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Kids Can Rock Too – Rad Rock from Your Musical Library

September 6, 2011 by 1 Comment
I got a new car a few months back.  It came with Sirius XM which I adore.  For a while, I got away with listening to XMU, First Wave or Alt Nation.  But one day I made the grave mistake of changing it to the kid’s station, Kid’s Place Live.  I don’t actually hate everything about it.  In fact, some of the music they play is actually good.  But do you know what it is like to talk to a young child on the phone?  Pretty painful right?  Yeah.  Well, they have several call-in type shows on that channel.  Why oh why?!  But my son, who is obsessed with Ghostbusters heard the theme song on the channel one time and now he’s afraid if we change it, he will miss the song.  I bought him the song on Itunes, but nothing beats hearing your fave song on the radio.  
Here are some of the gems we found through Kid’s Place Live mixed with a bunch that I love.  I am pretty free with what I will let my kids hear (curse words can be prime teaching moments) so listen to the songs for yourself before trusting my judgement.  I had to put my son’s other favorite song on there because we listen to it at least once a week, Iggy Pop (he dances just like Iggy, btw – it. is. awesome). These songs are not for bedtime and are pretty much just all around fun.  Use it at your next kid’s party or just in the car on the way to school.  
Are you ready to rock! 

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A few more songs that playlist.com didn’t have that you need to check out are:
Up Up Up – The Givers (free download – holler!)
Gotta Keep on Trying – The Not Its (so one of the singers from this band used to sing in a band called Velocity Girl that I loved in high school – totally cool and the website is rad, rad, rad)
Surfer Turtle – Cat and Bird
Princess Racer
The Donkey Song (love love love)
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead – XTC
Don’t dumb down your kids music.  Share the greats with them.  The Beatles, The Beach Boys, whoever your favorites are chances are your passion will be contagious and your kids will love them too.  
Sharon

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Three Little Birds Adorable Bob Marley-themed 3rd Birthday Party by Jackie Culmer

September 5, 2011 by 2 Comments
Maybe it is because my family is infatuated with Rastamouse ever since we saw it on YouTube last week.  Maybe it was because I had a very brief phase where I wanted to dreadlocks, wore a lot of red, yellow and green and bought incense (from the swap meet) in high school.  Or maybe because it is just freaking awesome but I had to share the most adorable kid’s birthday party that I came across the other day.  Not only is Jackie Culmer a kick-ass photographer (I will be sharing the pics she shot at my neon and neutral bday party on Wednesday!) but she also rocks the house with her party design.  
This is absolute perfection for me.  The theme is totally original, casual and cool.  The graphic design is crisp and fresh.  
It is the perfect balance of kid and adult friendly and is styled without being fussy or too themey.
And what music inspired party would be complete without a cd favor?  I want one!!! 
Check out the rest of the party on Jackie’s blog, The Silver Spoon and Paper Plate.  And check out what she did last Halloween while you are there here, here and here.  
She knocked my socks off with the photos she took for my party a month ago, can’t wait to share!!! 
Sharon
all photos via Jackie Culmer
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Wrap Up – Ziggy Stardust Space Party

June 10, 2011 by 1 Comment
This is the last post about the party.  I mean it.  I hope this gives an overall feel of the party for those who can’t handle my long winded, oddly categorized previous posts.  I can’t even get over the beautiful photography done by Dez and Tam.  I am in LOVE with their style and they are literally the nicest family I have ever met.  If you are considering family portraits I highly recommend them!  Check out their site to see their past work and I know you will be convinced!  And I know I put on a more detailed kid’s party than most, but I would encourage you to hire them for your next party too.  I can’t tell you how relaxed I was that day knowing I would get to these two crazy talented people were capturing all the memories for me.  Thank you Dez and Tam! (and little Riley too!  Their son is the cutest and sweetest little boy ever!)  
All photos by Dez and Tam except the fabric flowers and the metal stud. 
Cake and Push Cakes by Meringue Bake Shop
Sharon
Ziggy Stardust Space Party – over and out. 
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Ziggy Stardust Inspired Space 5th Birthday Party – Part 4

June 9, 2011 by 4 Comments
Often my parties have a unique theme which the guests may or may not know about.  I usually try to put info around for guests to find throughout the party.

The only thing O wanted for his party was a bounce house.  But our backyard isn’t big enough for one and so I thought it wasn’t going to work out.  Then our friends, Jimmy and Vanessa, offered their small bounce to use!  O was SO happy.  A HUGE thank you to them!  
Since my son is really in to music and because Ziggy Stardust is a rock star, I decided to set out all the toy musical instruments we had for the kids to play with.

This is sweet K.  If you look behind her you can see my fabric backdrop that I put up for the kids to jam in front of.  You can just barely make out the other feather garland made by Jenny.  How rad are K’s nails? 
photo by me
Here is a picture of Jenny’s garland I took after the party.  How gorgeous and fun are all those feathers?  These garlands must have taken her forever and I am so grateful that she made them for me!!!

