A Backyard Camp Birthday Party: DIY Ideas

Back in October our sweet son turned 5 - I'm still trying to process that. Just like we have done over the past several years we had a little DIY party for him.  This year he chose the theme - he wanted a backyard campsite, a fire with marshmallows and a tent.  That sounded super fun to us so we went with it and came up with several easy and fun DIY projects for the day!  Here is a little recap and some ideas for hosting your own backyard campsite party (or any diy party)...Welcome to Camp Silas!

For his parties I try and make several things, reuse other party items and purchase just a few new ones.  The DIY elements included some wood slices, a few chalkboard items, his pallet board campsite sign and a rustic tent.

Since I was making a lot of things for his party and reusing a bunch of things (like the striped banner and little crepe lanterns) I didn't mind splurging a little on this deer.  Now that I'm thinking about this, besides the food and paper products I didn't spend anything on decorations besides this deer.   I stalked it at Target for a while until it went on sale and now that the party is over it has found a permanent place in our spare room - so I felt ok with it.  

This was just a simple painted pallet board sign we made - so easy but so cute!  

The red buffalo check table covering is just a blanket I already had.  This was a last minute thought but I loved it.  I just walked around the house looking for things that might work (this is pretty much what I do every time I do any sort of party planning).  Always use what you already have first!

So probably our favorite thing was the simple tent Justin made.  How precious did this turn out?  Silas and Justin went on a hunt for the tree branches and he used a simple canvas painting tarp we already had.  Justin secured the tent with some heavy duty rope/twine.  I was not really involved in the making of the tent process so I really don't have a how-to for it.  But it came together fairly easily.

The kids loved it and was a great place to play, eat and laugh together!  We added a little lantern and a string of lights, oh and a little slice of wood turned chalkboard sign...such a fun spot!

So we had lots of different food options but we did this fun little make your own trail mix station inside.  I bought some blue paper bags and cut them almost in half for a cute little "grub" on the go snack.  It was nothing fancy and as you can see I used a various selection of bowls and jars - it didn't have to match or be perfect.  The kids loved choosing and making their trail mix (and the adults loved it too).

It was such a sweet and fun night celebrating Silas and as a family we had a blast planning and doing it together.  Silas has already picked a theme for next year and we have been talking about different ideas we could come up with.  Its so fun to get your kids involved and encouraging that creativity inside of them.  Thanks for visiting today!  If you are looking for more easy diy party ideas you can check out Silas' dinosaur party, race car party and safari party!   I also have some ideas for hosting a sweet 16 party , a "tweens" pirate party and global themed going away party.  Go grab some ideas!

See You Soon Party Ideas

A few months ago one of our dear friends answered the call in her life and made the decision to move to Haiti to serve, love and teach the word of God there.  We were incredibly excited for her and we can't wait to see what all God does while she is there.  She has been there a month now and I know her faith has grown as she fully leans on the provisions of God.  We miss her in so many ways, she has one of the biggest servants hearts I have ever met but we know she is where she needs to be for this season in her life and so we are thankful.  So to send her off with lots of encouragement and support we held a "See You Soon" party.  

It was fun putting this together for her and we were able to pick up most of the items on major clearance at Target and reuse things we already had - always a win.  

We had a table set up for people to write encouraging notes for her, I'm pretty sure she is reading them one day at a time, a little note from home to encourage her every day.

For decorations we found some fun fabric table cloths (on Target clearance for $3/piece!), some inflatable globes, photos of her in Haiti, a few little items from the dollar spot at Target and I snipped a few hydrangea off of our plant.  They were so pretty that time of year.

I also found these little light up arrows, they were a fun touch.  Plus, aren't these mason jar drink dispensers great? 

Another part of the party was a photo booth set up with a map of Haiti and some fun props.

It was such a sweet time and we were honored to be able to share that time with her.

Randa is still in need of monthly financial support. If you are interest in sponsoring her you can visit here.  To learn more about what Randa is doing in Haiti, check our her blog here.

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Tatertos & Jello (linky palooza)

Dinosaur Birthday Party - Silas is 2!

