Twilight Party - New Moon Birthday Party

The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer has become a huge phenomenon with teens, tweens and their moms. With New Moon soon to be released, the trend shows no sign of slowing. Twilight or New Moon themed birthday parties are all the rage, and easy to do with some planning and imagination.



You can make your own Twilight party invitations by printing pictures off the net. You can make the invitation in a style written by Bella, Edward or Jacob.
You will need food that invokes the feel of Forks, WA, vampires and werewolves.

Music can be from the soundtrack or any preprepared cd or ipod track. Clear a space for dancing - a fog machine would work great. Replace the lights in the room with black lights - everyones teeth will look much brighter. Guests can also learn some cool hip hop -vampire style dance moves.

Make posters and decorations invoking your favourite characters and locations from the books: La Forks, WA; Forks High School; La Push; Esme Island, etc. Guests can also be divided into teams - vampires and werewolves or Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. If it is an outdoor party, you can have a baseball game. For an indoor party, you can play Twilight Trivia - just click here for free Twilight Trivia question cards. The same link will bring you to a page full of other cool ideas to bring the Twilight -New Moon series to life, including having guests act out their favourite scenes.

Fun Website For Girls - Sleepover Party Ideas

Always looking for a fun website for girls (and boys) with ideas for parties, games and food for kids? There is a new, safe site that is geared for kids 7-17, full of great ideas. If you have teens or tweens, you will want to visit Fit For A Feast. It is video based, so you can watch videos with dance lessons, cooking ideas, talented kids, games, etc. There are also tons of party ideas. Check out some of their sleepover party ideas for girls.

Sleepovers are more fun if you plan them out. Sleepovers are best if they start just before dinner and end just after breakfast the next day. Make sure you check for food allergies before you get all the stuff! Just invite friends you know will get along and not more than you have room for - 8 is usually max anyways. Don't forget to tell the girls to bring their pillows, sleeping bags, pyjamas, clothes for the next day and wash-up stuff. Let everyone know if there is a theme, so they come prepared.

To avoid sleep-next-to fights, have everyone sleep in a circle with their heads towards the middle. Just make sure their heads are not too close so they do not bang them together! Make sure they know all the house rules too. Explain that you will not tolerate any ganging up, crank or non-emergency calls, no leaving without telling them, no fights, etc.

Set a time for lights out so everyone knows it ahead of time. Usually, it takes a half hour or longer for the chatting to stop afterwards, but hey - that's half the fun! Make sure everyone knows where the bathroom is (leave a night light on - if possible) and it's not a bad idea for them to bring their water canteens or water bottles with them when they go to bed - just in case they get thirsty in the night. You might want to set out the rules for first up. Should that girl wake everyone? Wait quietly? Go into the living room? Kids will feel more comfortable if they know what to do and what to expect.

A fun last game before lights out is guessing who is in the sleeping bag. Either send someone out of the room (like the birthday girl) or play this on the last person to go wash up. Everyone picks a sleeping bag and climbs in so they can't be seen. The person coming back in has to guess which guest is in which bag by asking questions. They are NOT allowed to ask names! Players are allowed to disguise their voices. Once she guesses correctly, that person can come out of their bag. The game continues till the last person is left.

More party ideas, including party game ideas like Truth or Dare with printable cards are available on the Fit For A Feast website. There is a section for parents in addition to the hundreds and hundreds of pages for kids. Check it out!

Fun Halloween Website for Kids

Halloween is just around the corner and the kids are already excited. You are probably looking for ideas for food, crafts, parties, etc. A fun Halloween website for kids is on Fit For A Feast.com.

You will find craft and Halloween baking ideas, great tips for trick or treat bags, food and party ideas.

If your kids are interested in trying a Thrilller style Halloween hip hop dance, then check out the dance lessons in their dance section. There are a few cool moves they can learn to dance to Disturbia, Michael Jackson, the movie Fame, etc. The site is video based and is hosted by two tween girls. It is a safe site that kids love because it features dance, fitness, games, cooking, grooming, going green, comedy, gymnastics, cheerleading, martial arts, current topics, parties, crafts, etc. It is also a safe site with screened content, so you can feel comfortable letting your kids on there.

Parents are not left out. There is a parent section with articles and advice on nutrition, fitness, parenting tips and taking time for you. I am not surprised if you haven't heard of it - it only came out in August - but there seems to be somewhere between 800-1000 pages of fun stuff. Check it out - I can't get my kids off of it!

