colors together.  

 The cupcake station.  Rose and I kept seeing adorable cupcakes baked right into ice cream cones and decided that is how we'd do hers.  We put a variety of frostings and sprinkles into bowls and just let the girls go nuts.  They had a great time!

So there you have it, a Pinterest inspired birthday party.  Rose had a great time picking out things to try and do and everyone had a great time at the party.  What about you?  Have you ever had a party that you planned around different ideas you've found or seen other places?  How did it turn out?  
 This is just one of our Pinterest days, this past summer.  Stay tuned for a lot more.