Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Happy Monday Sweet Shoppers, it’s Juli here with a fun birthday party idea for you.  My daughter turned 9 in August and when we were trying to decide what kind of party she should have we tossed around a lot of ideas.  She came with the idea of having a camping themed party after we talked about having her first group sleep over.  Her love of camping and owls mixed with all the awesome kits in the shoppe made it easy to come up with ideas to pull off our theme.

To get the word out I created these invites using Jenn Barrette’s Happy Camper kit.  We only invited 3 friends so these somewhat labor intensive invites weren’t so bad (I’d never do this for more than 10 invites!).

Hannah didn’t want to invite her older sister Katie because Katie has had a few parties with her older friends that Hannah hasn’t attended because she was too little.  Instead of banishing her sister from the house Hannah decided to hire her.  So for $15 Katie agreed to come to the party and play with Hannah’s friends and do whatever Hannah asked her to do.  This quickly turned into Katie’s best friend joining in so I ended up having two “camp counselors” to entertain the campers (which worked out beautifully!)

In planning for the party I bought everything in multiple colors pink, turquoise, yellow, and then a little green and orange for accent.  I didn’t buy themed plates or cups but rather used some striped melamime plates from Target (used for dinner and breakfast) and provided each girl with a water bottle for them to use while they were here. The campers were greeted at the front door by this wreath (I got the idea from Pinterest and made it to fit our theme).

We then set up the entry way to be our camper check- in.

The camper check in instructions were a huge hit with the girls and their moms!

For party favors each girl got a flashlight to take home (and use during the scavenger hunt and the owl egg hunt) plus a black bucket filled with goodies.  I got these buckets at the Dollar Store and then just put each girl’s name on using white alpha stickers and little flower stickers.  I added some curing ribbon to the sides to make them look festive.

To cut down on work for me I made our menu easy.  Roast your own hot dogs, french fries, fresh fruit and BBQ beans for dinner.  For dessert we had roast your own smores.  For breakfast I bought those little boxes of cereal and the girls had those with pancakes I made on the griddle and some OJ in little plastic wine glasses I had left over from my sister’s shower.  The camp counselors actually helped each camper get their own breakfast minus me cooking the pancakes.

For activities we had the girls roast their own hotdogs (none of our guests had ever done that before!).  Then the girls swam while my mom and I watched the little shows they made up in the pool.  Then it was time for s’mores.  Once they got done with s’mores they changed back in to their clothes and headed out with the counselors for the flashlight scavenger hunt the counselors made up.  While they were gone (around the neighborhood) my mom and I hit plastic Easter eggs filled with candy in the back yard.  After the scavenger hunt the girls headed out back to hunt for their “owl eggs”.  Then the counselors took them upstairs for make-overs and karaoke.  Finally around 10pm they came down stairs and raided the snack bar I had set up for them and then watched a movie.  They were all asleep by midnight. 🙂  The next morning the girls watched Hannah open presents after breakfast and then watched TV.  Before we knew it mom’s were at the door ready to take our campers home.  We didn’t even get to the brownie bites or the tie die t-shirts.  The party was a hit and it might have been one of the easy parties we’ve thrown.  Yeah!

Here’s a few pictures of the campers enjoying the party –

Now, none of those hybrid projects were hard – in fact they were pretty darn easy…so don’t forget for next party to take a look in the shoppe and see what kits you can use to liven up the atmosphere and help pull together your theme!  Plus people will be so impressed that you did it yourself!

Now…it is Monday and that means Layout of the Week time!!!!!   This week I’ve chosen mom2peanuts amazing layout titled Autumn.  I just love her shadow work here and all the layers of paper look great on the neutral background.  Congrats mom2peanuts!!!! Check your PM for your prize.