Chinese New Year Party: The finale

Well Mia's party was a huge success. Here are some pictures from the party

 

When you walked into the front door this is what you were meet with.

When I do parties I usually have a schedule of what we are going to do in what order. This time I just laid every thing in a row in the middle of the table and started out by telling them everything I had planed and then I let them choose what they wanted to do. This worked out so well because I usually feel so stressed about getting everything done and going from one thing to the next that I don't ever enjoy the party myself. This time I was just able to go with the flow and they all had lots of fun.

 

Here is every one painting their New Year banners.

Coloring their dragon masks. 

If you look you can see the Chinese yo-yos wrapped in the rubber band.

 

The birthday girl. She is really concentrating.

Everyone in there dragon masks.

Here is everyone playing the chopstick game. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be but they still thought it was fun. You can see all of them smiling.

Blowing out her candles. We put two candles in to represent 11. You can see what the cupcakes look like here.

Not all her friends that she invinted could make it but the important ones where there.

Thanks mom for letting me have the party at your house and for helping out. Love you bunches!!

linking up with

Wordless Wednesday: First night in her big girl bed

Tonight is her first night in her big girl bed. She only got up a few times but was asleep by 10. Now we will just see if she stays in her bed all night.

Quotes to Remember... 2/22/10

I am a collector of quotes. I love it when I read something that inspires me. So in honor of the quotes that I love I officially name Mondays "Quotes to Remember..." day

Here's your quote for today

"All that we are is a result of what we have thought." -Buddha


Share your favorite quotes with me and it just might show up on Quotes to Remember...

Chinese New Year Party: Games and goody bags

In this post I am going to list what I have planned for the games and goody bags that will have at Mia's Chinese New Year party. Since the party was originally planed for the day before valentines day you will see some of that mixed in.

Here are the games.

All the games that I have planned came from a site called Activity Village.

The first game that I will tell you about is The chopstick game.

 I got the idea from here. We will be using these for the game.

I also want to mention that I got the chopsticks from Skybluepink.com. If you scroll down you will see that you can get 10 for $1 which is a great price unless you can get them free from a local Chinese restaurant. I just want to mention that Skybluepink has tons of other Asian inspired stuff and also their shipping prices were very low and they are a wonderful company to work with (Sadly I feel the need to mention that I was NOT paid for my opinion).

The next game on the list is Catch the dragon's tail (I have also heard it called Catch the snake's tail). This is a very fun group game and you can find the directions here.

The last game on the list is Throwing the square which I believe is a traditional Chinese game. Here are the directions for the game. I actually made a set for everyone to take home in their goody bags but I will explain more about that later.

Before everyone leaves the party we will pop these.

Fire crackers are a bid deal when celebrating the new year. Since those are out of season here in the U.S.  I think these would be a good substitute.

Here is what we are including in the goody bags.

For the goody bags (well actually boxes) we are using take out boxes. We searched everywhere for either red or gold boxes but the closest thing we could find was this

 

I don't know it you can tell or not but it is covered with pink and red hearts. We found these at Michaels on sell for $.98 a piece. They don't exactly go with our theme but they will do and I got a good deal on them so what more can you ask for the week before Valentine's Day.

One of the things that they are going to be able to take home with them is a set of chopstick that we will be using at the party to play a game with.

I will be including a set of throw the square for them to take home.

It is just a 24" x 12" piece of fabric with a line drawn the middle. I used something called fray check around the edges so that I wouldn't have to hem it.

For the bean bags I just used yellow craft felt and with fabric paint drew the symbols for tiger (on the left) and dragon (on the right).

At my local Walmart they sell boxes of fortune cookies so I just picked some up to include.

Something else that I will be including is Party Poppers

I found the idea and wonderful directions from Little Birdie Secrets. I made these with yellow tissue paper and wrapped in red wrapping paper with red ribbons. I found the cracker snaps at Olde English Crackers for $4.25 for 25 of them. There shipping is very reasonable and fast.

We will be filling the poppers with these

The last thing that will be included are the famous Red Envelope. 

There are a lot of different ideas out there but I liked this one from Activity Village the best. It even includes a template. At Chinese New Year it is traditional for parents and elders to give gifts of "lucky money" to children and unmarried adults.  The money, which can vary from a small, new coin to a substantial sum, is always presented in a red envelope. We looked everywhere for chocolate coins but couldn't find any so we are settling for these.