I saw these masks in random blog posts around the web after I started planning the party.  I knew I had to have them.  Here is the link.  They print out small, pretty much kid sized, so if you want them for adults you need to blow them up a little. 
I decided that we needed to do another smash cake like the one we did for my other son’s party.  I asked Kristin of Meringue Bake Shop to make it this time because I wanted it to be way cuter than the other. :) It turned out super cute.
So you make a small cake, cut a hole out of the center then fill it with candy.  Then you cover the cake with a dome made of chocolate.  Then you give the kid a hammer and…
And the kids go wild!  I then cut the cake and let the kids go to town.  I don’t provide plates or silverware.  Its a free for all. 
It is one of my favorite party surprises.  This cake was vegan and the candy was friendly to O’s allergies.  
I’m going to wrap up the party tomorrow with a collage that will hopefully share the feeling of the whole party and since I know that some people don’t enjoy such long posts as all of them from this week, then they will have a quick post too.  Probably should have posted that first…whatevs.
Sharon
All photos by Dez and Tam

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Ziggy Stardust Inspired Space 5th Birthday Party – Part 3

June 8, 2011 by 2 Comments
This post is picture heavy.  Be warned.  So the premise of the party was that O was inviting his friends over to be part of his space exploration team.  And since the first question I always ask when starting a new activity is “do I get a new outfit,” I decided that I should make “uniforms” for each kid.  I created a store to be where they could get their new shirts, as well as accessorize it.  It would be another activity to engage the kids and also act as a favor “bar.”

photo by me
I created wallets out of black card stock and designed space money.  The front features a well-known look of Ziggy Stardust and the back I created with a hand-made stamp that Lauren made for O. I had the wallets at the front door with the instruction to head right to the store to pick out their uniform.

The uniforms.  I found cheap packs of Hanes white t’s at Target and they came out to less than $2.00 a piece (way cheaper than the local craft stores…)  Then I used black spray paint or black fabric paints and home-made stencils to create different looks.  My intention had been to add trims to the shoulders but well, even I am not THAT crazy.  
I did add some to O’s shirt (which was also gray so he would stand out a little more) and it turned out really cute. 

photo by me
photo by me
My kids wear the leftover shirts all the time.  They wash well and are kind of cool to boot. 
Since some of the designs were on the backs of the shirts, I wanted to make sure that each kid had a name tag on the front.  I used large foam craft letters and embellished with star shaped brads.

I asked my niece, P, to run the store.  I thought she would enjoy it and it would add a nice touch to the store atmosphere.  She took it super seriously.  My intention was to tell her that although each kid was given 7 space dollars, they could take as many things as they wanted as long as each kid got an accessory.  But in the craziness of party day I forgot to mention that to her…It wasn’t until much later that I learned that she respects policy and procedure and held every kid firm at $7.  Which meant that a lot of the hand-made jewelry was left over…as well as tons of cheap loud or flying space toys…my bad. 

As Ziggy sported bright orange hair, I wanted the kids to get glam rock’d out if they chose.  I had these clip in hair braids for the girls and also gold and orange spray hair color for the boys.  

I made several types of headbands, bracelets, cuffs, barrettes, and pins for the kids to choose from.  This severely stretched my craft skill limits.  I may have turned to vices. 

photo by me

photo by me
I tried to incorporate things in the party straight from song lyrics.  I’m not going to lie, there were only a few kid friendly lines.  I loved that I could work in coloring pages from everybody’s favorite ‘cat from Japan’.  I chose to use only that portion of the line as I couldn’t figure out how to make ‘well hung and snow white tan’ appropriate for a children’s party…

photo by me
And of course we had to have ‘spiders from mars’.  {note – I use a lot of punctuation and grammatical errors in my posts.  On purpose.  I feel it sets me apart from those nerdy, good-at-school-and-other-important-stuff types}.*/~it”s

I used the same image of O from the invite on the favor bags provided by the store clerk.  How cute is that ‘Oliver’ stamp (also hand-made by Lauren).  

I made this sign for P to put up when she was done playing shop girl.  While I saw her run off a few brief times (and I was sent on Push Cake runs for her) she relished her role running that store.  At one point of the party, she ran up to me and handed me one of the favor bags.  I had no idea what it was so I opened it and peered in.  It was full of space money.  I looked back to her for explanation.  CASH DROP.  The girl took it upon herself to do a cash drop.  She’s 8.  I am going to go ahead and write her a letter of recommendation now.  But I won’t expect any freebies.  
Sharon
All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by Dez and Tam.  They are freaking radical people and seriously turned this mother out.  
And super huge shout out to my homegirl, Taryn.  She pawned her spawn off on a sitter to come over and help me package up some of these favors for the party.  She is awesome.  And a ridiculously big shout out to my mommy.  She helped me cut an Earth-crippling amount of space money (this is huge because an elementary school teacher commented on her sub-par cutting skills and she’s never been able to shake it and I only slightly jest.)
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