I cannot wait to give you a full rundown of the amazing party we threw to celebrate my 5,3,1 kiddos. But before the full show of pictures, I have to share a few of my favorite projects from the party. Has anyone noticed that these circus marquee letters are everywhere in decor these days? I’ve seen them in so many stores, from Hobby Lobby to Target.
I knew I HAD to have these but when I started hunting around, the lowest price I was seeing was still upwards of $15 for EACH letter. Yeah, not going to happen. So I did what any good crafter would do and started scouring Pinterest for good ways to make them on the cheap. I found a few blogs out there (
here and
here) but the costs were still a bit high using the paper mache letters or wood. Then I started finding a few that used cardboard. (
here) Bingo. My kind of price.
So here’s what you need:
- 2-3 sheets of posterboard in the color you want
- 2 sheets of foam board (walmart even carries it). Great if it’s in the color you need, but just paint it if it’s not.
- acrylic paint (see above)
- hot glue gun
- something sharp like a pencil to create the holes
- 1 string of Christmas lights (I used a 150 light strand I think)
Step 1
Some people can freehand letters. Not this girl. I used my Silhouette software to print out large letters over 4 sheets of paper. You can also do this in excel or photoshop. I used the free font Budmo found
here and used text size 1500. Print the parts of the large letter, cut them out and tape them together. Then trace them onto your foam board and cut those out. I needed to use an exacto knife to cut through the foam board.
Step 2
If your foam board is not the color you want it to be, paint it. Mine was yellow on one side and white on the other and I needed it to be red. So a little thing of acrylic paint and 2 coats later, and it was red. You don’t need to worry about painting the sides of the boards, just the top. A word of warning, I bought 2 kinds of foam board, one from Walmart and one from the Dollar Tree. The Dollar Tree one was much thinner and actually curled a little bit after the paint dried. I didn’t really care as I wasn’t going for perfect, but you might be happier with the thicker foam board from Wally World or your local craft store.
Step 3
Poke the holes for the lights. Now there are tons of cool strands of lights out there that look much more like marquee lights. And if I was using these letters for room decor or something for the long haul, I would have splurged. A friend even offered to loan me the lights hanging above their patio (thanks Laura). But 2 hour party folks. A free strand of Christmas lights from the basement tub worked just fine. I started the lights at the top of one letter and poked a hole just a little shorter than the distance between the 2 bulbs on the string. You’re not leaving the lights in the holes yet, just poking the holes.
Step 4
Cut your posterboard into 2” long strips. I used almost 2 full sheets of posterboard for my 6 marquee letters.
Step 5
Heat up your trusty glue gun. Then slowly, very slowly, put a line of hot glue on the edge of the foam board in 1-2” increments. Line up a strip of posterboard with the bottom the foam board and press to attach. Does that make sense?
Continue around the edge of the letter and around the inside. It will take a bit of finagling on the small inside spaces of some of the letters, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. I found that on the large curved letters, it helped to use 2 smaller strips instead of one long one to get a best fit and without it getting weird and bendy.
Step 6
Now that you have all your letters done, all you have to do it insert your string of lights in the back. They fit pretty snug in the holes, but I did add some painter’s tape along to secure it. Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of this step. When I was done, all the letters were strung together and now had to be moved as a group. Here’s a picture with the lights in focus, not the letters.
Step 7
Then you just need to have someone else hang it for you. haha. I simply put some command strips on the back and hung them from the overhang on our patio.
I was pretty impressed that they even survived an hour of good rain. We took them down so they could live in our basement now! Definitely added just the amount of pop I wanted for the party. And not bad for under $5!
They spend the first 5-10 minutes singing a welcome song and things like that. Then they practice the ukulele with Mr. Luke. This includes things like learning the string names, how to hold the ukulele, how to pluck the right string, etc.
Then, they get to do piano with Ms. Danielle. Basic key recognition, learning soft and quiet, very simple songs, etc.
