Frozen Birthday Party

So recently my daughter celebrated her 5th birthday.  Needless to say, it was a frozen birthday party.  We knew the theme since last year.  So after we came back from our vacation, I started planning the party.  I searched the internet for ideas and found some good starting points to create our own frozen extravaganza.  Unfortunately, I didn't get very many pictures.  I still wanted to share our ideas though, in case someone reading was like me a month ago and desperately trying to come up with something original for their party.

So the biggest thing for our parties is the decorations.  We always set tables up in our garage for our guests who would rather stay out of the bustle of the house, or for the kids who want to play in the yard.  We decided that  the garage would be Anna's area.  The tables got either a pink or a blue tablecloth.  I bought some cheap snowflake ornaments at Michael's and hung them from the (opened) garage door.  Party City had some Frozen wall hangings for $6 that had a 5 foot poster of Anna, a 5 foot poster of Elsa, two small Anna and Elsa posters and a Happy Birthday banner.  We taped the Anna poster next to the door leading into the house, and taped up the Happy Birthday banner so that it was visible to our guests as they walked up. We placed a stuffed Olaf on one table and a stuffed Anna doll on the other table.  My husband wrapped my daughter's play house in white paper to make it an "ice palace."

I made this Happy Birthday banner on the computer.

Once you came into the house, Elsa took over.  The kitchen table and the dessert table both had a light blue tablecloth topped by a white tablecloth that was cut to look like icicles. I made a Happy Birthday banner that hung above our bay window.  We put the 5 foot Elsa poster over our sliding glass door.  I bought table decorations from Party City for the dessert table as well as a balloon bouquet.  Our dessert table sat in front of our 6 foot shelving unit, and I wanted something prettier than black bins for the background, so I bought a 62x42 Frozen poster from Walmart and put it over the shelves.

I made the kitchen table our snack center.  I put out bowls of snack foods with a Frozen theme.  I had baby carrots as Olaf noses, pretzel sticks as Olaf arms, Blue Jello cubes as Kristoff's ice, combined blue and pink M & M's as Anna's chocolates, another bowl of mini york peppermint patties as Elsa's chocolates, and a bowl of white sixlets as Marshmallow's snowballs.  I doubled these as treat bag snacks by telling the kids at the end of the party to fill their bags with whatever they wanted to take home.  We also made a frozen punch by filling a punch bowl half full with blue hawaiian punch, and the rest with Sprite.  We finished it off by scooping in vanilla ice cream on top.

Elsa crowns for the girls.

For the party favors, I made sparkly blue crowns for the girls and brown antlers for the boys.  I drew up a template for each in AutoCAD then cut them out of foam.  I punched a hole on each side and tied an 18 inch ribbon. Inside each treat bag, there was a rock candy wand and a few frozen tattoos. 

Antlers for the boys

 Finally, I made white, brown, orange, and black play doh and assembled them into Do You Want to Build a Snowman kits.  Here is the link for the white and orange play doh.  I mixed some fine white glitter into the white play doh to make it look more like snow.  To dye the play doh orange, I stuck my white play doh into a sandwich bag, then added food coloring.  I then closed the bag and squished the play doh around until the food coloring was completely absorbed.  It keeps your hands from getting all messy.  I used a chocolate play doh recipe for the brown play doh.  Here is the link to that recipe.  It smells like brownie batter, but don't eat it.  It won't hurt you, it just tastes awful.  I then dyed some of it black using the same technique I used for the orange play doh. 

I assembled my kits by buying small, round containers from Michael's in their wedding section.  I made one full container of white. I then split the other container into 3 compartments for the other playdoh; half brown, 1/4 black, and 1/4 orange.  These containers came with white labels that you can print at home, but I ran out of time.  I just stuck the containers in the treat bags, but you could easily put them into a sandwich bag and make a topper saying "Do you want to build a snowman?"

My daughter loved her party.  I had other ideas but I ran out of time.  Here are a few other things you may want to consider:

• I wanted to put a picture of Oaken's sauna on the door leading out to the garage.  It was 99 degrees that day.  