Where has two years gone? Seriously, I'm not sure if I like my little boy getting older. I'm so thankful for a sweet, energetic and hilarious son - we are so blessed.  We celebrated Silas' second birthday over the weekend with our family and I have some of the party details to share with you.  Recently Silas has taken a liking to dinosaurs so I knew I wanted to do a theme sort of party for him featuring his new found friends.  Silas also has one of the best Roar's I have ever heard in my life so this was a great way to showcase that as well :).

So when it came on how to decorate I knew I wanted to do as much of it myself as possible - and that is just what I did.  This was not a giant party, it was low key but I wanted Silas to have fun and enjoy it so for me, it was all about him.

Today I will give you some of the details shots and then I will give you another post with a breakdown of all the specific projects I did and what it cost and all of that, you know for all of the dinosaur parties you are wanting to throw in the near future- this will be most helpful.

So here's some ideas to get you started...

Lots of diying going on here - mini chalkboards, burlap tablecloth, birthday banners and so on...

I found a lot of the supplies online at a precious little shop called Sweet Lulu here's a link to some of her awesome goodies: Striped Paper Straws

Ok, don't laugh at my dinosaur cake (well, you can it you want, just not to my face).  I totally needed more icing but just didn't have it.  Note to self: if attempting a dino cake in the future, plan for more icing than necessary.  Even though it didn't quite turn out magazine worthy Silas loved it and even knew it was a dinosaur so that's all that mattered to me.

I loved these plastic milk bottles - a great kid friendly (and wallet friendly) alternative to the fancy glass ones. 

Some of Silas' favorite foods, plus cute mini snack cups found at Sweet Lulu.

We served a variety of Silas foods and adult foods (most not pictured) so everyone had a chance to eat something they enjoyed.  We had such a great time celebrating together and watching Silas open his gifts and hear what he had to say or just watch his funny expressions.  It was a special time.  

As always, thanks for stopping by and Happy Wednesday!

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Girls Ministry Event - Decorating Details

Yesterday I shared with you about our most recent girls ministry event and today I wanted to share some of the details.  Hosting an event like this doesn't have to be expensive especially if you use things you already have.  Before our big clothing swap we had a time of fellowship and refreshments together, just to give everyone a time to chat, get to know one another and plot our swapping strategies.  Another exciting part of the night was the door prizes.  We decided to put together some baskets for the girls to try to win.  We had a summer basket, hair care basket, spa basket, sweet tooth basket and college basket.

The Target dollar section has become a favorite spot of mine.  They have some really great and cute stuff that we used for these baskets.  I also love the ELF make up line at Target.  They have lots of $1 products, including make up brushes - it was perfect for this.  Nail polish is another inexpensive option and of course candy.

This was really an added fun element to the night.  The baskets and metal tub were also found in the Target dollar section.  The little buckets and boxes were a Target dollar find last month.  So like I said, really cute stuff.

Another fun detail were these tall colorful metal planters (also Target dollar finds - although they were $2.50, still not bad).  We just used some inexpensive colorful tissue paper, some easter basket straw and a pretty pinwheel to fill them up.  When I purchase decor items for these events I try and get things I can reuse later on and I can totally reuse these containers for different things as well as the pinwheels and even the straw. 

So as we were setting up for this event we stumbled upon a few things stored away on our church campus that we thought would work perfect for our event.  These little faux wrapped presents were one of those finds.  I actually made these 4 years ago for a mother/daughter dinner and we just happened to have saved them just in case.  Don't you love free decorating?  

On the tables we used things we already had - so not a dime spent on this.  We had previously bought these paper lanterns for our last event, the candle holders and then used more of the faux wrapped gifts we found.

We also made little conversation cards - all pertaining to our clothing theme and scattered them around the tables.

We had a really fun refreshment table filled with all sorts of punches and fruity drinks.  The smaller drink dispensers came from Target - they were $7.99 and are also stackable.  One again, something I can reuse over and over.

I also loved these little serving trays (Target Dollar Section) and we totally reused the plastic tablecloths from our last event.  And, we were able to give them a little wipe, folded them up and they are ready for the next as well.

We decided to make it easy and just serve drinks and cookies - we actually had a ton of cookies come in from all of our lovely leaders.  This also helps to save on cost - food can get super expensive.

So all in all it was a fun and springy event that really didn't cost all that much.  There is more to the story though and tomorrow I will share with you the details on the main event - the clothing swap so check back in tomorrow!