Pinkalicious Party!

I put this party on the schedule back in the summer when my brain was fried and I needed a Saturday program for families. I knew Pinkalicious was popular and I wanted to promote book characters in my family programs, so I figured, how bad could it be? Oh, my dear innocent self, how I envy your naivete.

Then last week I started reading the books to prep for the party.

And I regretted all of my decisions.

BUT. Regardless of personal feelings about literary value, there's a lot to be done for a Pinkalicious party and the kids really love her! Books that I put on display during the program were checked out! There were kids reading them during the program! What more could I ask for?? (Except for, of course, an endless supply of parentheses and exclamation points...)

So here's what we did for our party:

1 - Flower crowns from Emeraldalicious: 

2 - Wands: made from wooden skewers (though straws would be equally effective), ribbon, and pre-cut cardstock hearts. I would have provided stars as well, but that shape was missing from our die cutting supplies so it was only pink hearts this time around. (Reminds me: I have to look for the star). 

3 - Mermaids from Aqualicious: made with clothespins, permanent markers, tacky glue, cardstock tails, and various decorations (yarn for hair, sequins, paper flowers for her hat, etc.).

4 - Pinkalicious hairbands: made with hair ties and cut up pieces of plastic tablecloth tied to the hairband. It didn't look like much on the table and I thought perhaps it was too simple, but the parents enjoyed them and they looked super-cute in the girls' hair. 

5- Fairy Wings: These were borrowed from my Fancy Nancy party and were a big hit once again.  

6 - Goldilicious unicorns: we made unicorn paper bag puppets that were super cute and of course I forgot to take a picture. Oops!

I served snacks: pink frosted cookies, lady fingers with pink frosting, and strawberries as well as green apple slices and small bunches of green grapes to balance us out. 

The kids really enjoyed it, the parents had a good time, and in general it was a worthwhile party. And the books checked out! Librarian heaven. 

Sewing School

I've had sewing workshops with the older kids in the past (ages 10 and up), but due to much wailing and gnashing of teeth from a very very interested younger crowd, I decided to do a sewing class for slightly younger kids this fall. And so Sewing School, a monthly sewing program, was born. 

For the first session, I wanted to get them familiar with the basics of sewing before we started our projects.  

Everyone had a piece of flannel with a needle in it to begin with. I taught them how to thread the needle and tie a knot at the end of the yarn. Then we practiced a simply running stitch on the flannel. 

Once they were comfortable with that, we moved on to the projects: pillows with buttons and lace. 

First, they picked their fabric, the lace they wanted, and the buttons (if they wanted buttons). They cut the fabric to size using sheets of cardboard that were approximately 9x12. 

Then they used the running stitch to attach the ribbon/lace to their pieces. 

Finally, they placed the pieces right-side-to-right-side and sewed them together. 

Then stuffing and closing and TA DA! Pillows! 

The younger kids (I had ages 8-12) did remarkably well with the project and I got ALL of the needles back! (Miracle of miracles). I set the program at 90 minutes, but we probably could have used the full two hours once you factor in the waiting time to untangle thread and troubleshoot crooked projects.

The kids were very proud of their pillows, though, and excited to be involved.