The Teen's 'Stache Bash

The oldest is just a teeny tiny obsessed with mustaches.  And while I told her last year that that was her last birthday party (until 16), I got a little excited with all the mustache items out there.  While most parties I viewed were little man parties, I knew we could pull off the teen party with similar items.

First the invitations:

We began with the invitations.  And while I type this I find out I didn't take pictures of the invitations, oops.  I do have a copy of the front of the invitation (because of course it will be available to download).  I cut blue card stock in half and on the front I glued:

On the back I put in the party info and I designed it subway art style.  I can't share it though because my computer crashed and I lost all my fonts.  Now it doesn't show up the right way since I didn't save it as a PDF. 


I used my Cricut to make most of the accessories/gifts.  I ordered the mustaches and glasses from the Cricut Craft Room.  I cut out a bunch of mustaches and made a curtain with them:

The colors of the party were black and white highlighted with blue and pink.  I cut most of the mustaches out on black paper with a few on white, pink, and blue.  Here is a close up of my son being silly, but you will also be able to see what I did.

I took two of the same mustache, some clear beading line, and a tape runner.  I attached the mustaches together with the tape runner, securing the clear line in the middle.  The pattern on each string was: two black mustaches and then a different color, two black, another color, etc.  I tied the strings onto an inexpensive tension rod and hung it in a doorway.  The kids LOVED the curtain.

The supplies I purchased for the party included a large mustache mold, a mustache ice mold, finger tattoos, adhesive mustaches, and chocolate sucker molds:   

 Oh, and I forgot to add the mustache sandwich cutter:

 Let's start with the gift bags:

Here is a close up of the tag on the bag (well all except one word, read on):

I actually saw this idea here.  I emailed her and she sent me her creations, but then I needed to change the colors to match the party.  So I used the same saying and created my own.  After I did so my daughter wanted it to say I instead of we.  You see the original was used at a one year old party so it was a gift from the parents and child.  My daughter wanted it to be just from her.  So I changed the we to I and we used the tape runner to put them on the front of black and white bags.


Inside there was a 12 inch mustache magnet (see below), an adhesive mustache (see picture collage above), a mustache glass filled with m&m's/reeses pieces and chocolate mustaches on a stick.

To make the glass I cut out mustaches on black vinyl and adhered them to the glass.  They now are hand wash only.  I put them where I thought it would look like they were wearing a mustache when they took a drink.  If I had to do it again I would put it a little lower.

Mustache Suckers: I also made a bunch of chocolate suckers.  The light brown ones are peanut butter, the dark brown ones are mint, and the black ones are milk chocolate with black dye.  You have to use an oil based dye for chocolate.  Each glass has three chocolate suckers in it.  I had two molds (as you see in the above collage).  One mold made four of the same thing and one made three different ones.  We ended up with lots of the one style, but that was also the style we used the most throughout the party.

12 Inch Magnet Mustache: With the cricut I also made jumbo magnets.  I bought a roll of adhesive magnet and adhesive felt.  I cut a mustache out of both at 11 inches and stuck them together.  Here is what I learned: You can't put them together before hand because it is two thick and will slice up whatever item is on top.  The cricut does not cut through felt well, but if you use adhesive felt put the paper backing up.  It will cut through it and part of the felt.  You will have to trim it up, but it is a lot easier that way.  I didn't take a picture figuring I would take one of my daughters.  Well guess what, she doesn't know where it is.  Funny since that was her favorite thing!  When it turns up I will add a picture.

With the extra material I also made some small magnets and some stick on mustaches to go with the ones I purchased.


We had lots of Mustache shaped food.  

We had a large Jell-o mustache, large Rice Krispy treat mustaches, large mustache cake, I used the mustache sandwich cutter (pic above) and cut out thick sliced ham, bread, and cheese.  The kids then assembled their own mustache sandwich with the toppings they liked best.  There was a platter of chips, and water bottles for them to 'wet their whiskers':

But we also had glasses with mustache straws:

To make the straws I used the good ol' cricut again.  I cut out mustaches, punched a hole in the middle and then slid it on a blue or pink straw.


