Minecraft Themed Birthday Party

My son wanted a Minecraft themed birthday party, and that's what he got! 

It all started with his invitation.  These days, there is nothing like using Evite to track your RSVP's and to save potentially a ton of money on invitations.  So we opted for the insert your own image Evite invitation and our image featured Minecraft's main characters, Steve and a creeper.  (Or so that is what my son tells me!)

 The only thing that my son said he absolutely had to have was a creeper cake we saw featured on SunnyByDesign.

His other important detail: having his party at the Microsoft Store.  If you haven't heard, The Microsoft Store allows you to reserve their back private room for parties.  The cost: FREE!

The kids got to play Xbox, Xbox Kinect and games on their Surface tablets for 2 hours.  The kids were in heaven!

From a parent perspective, it was a super-easy party because the kids entertained themselves and all we had to do was make sure they had food when they were hungry and that we cut the cake on time.  The wonderful staff at the Microsoft Store took care of the rest. 

When it came to food, we were able to bring in anything we wanted.  We opted for cheese and pepperoni pizzas along with carrots, chips, Lava Sauce (salsa), and Creeper Guts (guacamole). 

 Then there were the treats...

There were Creeper krispie treats...

 

And "dirt" brownies with "grass" frosting...

And, of course, the Creeper cake!  This was my first time using fondant, which was definitely a learning experience.

But if you have seen the graphics on Minecraft, you know that it is pretty low-tech, so the imperfections make it more Minecraft {or so I am telling myself :)}.  My son was thrilled with his cake, which at the end of the day, is all that really matters!

The licorice rope TNT box favors were a great treat for the kids to take home, too!

 And since the food and desserts were in theme, we had to keep it going with the drinks, too. 

We served Creeper Juice (Ginger Ale), Steve's Dirt Juice (Root Beer) and Herobrine's H2O (Water) for the kids to drink.

 

Solid colored green and brown plates, napkins, cups and table cloths from Party City were used to tie it all in.  The only thing I didn't make which I now wish I had was a banner to place above the table.  But, live and learn, right?

After the party ended, my son was left with many fun memories and lots of cool gifts from his friends.

Thanks to Shutterfly, his guests received customized Minecraft thank you notes.  We simply applied a Minecraft image rather than the standard photo Shutterfly demonstrates.  I also helped my son out by having the message of "Thank you for helping me celebrate my birthday" printed inside the card so all that he had to write was a note of thanks for any gift he might have received.  

Want to create your own Minecraft party?  Check out Minecraft Papercraft for printable and image inspiration.  If you are interested in using any of the printables I created for this party, comment below or email us at info@housescouchesandbabies.com.

Posted by Leslie

Minecraft Birthday Party Sneak Peek

With my son's 8th birthday party right around the corner, naturally I am burning the midnight oil to come up with something clever for his Minecraft-themed birthday party.

To the untrained eye, this just looks like a pile of red licorice. But to the Minecraft-trained eye, this is a big stack of TNT.

More details of his Minecraft-themed party coming soon.

Posted by Leslie

Girly Birthday Party Playlist for My Almost 5-Year Old

With my daughter's 5th birthday upon us, I thought I would put together a fun list of songs for my favorite little girl's special day.

Here are some of her favorites, which are quite frankly, some of my faves, too:

• I Love You Like a Love Song - Selena Gomez
• Super Bass - Nicki Minaj (clean version, of course!)
• Titanium - David Guetta & Sia
• Die Young - Ke$ha
• Hot N Cold - Katy Perry
• Gangnam Style - PSY
• Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen
• Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cindi Lauper (or in my daughter's case, she likes the Barbie Princess and the Popstar version of Princesses Just Want to Have Fun)
• We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift
• California Gurls - Katy Perry
• You Should Be Dancing - Bee Gees (she knows it from Despicable Me)
• Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5
  and because she is my daughter, she has to have some Britney...
• Till the World Ends - Britney Spears

With her Barbie Princess and the Popstar microphone that plugs into an MP3 player, she can sing with all of these songs to her hearts content.  The question is, will I be able to survive it!?!  

Design a Sign with Signazon.com + Giveaway

It has become a bit of a tradition in our house to design a sign or banner for our birthdays. My son loved his last banner so much he hung it up on his bedroom wall...7 months ago!

But for my daughter's birthday that is this week, I tried a new way to design a sign for her. Typically, I just make banners for the kids out of butcher paper with markers. But because she is turning 5, I turned our typical paper banner up a few notches and designed a vinyl sign on Signazon.com.

Up until this point, I have yet to design a sign online, and let me tell you, Signazon has such an easy process:

1. Choose the material and size of your banner - In my case, I chose a vinyl banner.

2. Select from the vast template selection or you can upload your own design on a blank template - I went with a template.

