party favors

PRINCESS & PIRATE PARTY FAVORS + DIY PRINCESS CROWNS

Soooooo, when I meant that I would share a more detailed post of the party favors from Amara’s 3rd birthday party on Monday…… yeah, I meant NEXT Tuesday! Yikes! So sorry for the delay. We are really trying to get back to our first love around here….. blogging. However, our Etsy shop has definitely taken up a lot of our time. We are so grateful, and we are loving it, but we also love sharing things with our readers on here so much!!
Ok, so here are the detailed photos of the party favors….
Everything for the pirate favor boxes was purchased at Party City. 

 Except for the tattoos of course! Check out our Etsy shop for customized tattoos for your next event!!

 I found all of these goodies at Party City as well. The little camera was quite the hit!! I made the wands using dowels, ribbon, and watercolor paper! So easy!! I just traced a star out with a cookie cutter and painted them purple and hot glued them to the dowel.

Below is a little tutorial on how I created the princess crowns…

 Cut your lace strips into the size that you want. I just wrapped it into the size circle I wanted, then measured each strip.
 Completely submerge each lace strip into the stiffener.
 Blot off the excess on both sides and lay on a plastic bag so that they can dry partially.
 Once they start stiffening up, hang them on a “drying line” so they can completely dry on both sides.
 Let your little help! Take a sponge brush and dab each side until the lace strip is completely covered in your paint color of choice.
 We opted for metallic gold, silver and purple.
 Wrap around and glue!

Voila! The last step ( which I failed to photograph…. I was in party mode) is to glue them to a headband , or even a hair clip. We also ended up glueing a couple of “gemstones” on each of them. 
Enjoy!

FEATURED: ROWEN’S SHARK PARTY

We’ve been bugging our crazy-talented friend, Shara, for pictures of Rowen’s Shark Party since we walked through the door of the party… and had our mind’s blown. Modern, clean, fun, creative touches EVERYWHERE. Crafty in the coolest way, clever menu, fun games for kiddos…so good.
Shara used two slightly different colors of crepe paper and twisted them to create “water”. She hung all the sharks from string so they would appear to float on top of the waves. Genius.
 One of our favorite things of the party was this shark wreath! Shara spray painted a foam wreath core gray then hot glued plastic sharks (here) all around to simulate a shark attack feeding frenzy!
The fins on the mantel were pin-on fins for the kids to wear. Shara made them using stiffened felt and a template found here.
 I mean… really
Cake topper here

 Menu:
Shark Bait sandwiches (tuna salad)
Shark Fin sandwiches (cheese triangles)
Slow Swimmer Salsa and Sea Algae Guacamole with Fins (blue tortilla chips)
Shark Teeth (Bugles)
Whale and Goldfish crackers
Vegetarian Shark Food (crudites)
Watermelon Shark fruit salad (carved by Shara’s husband after she showed him pictures on Pinterest and convinced him it would be easy! Ha!)
Sea Dogs (hot dogs)
Great White Sugar Cookies
Fish Kabobs (gummy fish and shark candies on a stick)
Life Preservers (mini sugar donuts with red gel icing)
Jaws cupcakes (vanilla cake with vanilla whipped frosting and gummy sharks
Shark Attack cupcakes (blue velvet cake with coconut cream cheese icing and fondant fins)
Chum Punch
Shark Infested Lemonade
 Shara’s favorite things about the sharks hung from the ceiling were the shadows they created when the light was turned on. The slight movement of the sharks and the big shadows made it look like there were actually sharks swimming around the room.
Party Activities: 
Shark Dress Up Bucket- shark, sailor, and captain costumes, beach ball, surfboard, sunglasses, flower leis, blow up shark, beach paraphemalia
Air swimmer remote-controlled helium shark (Amazon)
Pink the Fin on the Shark (Amazon)
Make Your Own Shark Game craft station
Let’s Go Fishing Game
Finding Nemo Movie
 
Ari LOVED this activity… we still have his shark on the fridge!
 Favor buckets: “shark tank” bubbles, “under the sea” coloring book, shark stickers and tattoos, bag of shark and fish gummy candies, shark squirter toy, fish stamps, sunglasses, and glow bracelet
Invitation, favor tags, and thank you notes here
Gummy fish kabob!
Big Birthday Boy Rowen!
Thank you for sharing your party with us, Shara! We loved every minute of it (oh and so did our kids!!). 

A PRINCESS PARTY IN THE PARK

Our little Amara turned a whopping 3 years old at the end of September. I am really late in getting this post up, so I apologize! Anyway, we have a lot going on right now, and the end of summer/ beginning of Fall is always such a busy season for our family ( lots of birthdays and travel). So, I decided to keep Amara’s party simple this year! The biggest thing for me was NOT hosting it at my house. Last year, we did her party at a local vineyard ( 2nd birthday here ), and it was so nice not having a huge mess to clean up at my house afterwards. 
With that being said, the park seemed like a good choice. Kid’s could play, the weather is so gorgeous this time of year, and it is easy clean-up. You always take a risk having your party at a public place. There were NO empty pavilions for decorating, so we worked with what we were given. It all turned out nicely.

 The party favors were a mix of handmade and store bought items. There will be a more detailed breakdown of the favors on Monday! So, be sure to check back!