How to Make Salted, Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

October is here and pumpkins are all around us. As you prepare to do your carvings or make your pies, you are probably searching out ideas and recipes. Pumpkin seeds are really delicious and nutrious - and they make a great (safe) snack for school.

Since pumpkin seeds are full of minerals and vitamins, I indulge myself all year round. They are easy to make and you add all kinds of toppings or combinations: sea salt, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, red pepper flakes, etc. Click on the video link to watch a quick 3 minute video on preparing the seeds and making a salted, roasted version.

It is a little disappointing how few seeds you get from one pumpkin and how fast they get eaten. You can buy pumpkin seeds online - raw, roasted, seasoned, etc. That way, all year round, you can indulge in a yummy snack that helps lower cholesterol, fight cancer and boosts brain function. I will be posting pumpkin carving ideas soon.

Best Pumpkin Seed Recipes

Pumpkin seeds are so delicious and so good for you, don't just eat them in the fall. They make great snacks for kids or parties since they rarely trigger allergies and are packed full of vitamins and minerals. The best pumpkin seed recipes are the easy ones - think of popcorn and some great toppings will aready come to mind.

Add popcorn seasonings, like Barbeque or dill pickle, to your seeds before you roast them. You can also try savoury toppings, like garlic powder, onion salt, Italian seasonings, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce or herb blends. Like spicy? Add on black, red or cayenne pepper, chillie powder, hot sauce or cajun seasonings. Prefer sweet? Add on some honey, cinnamon sugar, maple sugar, raw or brown sugar.

The best recipe is your own with your favourite combination of flavours: Try soy sauce, garlic powder, ginger and sea salt. Another good combination is cheese topping or parmesean cheese, garlic powder, sea salt and itaian seasonings. Throw on some crushed red pepper if you prefer spicy.

To roast the pumpkin seeds, spread them out in 1 layer on a baking pan. If you are adding a dry spice mix, then toss the seeds with a couple of teaspoons of canola or olive oil so the spices will stick. This is not necessary if you are using a sauce or liquid in your seasoning mix (like maple syrup or soy sauce). Bake at 200 (low heat to preserve the essential oils) for about 45 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Toss seeds every 15 minutes.

Put seeds in a bowl and watch them disappear! You can keep pumpkin seeds in an air tight container in the fridge for up to a month. To buy pumpkin seeds online, click the link & enjoy them all year round!

Party Foods for Halloween

If you are having a halloween party, you will want some fun party foods. You can go with a theme like orange and black foods or creepy food displays, or just decorate the table around the food.

Black and Orange theme: If you are going with this theme, keep it going for everything in the party room: decorations, streamers, table cloths, cups, balloons, etc. Serving bowls for orange foods should be black (or white), while serving bowls for black foods should be orange. Mix and max them on the table, intersperced with some mini pumpkins, black plastic spiders and bats. Plastic pumpkins or hollowed out real pumpkins (lined with plastic bags) can be used as serving bowls.

Orange food suggestions: Cubes of cheddar cheese; Cheetos; oranges - cut into wedges; any mayonnaise or cream cheese dip colored with orange food coloring; orange crackers or goldfish; deviled eggs with a little orange food coloring in the yolk mixture; wraps made with orange flatbreads, pumpkin cupcakes, etc.

Black foods: Chocolate fondue fountain; chocolate cookies/brownies/cupcakes; cream cheese dips made with black food coloring; pumpernickle bread (good hollowed out with spinach dip); blackended chicken or fish; etc.

Spooky foods: Mountain Dew will glow in the dark if you have black lights. You can also freeze it in ice cube trays and use to put in other drinks. You can get plastic hands (from party stores) to come out of punch bowls or serving trays. Use little halloween spider picks or other creepy toothpicks to put in cheese cubes or appetizers. Decorate cupcakes with crumbled chocolate cookie crumbs (dirt) and gummy worms. Make a batch of cooked shrimp with a red shrimp glaze, put those on a stick and call them 'pierced ears". Roll asparagus up in ham and call it 'alien fingers'. Tapioca pudding always looks strange - through in a couple of plastic eye balls and call it 'quicksand'.

Sometimes it is not the food as much as the label you give it. Have fun thinking up your own!

Halloween Party Ideas

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year - a perfect opportunity to have a Halloween Party. Whether you are having a child's party or adult party there are many themes and ideas that will keep your guests talking for years. Here are a few fun and easy suggestions:

Costume Party. This is nothing new, but you can put a twist on it. You can make it a Pirates and Princess party for kids or a male/female pirates party for adults. Famous people party works best for adults, with costumes available for celebrities, sports personalities, politicians, etc. If your crowd isn't the type to put on elaborate costumes, simply ask everyone to dress in black and orange.