• I wanted more snowflakes especially on the windows.  You can buy a paper punch and then punch them out of vinyl shelf liner and stick them up. 
• We didn't do any games, but pin the nose on Olaf was popular at my daughter's school.
• You can also build snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzel sticks, fruit by the foot for the scarf, half of an orange mike and ike or a candy corn for the nose, and a miniature reese's peanut butter cup for the hat. I also used edible ink pens to make the face and buttons, but mini chocolate chips could probably be used.

Like I said, we had a great time at our Frozen birthday party.  I hope you can use these ideas to plan your own perfect party!

Light Switch Cover

My daughter is obsessed with Frozen.  We saw it the first week it was out, and she fell in love with Elsa right away.  We were about to move her to a new room, and she decided she wanted a frozen room.  Due to time constraints and other factors I wasn't able to do a large mural, so I tried to find other ways to make her a frozen room.

My daughter's favorite part of Frozen is Elsa.  She loves her look, dress, powers, and most importantly, her ice palace.  So I tried to focus on snowflakes in our decorating.  I am still not done, but we've managed to give her a great room.  I've made her some snowflake curtains and her Daddy found a great curtain rod that looks like Elsa's wind gusts.  I'm working on a small border of snowflakes on the wall above her bed, and this past weekend, I made her an Elsa light switch cover.

I'll start off saying that I was feeling torn on this project.  I decided to try mod podging a printed image instead of painting it.  I'm not always that great at painting people, and I wanted a good looking product.  I felt like I was cheating, but I am glad I did.  The project came out great, and of course, she loves it.

For this project you will need your decorative paper or image, Mod Podge, Scissors, an exacto knife, a light switch cover, and sandpaper. A hole punch and high gloss acrylic sealer are optional, but recommended.

You can do this with any printed image or decorative paper.  I found the image I liked and cropped it down to a rectangle that was a quarter inch larger than my light switch cover.  I printed it and cut it out leaving about 1/8 of an inch of white around the image to wrap around the back.


Next I took a plastic light switch cover and sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper.  You are just trying to rough up the surface so that the adhesive sticks.  I sanded it once horizontally and again vertically.  Don't forget the very edge of the back since you will be wrapping the paper back there.




I positioned my image over the light switch cover, getting it centered. You should not be able to see any of the white border.  Once I positioned it exactly as I wanted it, I flipped it over and marked where the cover and holes were located on the paper. I created an X in the center hole.  I also mark the corners from where the plate starts to curve up to the corner of the cover.  The image on the right shows how the back of your image should look when the cover is removed.  Using an exacto knife, cut along the X lines.  Do not cut along the rectangle. Cut out the holes as well, or use a hole punch. Also cut along the corner lines from the outside edge of the paper to where the mark starts. 

 Next comes the gluing.  I apply Mod Podge to the back of my image as well as the front of the light switch cover.  I laid the paper image side down, and position my light switch cover onto it by lining up the center holes that were marked earlier.  Turn the cover over and make sure there are no bubbles.  If there are any, gently smooth them out.  Turn your cover over and apply Modge Podge to the edges of the light switch cover and around the center hole.  Carefully wrap around your paper to the back.  The cuts I made to the corners allow me to wrap the image around easily without any bubbles or wrinkles. I then carefully push the triangles in the center hole through to the back and wrap them around.  Apply more Mod Podge over your edges to hold them down.  When I am done, the back of my plate looks like this.

 

Finally I seal my light switch cover.  I apply at least 3 coats of Mod Podge to the front of my cover.  I usually alternate between apply coats horizontally and vertically.  I do not know how to make this less streaky.  No matter what I have tried, it always gets that way. So to try and combat the streaks, I have been spraying a layer of high gloss acrylic sealer over the top.  I apply a few coats until the streaks are less noticeable. And with that, your cover is completed.  Let it cure for 24 hours before installing.  Be careful not to over tighten the screws or you will start to rip up the layer of sealer. 

Here are a few other covers that I have done.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful.  Have fun creating!