 Princess (fruit) wands were a hit…
 Pirate’s Booty (Amara’s favorite) snack bags!
 Our cupcakes began to melt in the sun, which didn’t make for a pretty photo-op, but I got some horse figurines from the Target dollar section to resemble “Minimus” from Sofia the First.
 I made sure all of the food was grab and go…. stuff that you could stand around and eat. 
 It is always good to save. I had tons of straws leftover from Amara’s party last year, so I just put them to use this year. 
 We hired an amazing face painter, and she was definitely the hit of the party. I could have stood there and watched her paint every single face. Such a talent!


Amara takes it VERY seriously…. 




 
Mastering her new number…

CUSTOM CAMP TATTOOS FOR THE WHOLE CABIN

My sweet niece and nephew are at sleep away camp, and I wanted to send them something fun that they could share with their whole cabin. Can’t send food (which is always my first thought). Boo. I had just done tattoo favors for the construction birthday party we threw, so I thought… tattoos! For everyone! And wouldn’t it be cool if it said their cabin name? How would I accomplish that? I googled it. Turns out it can be done, it just takes a little time and effort. 
I did these “camo” style ones for my nephew Steven and pennant flags for Julia.  
Friendships are permanent, these tattoos are temporary. True.
Check out these BFF’s here- our little Love & Lion babies!
HERE is the paper I used. If you DON’T have time and effort, we’re selling them in our ETSY SHOP, and we’ll do all the work for you! Just let us know the color and cabin number, and we’ll package it up and send it right to your little camper. Most likely with a Harry Potter stamp because… ya know.
We’re going to be listing more our craftiness and some of our gently used party decor we’ve used over the years in our Etsy Shop soon… woohoo!!
Make your campers happy campers HERE!
-L
AND WHAT YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR…. 
The winner of our Solly Baby / Mama and Little Giveaway is……………………
Courtney Nestor!
Congrats, you lucky duck!! Email us at loveandlion@gmail.com to claim your stylish goodies! Thank you to everyone for entering! Thank you SO much for the time and effort you took and for your constant support in our little blog-venture! 

PAINTING PARTY AT THE VINEYARD + GIVEAWAY WINNER

Our party “throwback” this week is my daughter’s “Pom Poms & Painting” themed 2nd birthday party. Amara still enjoys painting so much! We kept it fairly simple by holding it not in our house… whoop whoop! outdoors at a beautiful vineyard. I assembled basket lunches for the adults, boxed lunches for the kiddos with juice boxes and canned sodas and called it a day! Of course we bought wine as well…. I mean, we WERE at a vineyard.

 I set up a painting table with a place setting ( 3 sheets of watercolor paper, an art smock and a paint set) for each little guest. Tags and invites done by Lauren at Rock Paper Scissors.
Follow our simple DIY party hat tutorial here. I additionally added some poms to each hat.  I hand -dyed some in water color water to get the pastel look. 
I actually cut circles out of one of Amara’s many paintings at home to make tags for the boxed lunches! It just made it all that more personal.
I filled clear paint cans ( found at Joann’s Fabric Store) with different colors of tissue paper to resemble “paint” and stocked each can with $1 items. My favorite favors were the mini paint sets!
I set up a dessert table with some sweet treats! I hot glued pom poms to the front of the table cloth to go with the theme.
homemade cupcakes with DIY cake toppers. I simply cut stripey straws into thirds and hot glued pom poms to the ends…. voila!
Rice crispy treats on a stick dipped in candy melts. These were much harder to make than I thought they would be, but they were a hit so they were worth it!
My favorite thing of all is the “year of instagrams” banner I did. I watercolored little flags, glued them to mini paper clips to label each month. I loved this banner so much!!

It was such a beautiful evening!! Now, its time to start gearing up for birthday no. 3… yikes!
** THE WINNER OF OUR STYLE ME PERFECT GIVEAWAY IS…….
MANDY LINTHICUM!!!!!!! WHOO HOO!!! **
CONGRATS!!! We know you will love the service, and even more importantly…. your sweet stylist!!
Thanks to all who entered!

ARI’S ANIMAL THEMED PARTY: PART 3

PARTY FAVORS
I filled these “feed buckets” with all animal themed goodies:
I found all animal/insect gummies from our local candy store Honey’s Vintage Sweets! Sharks, pigs, fish, frogs, and worms. The only kind of animals I’ll eat 🙂
I made these “farm fresh egg [shakers]” with easter eggs, rice, and hot glue. Kids go bananas for egg shakers!  
ENTERTAINING THE LITTLES
Decorate your own binoculars: cut a paper towel roll in half, staple together, and punch holes for the yarn strap.
This was my favorite game I did for the kids. I found these colorful peanuts at Joannes and then put lots of little plastic animals inside. The kids used the shovels to dig for animals, and I’m telling you, they were totally fixated on finding the animals! I left this out for Ari to play with for weeks after the party, and he was so into it every. single. time. Keep your littles busy! Though, obviously keep in mind these are choking hazards so make sure your kiddos are supervised. 
Equally as big of a hit as the animal dig was when I covered our coffee table with butcher paper and let the kids go crazy with crayons! Again, I kept this up for weeks, just changing out the paper when it was covered completely with doodles. The adults got really into it too! 
and lastly…
THE INVITATION
Designed by the talented Lauren of Rock Paper Scissors
See the rest of Ari’s animal themed party
Part 1 – All the details HERE
Part 2 – Tutorials HERE
We would LOVE to see what you come up with for your animal party! Tag #loveandlion on instagram or twitter, or you can post on our facebook page. 
-L