Non-Spooky party. Kids, especially young ones, can be scared by the darker side of Halloween. If you want a non-spooky party for kids, try a different theme like a sports party (where guests have to dress up like dancers, hockey players, football players, sumo wrestlers, etc.) Super heroes is also a fun theme. A girls' party could be princesses and fairies. Animal costumes is another easy crowd favorite - especially if you decorate the room like a Halloween barn.

Invitations. Home made invitations are always fun and impressive. You can print photos, clip art or pictures from the internet to glue on paper. You can also cut the invitation card into silhouettes - like ghosts, pumpkins, witch hats, etc. The invitation could have something that springs out when the viewer opens it. Stickers and confetti are easy ways to decorate cards. Keep the card stock in Halloween colors like black, orange, purple or green.

Decorations. My favourite party look for Halloween is to replace all of the lights in the party room with black lights. Put black tablecloths on the tables, cover the walls with black paper or black posters. Cotton batting, spread thin to look like cobwebs, can decorate your black table cloth. Get white plastic plates so they will glow in the dark and appear to be floating on the table. For kids, Mountain Dew is a great beverage to put in clear plastic glasses, since it glows in the dark. Strings of orange lights are available at many party and dollar stores. Use these to line doorways and walls, or put them inside pumpkins instead of candles.

Food: Black and orange foods are always appropriate (such as as orange cheese, Cheetos, black licorice, chocolate, pumpkin cupcakes) as is spooky baked goods and candy. Carve out pumpkins and line them with clear plastic bags to use as chip bowls or flower centerpieces. A glowing fruit punch bowl or colored ice cubes make for fun drinks.

Music. Burn a cd ahead of time with fun Halloween and Thriller type songs. Sound effects are fun to mix in. You can often rent or buy dry ice machines or disco balls if you want to make the dance floor really "spooktacular".

Halloween Party Idea

Black Light Party

This party is cool anytime but especially around Halloween.

Buy some black light bulbs and replace all the light bulbs in the rooms where you will be holding the party. Use black or navy blue tablecloths or sheets to cover the table where you will put the food. Use plates, white plastic cutlery and white napkins – it will look like they are floating in the dark! Get transparent plastic cups and serve mountain dew – it glows in the dark! You can also add some neon straws for bright color.

To decorate the walls, get some black velvet posters or doodle velvet pictures to put up. You can also make some cool decorations yourself – get some black poster paper and paint on white or neon colors to make cool graffiti sayings or party designs (For Halloween put ghosts, pumpkins, spiders, bats, etc.) (For birthdays make stars, balloons, birthday person’s name, etc.) You can use a disco ball or fog machine for extra effect near the dance area.

For guests, get some glow in the dark necklaces, bracelets & anklets. They look really cool when you are dancing around in the dark! Best stuff to wear: dark clothes with some white or glow in dark writing/stripes/accents.

More Halloween Fun Party Ideas

Scary Halloween Baking for Kids

Fall has officially started and Halloween is around the corner. My kids and I love Halloween and I must have at least 3 storage bins full of spooky decorations, Halloween crafts and decorative Jack O Lanterns. My bins also include muffin tins and cake pans in various pumpkin, scarecrow and ghost shapes. I have promised my kids that we can pull it all out on October 1st.

Kids need some fun activities to lead up to Halloween since the actual trick or treat time goes by so quickly. I have found that Halloween baking is always a great activity resulting in edible art. There are so many wonderful baking products for spooky Halloween themes. I am particularly fond of sparkle gel in black and orange. Chocolate cookie crumbs can be used for dirt or mud on your creations. Thin black licorice can look like snakes or shaped into a spider's web on an orange or white iced cake.

Special food colors are available in bright Halloween orange, purple and green. (Making dark colors is very difficult and tedius with your standard grocery store 4 pack of colors.) Candies can be cut and arranged to look like bugs. With Halloween baking - scary, gooey or gross are your best kid pleasers.

I am posting a cute video on making pumpkin cupcakes that are fun and easy for all ages. More Halloween fun coming soon!

Decorating Wilton Haunted House Halloween baking kits

If you buy a pre-baked Wilton Haunted House cookie kit (left), please see my article on how to assemble it, or watch the video on this blog. This post only deals with decorating the house. If you are intimidated by assembling the house yourself, pre-assembled kits are available (on the right). Decorating really is the fun part.

