When Life Hands You Lemons...........

When life hands you lemons........you cut em up, squeeze them dry, add sugar and water and sell lemonade to raise money for a cause. In trying to teach my children to give back and be a blessing to others we hosted an Anthem Lemonaid Stand for our local Children's Hospital @ VCU and the Children's Miracle Network. If you don't already know The Children's Miracle Network is a foundation that helps to research and find a cure for childhood cancer as well as cancer treatment. They supplied us with CountryTime lemonade, cups, pitchers, balloons, stickers and the cutest (not to my 15 year old) lemon slice hats. Of course, me being who I am I had to add fresh lemons and sugar to the mix(not to brag but they were coming back for seconds;)). We also cut up lemon slices and made a lemonade stand sign. I loved the idea of a vintage style stand so I had to be just a tiny bit over the top. I originally wanted to get a Snoopy costume and have the kids dress up like Peanuts characters but time did not permit......maybe next year. Our setup location was at Walmart and due to the weather they were kind enough to let us setup inside. But the girls had a great time and luckily my youngest slept through the whole thing. The motto "kids helping kids" was definitely in motion on this day. They pretty much did it all by themselves as I watched; and as my role of momager I had to referee since they were fighting over who would pour, who would take money, and who would get the lemon slice. In four hours we raised $199.31!!! This was a wonderful way to get the kids involved. It was something that was fun, rewarding and lemonade for the soul. It was selfless and they understand how much four hours of their time made a difference. Please get your children involved. If you want to learn more about the Anthem Lemonaid Stand or the Children's Miracle Network please visit www.anthemlemonaid.com.

Elmo Party

I so enjoyed visiting Elmo's World. I mean who in the world doesn't love Sesame Street. When I was told that the theme for this party was going to be Elmo I got so excited. Here are some pictures of what ideas I came up with.

Elmo loves his goldfish....

Elmo and Big Bird were both traced and hand painted


Freehand Elmo's World.....then again a Kindergartener could draw this:)



Elmo's footsteps leading to the party





Elmo sun visors



Rubber ducky your the one......

Small Wonders Website

After months of trying to create the official website......Small Wonders Children's Event Planning is finally up and running!!! Please go check it out. Thanks in advance my wonderful blog followers. Also, go like the Facebook page as well....I will start to have monthly drawings soon.

www.smallwondersevents.com



DIY Hello Kitty Headbands

As promised a few posts back, I am going to show you how to make the cute Hello Kitty headbands and bow ties from Eryn's Kitty party. They were super easy to make and really quick (depending on how many are being made). To begin you will need to buy white and pink craft felt and some headbands. You can get the felt for around 25 cents per sheet and a pack of headbands from the dollar store. You will also need a glue gun and a sewing machine or needle and thread. I want to apologize in advance that I didn't take pictures of each step, but again it's easy peazy.
The first step is to cut out your pieces. The sizes will vary depending on the size of the children that they will be made for. You will need triangles for the ears, large rectangles with rounded edges for the bow and smaller rectangles pieces for the center of the bow(about 1/4th of the large rectangle). Each headband will need 4 triangles, 1 large rectangle and 1 small rectangle. Once you've cut the perfect size use it as a template for the rest.

First, take two triangle pieces and sew around three sides. Again, I found it quicker to use my sewing machine but you can definitely hand sew it or even try using the glue gun. Then turn it inside out and use your glue gun to glue the bottom ends of the ear to the headband. If you want really full ears you can stuff them with cotton balls, but I didn't find the need to do so. Repeat the other ear.
Next, you want to take your large rectangle and press it together in the center from top to bottom and wrap the small rectangle around it and glue that piece together on the back side. Don't worry about it being neat because the back side will be glued to the ear. You want to glue the bow so that it is on the left ear when worn.
And VOILA!, you're done! For the bow ties you just add a clip so that it can be attached to a shirt. I only did these because there were boys at the party, but they were a hit.

And they look even better on!

These are great as party favors or even a halloween costume.....and oh so cheap affordable. The cost of 9 headbands and 9 bow ties was roughly $4.00....can't beat that.

Enjoy your headbands and bow ties!!!