Dining With Goldilocks: Georgia and June's Crayon Party

We celebrated Georgia's 3rd birthday and June's 1st with a crayon themed party. (Allergy-friendly, of course, which I feel compelled to mention since I've parked this post here on Dining With Goldilocks.)

This first picture is just for fun, lest you get the idea from the rest of these pics that everything always looks so put together in our house.

{Here's Georgia "helping" me with the decorations the day before. She's in pajamas, eating dry Cheerios, it's about 5:00 p.m., and she has strewn cupcake wrappers everywhere, amidst a pillow that she dragged into the kitchen and a toy stroller she knocked over.}

We covered all tables and parts of the wall in butcher paper for drawing. Crayons were on sale for back to school at Target, so I was able to get several hundred for just $4.00.

The cupcakes were maybe my favorite use of the theme. I bought a nice set of food coloring (which I'll be able to continue using for a long time), and made a veritable rainbow of frosting colors, in various shades of each hue. I purchased the edible crayon cupcake toppers.

Originally I thought I would go on Flickr to find cool pictures of crayons to use in our decorations, but I couldn't figure out how to print them. Then I thought, why don't I just photograph some crayons myself? Here is a no-sew Happy Birthday banner that I made out of 4x6 prints of my crayon snapshots.

Here's a better look at one of my crayon shots. They're all available under my Flickr handle (baumgak) if anyone wants to use them.

My niece, Alice, drawing on our walls. I figured drawing on the walls would be a treat seeing as how it's usually a big no-no.

I discovered this after the party. I believe it's supposed to say "Juney and Georgia".

We had a ton of fun making the favors, and they were a great tie-in to the theme. Here's a picture of the favors before they were bagged. Georgia helped me to upcycle crayon bits from the bottom of her box into star and circle shapes by melting them in the oven. Instructions found here. (Tips: Do not use washable crayons. If using silicone pans, put oven at 200.) Also, I adapted an idea I think I originally saw on Design Mom of taking a photo of an outstretched fist and inserting a lollipop stick, but instead we did it with crayons. Such a cool effect! I must say I'm impressed with us that we were able to get a usable shot of June for this purpose, since she can't make a fist on demand. She is pictured handing someone a tiny leaf that she found on the ground. Hey, whatever works!

We played "Drop the Crayon", a variation on the more familiar "Drop the Clothespin", wherein the goal is to drop a small object into vessels decreasing in size with each round. We started with a large metal mixing bowl and worked down to a drinking glass.

Sam checking out whether Harry made it.

He did!

Here I am casting a spell on the presents. Just kidding. Actually, in lieu of other gifts, we did a book exchange. Every child came with a wrapped book, and every child got to go home with a book new to him or her. I think it worked great for a very small group of young children close in age like we had.

This doesn't have much to do with the crayon theme, other than the fact that it's colorful, but I got the idea for using a Pack n Play to make a ball pit from Rookie Moms. I thought it was hysterical and the kids got a real kick out of it, too.

See, Sam is why we need a sign like this. : )

Sam and Harry having a chat in the ball pit.

Well, that about does it for showing off our decorations. On to the party pics and gratuitous face-full-of-cake shots!

"We are making these nice fake smiles for your photograph. May we eat our cupcakes now, please?"

Max re-purposing a "Drop the Crayon" bowl.

Happy Birthday!

How many people does it take to blow out 1 candle?

My sister commented that June appeared to be approaching the cupcake like a blind person at first. You can see what she meant from this picture.

Ahhh, there we go!

Just wanted to show off their "1" and "3" t-shirts. Georgia wore the "1" on her first birthday, too. I've decided to make number shirts a birthday tradition in our house. (Well, for the kids anyway!)

Synchronized cupcake eating!

I think Georgia's face is saying, "Daddy, please shave." Joe's been keeping his vacation beard well past vacation just for fun. It's going away this weekend, but now it will be forever remembered in photographs thanks to the many momentous occasions we celebrated in August 2010.