Lions and Tigers and Bears....Oh My!

It's birthday time here in our household (which unfortunately coincides with house-hunting efforts without fail for the past 4 years.  Wish us luck this time around, eh?  For sanity's sake!) 

I don't know if you know this or not, but this  Nine Year Old stuff is serious business.  Cookie is growing up, there's no denying that, but outside of the public school system, i never figured she'd be so opinionated or hip as to what "cool" was.

We toss around the idea of a penny carnival for her party.  I had high hopes (especially because that is an all-sexes event, you know?)  However, in the end, it boiled down to one thing:  Cookie wanted to have a tea with her girlie friends.  Sorry Best Friend Who's A Boy. :) 

Meaning, we will need to host two shindigs--one for the best friend who's like a brother and one for the girlies.  :)  Who wouldn't love their birthday drawn out this way, eh?  Even though it's not my first preference to have two gatherings, at least it provided me a belly laugh when i was able to joke with Mr. Best Friend and say, "Hey, guess what?  We figured out what we're going to do for Cookie's party and i think you are going to have the most fun!!"  When he heard what was in store, i believe i saw him turn green a little--and it wasn't the shade of envy, either. :)

In the days that followed, i gave Cookie some gentle direction into what would make a fun tea.  We devised menus and baking ideas.  We could have the girls make popovers or something to contribute to the feast.  Rest of the time they could play games or....  So what Cookie cooked up on her own was wildly interesting, to say the least.  One day, she mentioned she'd like to have a Wizard of Oz tea.  Well, that would proved direction for the theme, so off we went to the craft store to find papers (Graphics 45 makes a series) and stamps to craft invitations.

A couple days later she says, "Wouldn't a spa tea be fun Mom?"  "Well, sure, who wouldn't love a spa tea, hon, but how does that fit with the Wizard of Oz?"  "Maaaaaaahhhhhom?!?!?  You know that part in the movie where they get all spiffed up to see Oz?  That's how!" 

And so was born thee "Wizard of Oz Spa Tea" Birthday Party.

First.....Invites.

Party Invites for the Girls

We found this wonderful piece of paper from Graphics 45 with these four images contained on it.  On the reverse is a repeating pattern of ruby slippers--perfect for little girlies!  Conveniently, we need four invitations only, so we split the page accordingly.

We found an old map of Kansas on the Internets on one of their state government archives sites and after a little manipulating in a art program on our computer, we came up with this for the back of the cards.



The dimensions of the cards turned out to fit a 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" envelope. 

With the stuffin' done, it was time to decorate the envelopes.

Our stamps consisted of the four majour Wiz of Oz characters and Toto and some sayings.

These ruby slippers and the "Yellow Brick Road" were included.

Here we were able to experiment with our "graphic art" lesson, and we found out which part of the stamps to ink so that when we stamped the red shoes on top, they wouldn't be orange. :)  We stamped them on the front corner of the envelope.

On the back of the card, Cookie played with the arrangement of characters until they fit just right.

Then she stamped it all and a saying up at the top that reads "The Magic of Oz".

I found this beauty supply house called MMS online, ordered materials for making lip balms, scented bath salts, and we will be making sugar scrubs too.  We decided to use plain ol' canning jars for our containers for the salts and scrub.

In the coming days, we'll be stamping tags and bags and making labels for our friends.

 

And what i love most about all this is we get to call it homeschool!!  :)