Step 1: Prepare your icing. The icing for decorating does not need to be as thick as for assembling. You do want it to stay where you put it and be thick enough to hold the weight of the candies. Make up the icing colors that come with the kit. You can also use additional piping gels or icing colors. Wilton now makes a line of sparkle gels that are wonderful for gingerbread houses. We use the black gel in the video. You can use any gels or icing colors you happen to have to supplement your decorating.

Step 2: Put the icing into prepared icing bags. You can get different effects by using different icing tips. For instance, you can make raised shapes, line edges or build up borders. Cut approx. 2 cm off the tip of your plastic icing bag. Insert the tip you want to use for that color. Put icing in the bag and squeeze it down – getting rid of air bubbles as you go. Twist the top of the bag to keep icing from coming out the top. Keep the tip covered in plastic or a moist cloth to prevent clogging.

Step 3: Get candies ready. Lay out the candies that come in the kit. Check your pantry or candy stash for extra ones you may want to use. You can also add some sprinkles or sparkles to your gingerbread house. Large candies can be cut in half – glue the flat half to the haunted house. Candies can be cut into different shapes, or made smaller to fit smaller areas. You can also add coconut – but I would suggest tinting it for Halloween. Place some shredded coconut in a small plastic baggie. Add a couple of drops of food color and knead until the color is how you want it. Remove the coconut and let it dry on waxed paper.

Step 4: Start decorating your Haunted Halloween cookie house. To use the icing bag, hold it at a 45 degree angle. Use one hand to steer the bag and the other hand to slowly and consistently press the icing down and through the hole. Place the tip where you want to start applying the icing. Squeeze so icing comes out and guide tip along the surface you want to cover. Stop squeezing, touch tip to surface, and pull up and away when you are done. Do not move along too quickly or you will break your line. If too much icing comes out, it is either runny; the tip is too large; or you are squeezing too hard. If little or no icing comes out, the tip is clogged, the icing is too thick, or you are not squeezing hard enough.

Use the icing as glue to attach the candies. You can also decorate the
cardboard surface. Make icicles hanging from the house by holding the bag
perpendicular to the roof edge. Squeeze to make a blob on the roof edge,
then pull the tip down – easing pressure as you go so the icing goes to a
point. To make zigzags, squeeze evenly with one hand as your guiding hand
moves in a tight side-to-side motion at a 45 degree angle. You can do
scallops and straight lines the same way. Dots are cute – especially in a
line. Just hold the bag perpendicular the house and place the tip where
you want the dot. Squeeze out some icing then press the tip to the
surface, release pressure and pull the tip back.

For more on these Halloween Houses including a complete step by step instructional video, see Halloween Gingerbread House Kits.

Edible art is fun to make and eat. Have fun with your creation. Worse comes to worse, scrape the icing off any sections you are not happy with – and try again.

Partycrafter

Ethical Kids Scavenger Hunt

More kids and teens are having ethical parties where they forgo gifts in lieu of donations for a charity, fundraiser or social cause. This great trend is likely to increase if kids have lots of fun while doing good deeds.

Since kids love scavenger hunts, this food bank fun scavenger hunt is a great party challenge while kids raise supplies for the local food bank. Definitely a win-win type of party! See my Ethical Kids Scavenger Hunts Article for more.

Swimming Pool Party Games

Now that summer is winding down, kids are getting bored with summer activities. You probably couldn't get them out of the pool in June, but now they don't feel like getting wet. Getting them back in the water just requires a little more planning and organization now. With the right incentive, your kids will soon be back in - getting exercise and having a blast. Here is my article on swimming pool party games and pool party themes.

Kids Halloween Games - Girls Halloween Games and Activities-Holloween

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. You are lucky if you live in a country where Halloween is celebrated, since the majority of countries do not celebrate it. Kids love to do Halloween activities and crafts. Trick or Treating is a major event for kids, but it goes by really quickly - it is over in a couple of hours. Making decorations, preparing costumes, hosting parties, baking special treats is all part of the fun. I will be posting several spooktacular ideas to do with kids or students over the coming weeks.

In the mean time, I found a good package of Halloween activities and games you can print at home.

You don't need to spend hours searching the internet, looking for what you want and you don't need to spend your precious time making your own activities.

Best of all these are educational Halloween activities and educational Halloween games so while kids have fun they are also learning.

Just Print and Play

In a matter of minutes you can be printing all of the worksheets for Halloween and Halloween games that you want for your kids or your students.