3. Customize the template with text and images

4. Once satisfied with the customized template, check the proof for any mistakes

5. Choose shipping and payment options
(Steps 1-5 took about 10 minutes, the majority of the time going to the template selection and customization.)

6. Wait for the sign/banner to arrive in the mail

In my case, it took just a few days to receive the banner.

My daughter was so thrilled to receive the banner today and have it hanging up at her Pump it Up birthday party.  (More details on the birthday party coming soon!) I can't wait to see her face tomorrow when she sees that I hung it up for her in the house.

While I chose to make a birthday banner, Signazon can make banners for just about anything. From graduations to anniversaries to garage sales, they have templates for you to make the perfect banner. And even if you have a unique banner to make, you can always use the customize your own sign option and upload your own design. For a fast and easy way to design a sign that is uh-mazing, Signazon is definitely the way to go.

But wait, there's more...

Hooray! It's a Giveaway!

(1) lucky Houses, Couches and Babies' reader will win a 2ft. x 4ft. customized vinyl banner from Signazon.com (value: $30). To enter to win, simply follow the Rafflecopter instructions below. Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


{Disclaimer: We received a complimentary 2'x 4' vinyl banner to help facilitate this review and Signazon.com is providing the giveaway prize to the winner.}

Pajama Party Fun and Functional Favor

My 4-year old attended her first pajama party last night and received an adorable sleeping mask as a favor. Not only was it cute as a head band at the party...but she actually fell asleep wearing it!!!

Rapunzel Princess Birthday Party

Like many little girls, my daughter loves princesses, and especially Rapunzel as of late.  (I am sure the movie Tangled has nothing to do with it! Wink, wink!)

Over the summer, she went to a couple of birthday parties where a princess came to the party to entertain and sing to the girls.  My daughter absolutely loved it.

So, a couple of months ago when I saw a great deal on PlumDistrict.com for a princess tea party, I immediately gobbled up the deal.  Creative Arts and Parties for Kids is a Los Angeles and Orange County based party company that offers a wide variety of characters to make your party special.  And what I loved about the Plum District deal was that it included a tea party with the princess of your choice.  It really doesn't get cuter than little girls dressed up as princesses sipping tea (a.k.a. lemonade) and eating tea sandwiches - with Rapunzel, no less!

Up until about a week before the party, I figured I wouldn't decorate much for the party because Rapunzel would be bringing the tea set and the girls would just remain captivated to whatever she did.  But then I saw the cutest and relatively easy to re-create ideas on TinyOranges.com for a Rapunzel party.  So I had to attempt it, right? 

With some purple felt and yellow craft paint from Michaels, the kids, grandma and I got to work on creating the kingdom flags from the movie.  This was actually a fun project that the kids helped create.

While creating a golden sun stencil from the movie required a bit of patience, once the stencil was ready, the painting was really fun, especially for the kids.

Then there was the all-important braid of golden hair.

I used yellow yarn that I also found at Michaels and decided I wanted the braid to be long - 14 feet long to be exact.  Grandma helped me out with putting this one together, too.  She and our staircase baluster kept hold of the yarn while I continued to loop "strands" of hair for the braid.

I will warn you, this braid project did take a little over 2 hours for me.  But I do feel like it was well worth it and such a cute detail for the party.  Not to mention, I loved the idea of re-purposing the braid as a hair bow and clip holder as well as a decoration for my daughter's room.

(Oh, and thank goodness Grandma was in town to help with all these little details!)

Of course, there was my favorite part of the party - the treats!

The dessert menu:

• I found darling princess molds to make chocolate covered pretzel sticks. 
• Chocolate dipped Oreos (with purple chocolate!)
• The best frosted sugar cookies (recipe from HWTM.com)
• Pink cupcakes with purple frosting and purple cupcakes with pink frosting (a request from the birthday girl)

I love me some sweets!

As each girl arrived she was given a sparkly tiara to wear (dollar bin from Target) and directed over to the activity table to color her wanted poster of Flynn Rider.

I figured coloring would be a perfect activity as we waited for all the guests and Rapunzel to arrive.

Once Rapunzel did arrive, she sang with the girls, took pictures with them, played games and them gave them etiquette lessons on having a tea party.  (As much lessons as 3-5 year olds can handle!) 

Then it was on to cupcakes and treats, face-painting, and before we knew it, it was time for Rapunzel to head back to her kingdom and Flynn Rider.  Before she left, Rapunzel even had the girls sign a birthday poster with their hand prints, which was yet another activity for the girls to do while others were getting their faces or hands/arms painted. 

Our Rapunzel from Creative Arts and Parties for kids was great.  The girls were captivated by her, and most important to this mom, they listened to her!  Instead of orchestrating everything for the party during the party, I really got to be an observer, which was sooo nice! 

Luckily, I have a few months until I have to start planning my son's birthday party.  Mad scientist, anyone???

Wordless Wednesday - Facepainting Fun