I will say that I’m not sure the instructors have had a ton of experience teaching small children and there’s been at least one child with some behavior issues in both of his sessions. And the price is a little steep. Buuuuttt the child loves it and refuses to try anything else. So we’re going to keep going for awhile. Now if I could just get him to practice. ;)
She said (later) that she won’t ever forget Owen because of what he did during one portion of the “test.” He was asked to look at 2 pictures and then she turned them over. Then she held up a matching picture and he was to tell her where to lay it down so it would be on top of it’s matching card. Does that make sense? Well, he did the 2 cards just fine. But then she did it with 3 cards, a house, a duck, and cup. He placed the first one fine, but looked confused about the second. He pointed at where to lay it down and then looked at the cards (which were turned over). He said “that one is wrong.” She asked him how he knew that since they hadn’t turned them over yet and he said “the numbers don’t match on the back.” We both laughed! She said she’d never had a kid pick up on the fact that they were labeled with numbers (for her benefit) on the back before. But of course, she still had to dock him that point even though he showed a higher level thinking skill. (boo to standardized tests)
How it worked was a week before the party, Amy sent us an email with different shopping lists divided up. We each picked a list to buy. It also had a few items that needed to be prepped ahead of the cooking day. Here’s what my list looked like:
These 2 guys were adorable together and were so great throughout the morning. 
Again, each group of ladies tackled one meal at a time. We simply found the indreitent on the massive table of food and dumped it into a gallon freezer bag. Once all the bags for that meal were done, we sealed them and put one meal in each lady's laundry basket.
All in all, it took us only about an hour and half for everything. And even better, the total was $89.52 for all of it! Definitely worth doing a little of our own prep work to get our cost down.
Amy has a 
They came over and Weston played with the kids and we all chatted about every issue under the sun. Then on Thursday, Weston came over for a “trial run” while his mom worked in her classroom. It couldn’t have gone better. He played so well with Owen and Ellison and is such a sweetie. 
He loves a good art project like my kids.
And who doesn’t love some outside play time?
And the kid sleeps. Hallelujah.
All in all, it was a great first day. We’ll be getting to hang out with this sweet little guy on Tuesdays and Fridays. I’m so thankful I’ll be able to help add to our budget while still just hanging at home with my kiddos.
The kids had a blast playing in the basement, running naked in the hose outside and feeding the cows. Oh and just being crazy.
The parental units made an amazing dinner for 
Then we finally got to the part Owen was waiting for, Cake and presents. 
We made the mistake of thinking Owen and Ellie could possibly sleep in the same room together. Parent FAIL. I guess we should have known that putting 2 terrible sleepers together is just going to result in more terrible sleep. So somewhere in the middle of the night, we divided and conquered. Ellie came and slept with me (and Miles) and William slept with Owen.
Sunday morning we finally got a picture of my parents and the kids. That’s been a long time coming. I took about 40 and this was the best. :)
We had a great time at their church, 
When we got home, we finally got around to something we’ve been talking about doing. . .making Ellie’s crib into a toddler bed. As you can tell, she was thrilled!
It really hasn’t done much to make sleep better or worse this week which I guess I should be thankful for. Of course we’ve had a few more things to clean up as she now loves to pull books off her bookshelf and take shoes out of drawers. And one night, she did walk downstairs in the middle of the night looking for me. But other than that, we’re on our way to true toddler-hood. Next up: paci only at night and maybe potty training? Lord help us.
At the first table, they poured what looked like salt into a cup. Owen got to dump in water and it turned into “snow.” They go to play with it in pans and bury animals and such. Then, we build snowman (Olafs) with glitter playdoh.
We cut out some snowflakes and hung them up on the little stage area. Of course, we had to belt out some Frozen tunes while on the stage!
They were so awesome that when Owen asked for a treat while we were leaving, I had to oblige. :)
It was a fun way to ruin our dinner. :)
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