I also made some some cup cakes to go along with the mustache cake.  I didn't take a picture of the inside of the cake, but it was a zebra striped cake - black and white to go with the color theme.  I frosted the cupcakes in white and added a chocolate mustache on top.  To make the chocolate mustaches I put some melted chocolate in a squeeze bottle.  I laid mustaches under wax paper.  I outlined the mustaches with the chocolate squeeze bottle and then filled it in with chocolate.  I also dragged the tip through the chocolate to give it texture.

I kept cutting out mustaches on the cricut.  This time I hot glued them onto dowels:

We used these for our photo booth.  I spray painted a large frame pink and they held the frame in their pictures.  We went outside with the woods as the background and took pictures of the girls with their mustache disguises.

Games: As the girls arrived they decorated shirts.  I tried the bleaching the shirts idea.  I bought, shirts, bleach pens, some letter stencils and then I made mustache stencils and set the girls loose.  I had cardboard or thick newspaper in between the shirt.  I also put a plastic table cloth on my table.  The girls were very creative.  Some things to note: we bought black shirts and when bleached turn more of a rust color.  I would recommend a lighter colored shirt.  Don't use too much bleach.  I think the girls thought they needed a lot and they piled it on.  That only presented problems when we washed it.  Since they had so much extra it got on other parts of the shirt.  We started with this activity so I could wash them during the party.  Sorry no pictures I was a little occupied at this point.  

The next game we played is like Headbandz (I'm assuming this is how you play Headbandz anyway).  I used to play it where you put a character or item on your back and you would walk around asking yes or no questions until you figure out who you are.  It is a good mingling game.  Well, the oldest wanted to play it where you put the character on your forehead and went around in a circle asking yes or no questions.  We chose to play it Mustache Style of course.  All the cards had a character from a movie that had a mustache.  To make it easier we mainly used Disney movies or similar animated movies(but not all the Disney movies were animated).  I had the name of the character and the name of the movie to help the girls answering the questions.  The movies in blue are Disney movies and the ones in pink aren't. Again, no pictures of the girls playing the game, but I do have it for you to print and use.
The last game was Truth or Dare.  I HATED this game as a kid because everyone chose mean/evil things.  To prevent this there were questions made up ahead of time for them to draw out of a truth bag or a dare bag.  I used the internet for ideas and then printed them out.  Some of the dares below: wrap yourself in a roll of toilet paper, eat a teaspoon of mustard (three choices she went with mustard), have the person on your left do your hair, have the person on the right do your makeup while wearing a blindfold, take one bite of a sandwich that has one ingredient picked out by each member of the group.  They had a blast.  I had this game last so they could play until parents came.

Here are your downloads:

Truth Questions

Dare Questions

Mustache Characters Game

Mustache You a Question - Invitation Front

Wet Your Whiskers Water Bottle Labels

We Hate to See You Go Treat Label

I Hate to See You Go Treat Label

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

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Seat Belt (Travel) Pillow

We will be doing across country trip so I have been busy scouring the internet (and Pinterest) for ideas.  I've found many.  This post is the seat belt pillow.  The first thing you should know is that I found it here: Living Life and Loving Every Second.  Since I don't sew I'm not going to attempt to redo her tutorial.  And since I don't sew and I made one three, I know you can too (seriously, I can count how many things I have made before this project on one hand).  I will tell you what I changed in case you like my adaptions.
I let the kids pick out some soft material they wanted a pillow out of.  Next I cut it out, but instead of two pieces I cut one 12 x 26ish (it may have been a little bit longer - I didn't measure exact, but it was at least 26 inches).  I also cut out a piece 5x7 to create a pocket to hold a iTouch or iPod.

This piece I laid right side up and folded the top down twice.  I didn't sew it, but if I do it again I would sew it down.  I folded the other sides back 1/4 inch and pinned them to the bottom of the pillow.  I sewed it on using a zig-zag stitch.  