These are electronic books (e-books) that are downloaded to your computer in a flash. Which means you can be reading them and printing activities in as little as 5 minutes. Check them out & keep checking back on the blog for more halloween ideas.



Halloween

Fun Sleepover Party Games for Girls

These are some cool games girls love to play at sleepover parties and slumber parties.

Nail Polish Game
Get 5 to 10 bottles of nail polish – the wilder the colors – the better! Sit in a circle with your friends. Take the first bottle of nail polish, put it in the middle of the circle, and give it a spin. When the bottle stops spinning, see who the top of the bottle is pointing to. That person picks up the bottle and paints one nail in that color. Put the next color in the circle and repeat. Keep switching bottles and spinning until everyone has all their nails painted. (If a player finishes early, they should leave the circle and the remaining players should form a tighter circle and keep playing).

If you don’t have nail polish, you can use non-toxic, water based markers. You can also spin for decals to go on the nails as well, or paint toes instead of fingers.

Best Friends Game

How well do you know your very good friends? Pair best or good friends up in teams of 2. Appoint one guest as the master of ceremonies. If you have more than 3 or 4 couples, the game takes too long – so make 2 separate games with separate questions.

Team charades. Write song titles, movie titles, sayings, etc. on pieces of paper, fold & put them in a hat. There should be a time limit and one point rewarded if the team gets the answer before the time is up. If the team does not get the answer, the next team gets a chance to ‘steal’ the point by giving one answer. If the answer is right – they get the point.

Team win, lose or draw – use large paper/poster board you can hang/tape on a wall or flat surface so everyone can see it. Write names of movies, shows, songs, sayings, etc. on a piece of paper. Try to thing of things that can be drawn and that people would know. The fun with this game is to just shout out answers. Sometimes the most fun is when you have the worst sketchers.

Crazy hair contest – Get into teams of 2 or 3. One person is the hair model & the other team members are stylists. Set a time limit and see which team can come up with the craziest hair ‘do’.

Song composing: Make up songs about your favourite activity, favourite people, least favourite people, places, times etc. Make up teams and see who can come up with the best song. You can even put song titles or ideas on paper & have each team pick one out of a hat.

For more fun sleepover games like Truth or Dare, Spill It, Scavenger Hunts and Theme Parties, visit http://fitforafeast.com/party_games.htm . This is a great kids website with fun games and good info on fitness, dance and nutrition. The site is free is a safe site for kids and has great videos and content. Definitely worth checking out. They have a youtube channel too at http://www.youtube.com/fitforafeast

Parents are not left out either, there is a whole parents page section including fitness, nutrition and parenting tips at http://fitforafeast.com/parents_page.htm

Kids Pool Party Invitations

Some ideas for your next Pool Party

Sending out invitations creates a fun tone to your pool party event.

Some kids even blow up their own beach balls and write all the party details and info on them, then let the air back out and put in envelopes and mail to guests. You can usually get these beachballs at Walmart or the Dollar Store. Be sure to include a phone number for RSVP so you know how many kids will attend and also directions.

On the accompanying card in the envelope, you can put something like :

...for complete directions to “child’s name” ‘s pool party, blow up the
beach ball!
(Name of Child) has thought you might want a break from the
summer heat, so come and cool off at (Name of Child)’s Summer Lagoon beach
party. You can get wet and soak up the sun! Please R.S.V.P. at
(phone number).

Don’t forget to put the time and day and date on the invitation and also the address details. You can even include a mapquest link or google maps link.

Instead of a Beachball you can include a rubber duck, other pool toy or even a message in a bottle where the invitation is rolled up inside the bottle.

The invitation can also be written on a postcard of a resort or vacation destination.

One more detail to include is to ask kids to bring their own bathing suits and towels as well as water goggles if needed.

Wishing you great fun at your next pool party!

Party Crafter

Parties and Crafts

I love parties!!! Theme parties, seasonal parties, kids parties, formal parties, showers, treasure hunts, office parties, proms, outdoor parties... you get the idea. I have helped with so many parties - the decorations, the ideas, the food, the invitations - and everyone always raves! How cool! How did you think of this? I want to do a party like this! Awesome! So now - I am going to share my ideas & preparations for parties.

When I am not arranging parties, I am doing or teaching crafts. I especially love to paint and do seasonal decorations. I want to share ideas with you & your family - since many of the crafts I do are ones you can do with your kids.

For ideas & inspiration - just read the blog or send me your questions. There is a party to fit any and every budget & the more work you are willing to do yourself - the better & inexpensive your party will be.

Party crafter