 

they have a dragon on one side and a Chinese symbol on the other. I got these at Skybluepink.com for 36 for $1.00. I think I read somewhere that you are supposed to include an even number of coins for luck.

Well that is it for the Chinese New Year Party. Hope you enjoyed it.

Wordless Wednesday: Fry Bouquet

 

We went to McD's the other day and my 2yr old spent the whole time sticking her french fries into her ketchup. Each time she stuck one in she would yell out "I did it!"

Chinese New Year Party: Cupcakes and crafts

Ok so technically Chinese New Year was last weekend, as was Mia's birthday, but Friday night we got about 6-8" of snow and here in Eastern NC that put everything to a standstill. So we had to reschedule for this weekend. I think I was more disappointed in that than Mia was although I did get an extra week to prepare. She's fine as long as she gets her party. Still I think the Chinese celebrate the New Year for 15 days so we are still good lol. So I thought I would just run through the list of things we have planned for the party.

Here are the cupcakes that I am making for the party.

 

I got the idea from FamilyCorner.com

Here are the crafts we will be doing

Making Chinese Yo-Yos

 

I posted how we will make these here.

We are also planning on making a Chinese New Year banner

 

Got the idea and directions from Gracenotes.

Another craft we will be making is a dragon mask. You can find the printout here. We will be attaching red streamers to the back on the top so that when the kids are wearing the mask the streamers will flow over their head and behind them and when they run around the streamers will flow out. Haven't tried it yet so I hope it is not one of those things that works perfect in my mind and tanks when we actually do it.

The last craft I have planned is a 3D paper tiger (since it is the year of the tiger).

I found the directions here with a few other zodiac animals. They have the directions and the printout.

Next: games and activities

Quotes to Remember... 2/15/10

I am a collector of quotes. I love it when I read something that inspires me. So in honor of the quotes that I love I officially name Mondays "Quotes to Remember..." day

Here's your quote for today

"That a man can change himself... and master his own destiny is the conclusion of every mind who is wide-awake to the power of right thought." -Christian D. Larson


Share your favorite quotes with me and it just might show up on Quotes to Remember...

Wordless Wednesday: What happens when she skips her nap

Just a few minutes before we were going to walk out the door to go shopping.

Chinese New Year Party: Chinese Yo-Yo

Mia has just decided that she wants Chinese yo-yos to go into the goody bags at her party. Well looking around I can't find any and it is too late to order some to be shipped here by Saturday. So what do we do? We make our own of course. There are several sites that I got info from. Making Friends has great instructions and also here at the b-line.

Playing around this is what I did.

At Making friends they said to cut the wrapping paper 7' by 4" and the b-line said to cut it 3' by 8".

I tried to cut my wrapping paper 7' but that was just to much paper and it didn't bounce back good and I didn't want something as big as 8" so I went with 3' by 4" and it worked great.

All the directions I read said to use a wooden dowel. Since I am trying to keep things more cost effective I decided to use long lollipop sticks. Here is a picture of a regular and a long stick together. The long one is about 8" and since you can get 50 or so for just a couple of dollars compaired to maybe 5 dowels for $3-$4 dollars it is a lot cheaper.

note: if you are going to make a bigger yo-yo you will probably need a 12" wooden dowel.

Using my 1/4" Terrifically Tacky Tape I put a strip at one end of the paper. You could also use hot glue if you wanted to.

I wrapped the end with the tape onto the stick.

 

Then I started rolling it up.

 

Once I had it rolled up all the way I put a rubber-band around it and let it "cure" for about 30mins to an hour.

 

All thats left to do is play with it.

Now, not only do we have something for the goody bag but we also have a craft to do at the party. I love it when things can double-up. I just need to go out and find some Asian style wrapping paper and we are all set.

more Chinese party ideas to come...

Quotes to Remember... 2/8/10

I am a collector of quotes. I love it when I read something that inspires me. So in honor of the quotes that I love I officially name Mondays "Quotes to Remember..." day

Here's your quote for today

"It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from other people's mistakes." - The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Thanks Alyssa from Problem Child With Promise for todays quote.

Share your favorite quotes with me and it just might show up on Quotes to Remember...

Dyson DC23 giveaway over at Nothern Mama

Over at Northern Mama she is hosting a giveaway for a Breast Cancer Awareness Dyson DC23 motorhead pink canister model vacuum. This contest is open to US and Canadian residents and ends on March 6th.