Instead of using ribbon I wanted Velcro tabs.  I made one pillow with three and then decided to make the other two with four: I cut eight strips of material out of cotton 3 x 3.5.  I ironed them in half (so I had a crease) and ironed 1/4 inch fold on one short end. I sewed 2 inch Velcro towards one end (the one that wasn't ironed, but leaving room for it to be stitched together).  I folded it in half, wrong sides out and sewed the short end (not ironed) and the long side.  Flip in inside out and pin it on the pillow.  

Sew them onto the pillow (see picture for example, but don't look too closely because my stitching isn't the best).  After the tabs are on, fold the pillow in half - right sides together - and pin.  Sew along around the outside leaving room to stuff it.  Stuff it and hand sew it closed.  I used the ladder stitch I found via YouTube.  Now it is good to go.  My daughter tested it out (in that picture it wasn't stitched closed yet because we were testing the stuffing level) and she liked it so much I may have to make me one too!

If you have questions, let me know.

Baptism Hair

Here is a little about how we styled Boo's hair.  Her hair for her pictures turned out so much better than her baptism.  I had a little more time for the pictures and took time to put it into a bun.  Here are a couple pictures showing off her hair taken during her photo session.

 











Hopefully you can figure it out by the pictures, but I'll try to describe what I did, but you can also check out one of my favorite hairstyle blogs: Girly Do Hairstyles. First I made a part going all the way around her head (along the outside like a crown - but with the back too).  I pulled up the extra hair in a pony tail to keep it out of the way.  Then I made a bunch of small pony tails all the way around.  Then I did another part all the way around.  This time I made the pony tails half way in between the ponies on the first row.  I added half of the ponies on the first row to the new row (there should be a half from two ponies added to the new one).  If your child has lots of hair you could try this (same idea, but there is an extra row of elastics without adding more hair).
That is all the room I had for her hair, but if you have lots of hair you could do more rows.  

 

Those last three pictures I took at a different time (I don't remember putting pearls in for her baptism, but this do is different because her bangs are down and it isn't in a bun).  I like it much better with the bun.  To do the bun I split the hair in half.  Half to curl up and half to curl down.  I divided each side (top & bottom) into threes.  I curled it around (with my fingers) until it was the size I wanted and curled until her ends were in too.  Then bobby pin it - at least two bobby pins making an X to hold it in.  Use as many as you need to hold it, but keep them in the bun so you can't see them. Then you get a bun look.

 Her dress has pearls on it.  If you look at the top of her dress and the front waistband you can see the pearls.  At Michaels I purchased some Bling on a Roll:

It is a bunch of half pearls on an adhesive roll.  I cut off the larger pearls and stuck them on each rubber bands.  They stayed in okay, but would never last getting wet or with play.  I had to reattach a few during pictures.  When it was in the bun you couldn't see the big elastic, but when I just pulled it partway through I wrapped small pearls around the elastic.  
Hopefully that all makes sense.  If you have questions, ask.  If there is enough interest/confusion I can make a step by step tutorial.

To see more posts about the baptism click here or the baptism link on the right under labels.

 

Baptism Decorations and Food

For the program table I wanted a picture of my daughter in her baptism dress.  Originally I was going to do a picture in her blessing dress and in her baptism dress, but somewhere along the way that was changed.  In my search for subway art I also came across an editable one here at Oopey Daisy.  You are able to change the name and date.  I had a 5x7 printed up when I ordered the photos for the programs.  I also ordered a couple other pictures from her photo session.  And while I'm confessing I actually ordered a 11x14 collage of some of her pictures that I was thinking about using.  Well, I wasn't to thrilled with that and I still had the 8x10 of my favorite photo I definitely wanted to use and the cute little subway art to display.  Then I remembered a frame I had that had 2 5x7 openings and one 8x10 (currently holding outdated pictures of my kids - all three in the middle, the boy on one side and the girls on the other).  I was even more excited when I realized that the faced the correct direction.  I only had one problem - what to put into the other 5x7.  If I would've had more time I would've printed another picture, but I was didn't.  So I did the next best thing, I mounted a 4x6 picture on paper and threw it into the frame.  It didn't turn out too bad:

I love that 8x10!  It would look better with a 5x7 instead of 4x6, but since the subway art is framed with a pink border, it doesn't look too bad.  Her other photo that I loved (which was the big photo on the collage I didn't use) was the photo on the program.  That was on the table too so I had enough photos displayed (at least all my favorites).

