DIY Glow-in-the-dark Nerf party!!

Michael's 10th birthday party was over the weekend and I am so excited to share with all of you the final results!

 We used neon colored and glow-in-the-dark paints and hung moisture barrier on our basement walls to paint. Moisture barrier is a thick black plastic that typically is used under a house. It's is great because we were able to cover the window in our basement to keep the light out, we bought it at Lowe's for around $13 a roll! We originally bought 2 rolls and ended up with one small wall that needed to be covered, so we bought 2 black plastic table clothes from the dollar tree which worded really great since they weren't covering up a window or anything!

 This is the wall with the black table clothes!

 For the barriers for them to hide behind, we took boxes and taped them together and then used glow in the dark tape and some glow in the dark paint to line them so the kids could see them in the dark!

 I bought a pack of 10 targets from Wal-Mart and used them for decor as well as Nerf guns that he already had and placed them out for decor!

 My hubby made his cake which turned out great! It was originally going to be a darker blue but the icing just wouldn't go darker for some reason... the Nerf darts and target he made out of fondant and I made his name out of fondant to look like the Nerf logo.

 I bought a blue and white striped pendant banner and cut out foam letters to spell "Nerf or Nothin" and then glued them on.. In my dining room I have a big canvas so I wrapped it with white wrapping paper and then cut out pictures from a big Nerf box he already had to use for decoration.

 The solid color gift bags I bought at Michael's... they also came with red but the red didn't match the color scheme we had decided on. For party favors I bought the off brand Nerf guns that you can find. The ones I bought came from K-Mart online and were 2 in a pack for around $6.99, they also had the darts that came with the guns, clear safety glasses, and glow in the dark bracelets!

 After much debating with myself I decided on making mini taco bowls and mini cheese and pepperoni pizzas (which were a big hit). We also had some veggies with dip, cheese puffs, and chips and dip! The pic above was obviously taken after a lot of the food had been eaten haha! Just so you know, this was enough to feed all 7 of the boys that came, along with Michael, Elizabeth, Landon, me, the hubby, one of the parents, and my hubby's cousin! For drinks I bought a ton of the Mondo's and Kool Aid drinks that are $1 for 6 drinks... I also offered Mt. Dew and Orange soda just to have a variety, and because my hubby LOVES Mt. Dew haha!

 I took several pictures of the gift table... this one was taken before the last 3 boys came and before I remembered the 4 other cards he had in the mail haha!

The invites I ordered from Zazzle.com and they turned out really great! They don't look very black in the picture since this was still with the plastic on them... but they do have a black background..

DIY Fall Photos

Last year it was really important to me to start capturing photos of all three of my kids together.. So I had to start getting creative when it came to doing their fall picture myself, since I am not a photographer.

I am actually super happy with how they turned out.... and they are super festive too haha!!

Finding a place to take the picture was a really simple decision. We have a tree in our front yard where tons of leaves fall every year. So I knew I had to take the picture right after they fell or they would all be gone soon after. For decorations I used not only the leaves that had just fallen, but some pumpkins we had just purchased for Halloween, so before we carved them they became some extra decor haha! It took several shots just to get the above pic, since Landon was getting fussy and squirmy and the sunlight was shining right in their eyes.... but afterwards I did get lots of comments on it, so I am definitely pleased!

If any of you have any ideas for some DIY photos please let me know... I am always searching for ideas.. I do have several pinned on my pinterest if any of you are interest or in search of some inspiration! Also, we even did a DIY Easter shoot of the kids, so I will have to remember to share it with you all when it gets closer to time.

DIY momma some days haha,
Lindz

DIY Mickey Mouse Birthday Party!

This blog use to be such a huge passion of mine... and I hate that it gets neglected far too much! So if any of you are still out there reading this here is how I did a total DIY birthday party for Landon's first birthday!!

He decided to start his birthday off with a "no pants kinda day" haha!

To start off with I bought blank bags from Michael's craft store and a pack of construction paper... so for Minnie and Mickey I bought solid black bags and for Pluto and Daisy(not pictured) I had solid white bags. I cut out yellow construction paper and covered the white bag for Pluto!

I thought making food labels was a cute idea... so that's what I did! We had "Minnie's Macaroni" which we used Bow Tie pasta for, "Goofy's Garden" for veggies, "Hot Diggity Dogs" which were pigs in a blanket, "Figaro's Fruity Drinks", "CLUBhouse Sandwiches" which were just sandwiches we made, and "Chips and Dale" which were chips and dip!

 I almost made one for the utensils and labeled it "Handy Helpers".. I bought white card stock from Michael's crafts and stickers from the scrapbook section at Michael's as well.

My dad made the sign and I took paints and painted it.

 My hubby made the cake to be the shape of Mickey's head and then the top half was black and the bottom half was red with two places to look like the buttons on his pants.

I would also like to point out that at the last minute we realized we forgot something to put the cake on haha.... so I used cardboard from a box and wrapped it with aluminum foil!

The labels for his name I made with stars that came in one of the Mickey Mouse craft kits from Michael's.. they had sticky pieces on the back already so they stuck perfectly to toothpicks to go down in the cake!

Since Landon's party was in the summer we were originally going to have it outdoors, but it ended up being WAY too hot, so we did it in my mom's church instead!

He was so sleepy in the pics above but I still wanted to share.. I don't have a good pic of his shirt to show you... but I made it as well! I bought him a plain white t-shirt and cut black felt in the shape of Mickey's head, along with a red number one made with felt. Then I used fabric glue to glue them to the shirt!

I forgot to take a good pic of the centerpieces but if you look closely at the balloons you can see a peek of the red... I used old formula cans ,or coffee cans work too, and painted them red. I painted the lids to them black, and then painted two white circles on the cans for Mickey's buttoms... then I poked a tiny hole in the top for the string for the balloons... this probably would've worked way better if the balloons had helium!

For his invite I went digital... and FREE haha! I used a website called clubpartyideas.com and I really love the way they turned out! Please note that the party hats and balloons are not part of the invite.. I added those on picmonkey to cover up personal information!

In the end I was really happy with the way it all turned out and got lots of compliments!! I would love to hear some of your DIY parties... right now I am planning a DIY glow-in-the-dark Nerf party for Michael who will be 10 this month!!

xoxo,

Lindset