I wish I had better pictures of the refreshments and room, but I was busy playing mom and host so here is what I was able to get my tween to take.I kept the decorations simple for the food tables.  I put out round tables and used table cloths in the colors we chose: the bright colors of blue, yellow, purple, pink, and green.  In fact the decorations were so simple my 8 and 13 year old were making them as I loaded up the car:

All you need is tissue paper and wire.  We layered two sheets of a color and rotated colors (2 yellow, 2 purple, 2 yellow, 2 purple).  Accordion fold the stack (over, under, over, under).  When it is folded wrap a wire around the center (we used a pipe cleaner).  Trim the ends - round or pointy - I did round.  Gently (so you don't rip the paper) peel each layer up at a time.  Soon it will look like a flower.  If you can't follow those instructions search Martha Stewart and she can help you out better.  So I didn't take step by step photos, but like I said, the girls made them on the way out while I loaded the car.
On the table we set out clear cups.  I had purchased what were supposed to be clear labels.  I printed out labels that matched the pop cake toppers (I made those first and you can read on about them shortly).  On the cups I had Congratulations and her name or It's great to be 8.  I changed up the colors (below happens to be the same colors and again, not a very good photo) to match the colors we picked out and I also changed the fonts.  Right now you can download the 8 labels below.  Since I used fonts not on everyone's (or all my) computers I had to save it as a PDF to get it to print correctly.  I think I started to convert the other to a font in word, but until that is finished I only have the one for you.

Now it was towards the baptism date that I decided to serve food.  In fact I hadn't decided how much food when I made the invitations so I worded it as refreshments.  Turns out it was enough for dinner.  In trying to figure out the goodies I thought along the lines of her colors and what I could make that would bring in the colors (since I did little decorations this really tied it all together and made it look nice). I ended up using candy melts to tie in the color to the food.  We had pretzel rods dipped in chocolate, cake balls on a stick with a cupcake topper.  The cupcake toppers had her monogram & date of baptism, Congratulations & name, and 8 is great.

Another treat I made are mini turtles.  Go here for the recipe.  I set them out on color coordinating plates or tied ribbon around jars to tie it together.  I also bought a sliced ham (she was baptized the day before Easter so a bonus that they were all on sale), rolls (sliced for sandwiches), a cheese tray, we also made veggie and fruit trays.  I froze fruit in ice cube trays for the ice and set out pictures of water.  I had lemon, strawberry and raspberry ice cubes.  It added some fun color to the water.

To see more posts about the baptism click here or on the baptism link to the right under labels.

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

 Download It's Great to be 8 labels here

  Download It's Great to be 8 Cupcake toppers here

*NOTE* Below are the other labels & cupcake toppers. The fonts will not work on your computer (unless you have happened to have downloaded the same ones) so you may have to play around and change them to fit your style/needs.

 Download Congratulation Labels Here

Download Congratulation Tags Here

Download Initial Tags Here

The Baptism Program

Since I wasn't able to make my invitation with Boo in her Baptism Dress I wanted it to at least be on her program.  Myself and the oldest took pictures the Sunday before her baptism.  A kind friend edited the pictures for me (since we all now know how I can't manage Photoshop).  I searched for invitation ideas, but couldn't find one that included everything I needed.  So I made my own.  I designed it with my daughter's name at the top and the date of the baptism at the bottom.  A 4x6 photo fit perfectly in between.  I ordered these from Costco and included a black border around it.  I attached the photo with photo corners so that friends and family could remove the picture and keep it if they chose to.  You could print the photo right on the invitation, but I wanted family to be able to keep the photo and not necessarily have to keep the program.

On the inside left is the first song we sang in the program: "When I Am Baptized."  Type in the song your child chooses here.  On the right is the program outline.  I included titles - either Brother/Sister/Bishop or family relation: Grandpa/Father/etc.  I wanted to include the witnesses and who was performing the baptism and confirmation.  I also learned that both a member of the primary presidency and bishopric take a moment to welcome the child & say a few things. (If this is for a convert there wouldn't be a Primary Welcome).  On the back is the closing song.  There is also a little note stating where the template came from.  Please leave the web address on it (you can change wording/font size, just make sure the blog address is correct).

If you choose to download, please become a follower first (on the right).  I'm happy to share my creations with my followers.  If you would like to leave a comment too that would totally make my day!

Download the editable program here.  (Be kind and leave the source of the template on the bottom of the back of the program). 

To see more posts about the baptism click here or on the baptism link under labels on the right.

The Baptism Invitations

I searched the net for free baptism subway art and I found the above art on Poppy Seed Projects, here.  I decided that it would make a great invitation.  I tried out Photoshop to make the invitation. I won't tell you how many HOURS it took me to do as much as I did.  Then I had a warning from Costco that it isn't a good resolution.  I gave up, took my chances, and they printed just fine.  I really wanted to get a picture of her in her dress, but as always I didn't have time to squeeze it in.  I used one of the pictures taken about a month before she turned eight.
I put the subway art on one side and the picture inside the frame.  On the other side I wrote up the invitation.  I erased her name and other personal information in the picture above, but kept an E on there to see the fun font and color I used.  I used her full name and it took up two lines. I searched online to find some ideas for wording.  If you click on the picture above it should enlarge for you to read (if not and your interested leave a comment and I'll add it).
I printed them online at Costco.com.  They are 6 x 7 1/2 so the picture is about 4x6.  Nice and large if the family wants to trim off the words and just keep the photo (after all the subway art is too cute). The smallest amount you can order is 50 for $14.99 which was too many, but they are the size I wanted and it still costs less for more than if I ordered at another place.  They also come with some heavy envelopes lined with silver.  I was very pleased with how they turned out.  The only thing I would do different is have her in her beautiful dress.

To see more posts about the baptism click here.

LDS Baptism Kit Kats

I found this cute idea for a Kit Kat wrapper here on Sugardoodle and instantly loved it!  The three letters of Kat spell out the covenants that are made at baptism.  On the back is the 4th Article of Faith.  Perfect!  My only problem was it was black and white and the font was just plain.  So changed the colors to match our color theme and I changed up the font.  I did one girl friendly and one boy friendly.  
You can use this idea for a talk and give it to the child being baptized as a reminder.  You can have a basket of them as favors to those who attend.  We chose to give one to the kids that came to the baptism.  It was a great way for them to remember the talk on baptism.  Most of the kids (all but two) hadn't been baptized yet.  My little girl was baptized the day before Easter so they had these Kit Kats in yellow wrappers in the Easter aisle.  It matched the colors so much better than the red wrapper.

Please be kind and become a follower if you decide to download or if you like what you see.  If you have even more time, leave a comment.  Knowing people use my creations (recreations) makes taking the time to take pictures and create posts worth it.  Thanks for visiting!

Download the Kit Kat Wrapper Here

My apologies to anyone who tried to open this and was unable.  I forgot to change the link from private to share.  Not long after I finished this post (I was working on the second baptism post) we lost power.  Turned out we lost power for 52 + hours.  We are going to spend this summer re-evaluating our emergency preparedness and 72 hours kits.  This includes purchasing and learning how to use a generator!  We, of course, are also in the middle of a heat wave 114 degree weather & no power does not equal fun!  If something doesn't work, let me know!

To see more posts about the baptism click here.