Last night, I finally bit the bullet. Yes, I finally got started on getting all the party things ready for my eldest's (and her cousin's) 6th birthday party. The theme? Superheroes. The goal? To have an awesome party (and possibly top last year's Princess theme). The Mom? Freaking crazy, apparently.
My tasks started simply enough. I was originally just suppose to make 15 capes, handle cake arrangements for our cake (I demanded that each child get their own cake - and their own candles! - due to hang-ups from my own childhood's shared birthdays) and invite 15 kids. Of course, I couldn't have it be that simple!
Let's start by saying that the birthday party happens to be two days before we are leaving for Ohio. Oh, and that my daughter has a dance recital the day before, the day of and the day after the party. So, amidst packing and organizing and arranging our lives so that they can be shipped most of the way across the country, I also have to make sure that my daughter makes her dress rehearsal and all 3 show days. And I need to make things for the party, get invites out and get all of us to the park on time. Did I say freaking crazy? Let's up that to "where are the nice men in their clean white coats?"
So, I went to the fabric store, Jo-Ann's. I ended up picking up enough shiny green (in dark and grass shades) fabric to make 30 cloaks, instead of just the 15 I had originally been slated to make, in the thoughts that I would allow my daughter to invite more kids. I also got trim, because I was imagining these adorable green capes with gold trim (or silver, since they didn't have enough gold for me to buy). I also got some hook-and-eyes to use to make clasps. I also purchased some fabric markers so that the children could color on their capes and personalize them. I really needed to have someone there to question my sanity, but as I was all alone in the store (except for my 2-year-old, who isn't quite old enough yet to let me know when I've gone off my rocker) I gleefully piled more and more onto my plate in the effort to give my daughter the most awesome birthday party ever.
After that, I was in the Michael's one day. I spotted some white headbands in a random isle I was walking down. My brain instantly thought "Holy Utility Belts, Batman!". So I grabbed 30 of them. My intent was to use the hook-and-eyes I had bought for the capes, cut the headbands down the middle and sew in the clasps so they would work as belts - the elastic in them making them stretchy enough to go around tiny child waists (the capes, still in my head, are now tied on with extra long bits of trim instead). Well, if we're going to do utility belts, then they would have to have things to put on them, wouldn't they? So I strolled up and down the isles, looking for something awesome to put on the utility belts. I then saw the store's dollar bins. Inside these bins were Hulk and Wonder Woman coloring books, Spiderman and Friends board books, mini bubble bottles that clip on, glo bracelets, glasses that had foam "masks" glued on, paddle balls and yo-yos! I loaded up my cart with 30 of each item, ecstatic with my find! Then I went to get some bags (green, to match the capes) to put it all in for each of the guests. As I was standing in the checkout - my cart piled so high I was in danger of overflow - I began to think. These were some pretty awesome things I had found. I could imagine going to the party and giving them to the guests that my daughter had invited. I could also imagine the guests her cousin would invite being jelous and/or angry. And how would I handle guests that were family to both of them? Could I really be exclusionary and only make these goodie bags, belts and capes for the children my daughter knew? So I called up my Sister in Law and told her about all that I had bought and told her that I would be happy to split it all for all the children. She thought it was an awesome idea. So now I was back to only having my daughter invite 15 friends, but that was okay since the party would be much more awesome for everyone if no one was fighting over goodies.
The next step was invitations. I scoured the internet to find good photos of superheroes, threw them into photoshop and played with them until I came up with an invitation that I was happy with. I then printed out 16 of them on card stock, cut them out and helped my daughter address them for her classmates and some of the children she's in dance with.
The items for the goodie bags had all been occupying space in my bedroom for almost a month now, patiently waiting for me to have time to put everything together. And, finally, I began the process last night. I printed out a cute little sheet detailing the contents of the goodie bags and stapled one to each bag. I filled the bags with one of each of the items I had bought (and came up with cute things to say they were - like Soporific Suds, Exploding Extendors and Hypno-Spinners) excluding, of course, the belts and capes which had yet to be made.
Once I had done all of the bags (though some of them have yet to have a sheet attached to them, as I ran out of staples), I grabbed the headbands and sat on the couch to begin the process of hand-sewing in all of the hook-and-eye clasps. I got 6 done in the span of about 2 hours. Then I went to bed.
This morning I spent the time to cut out each and every one of the 30 capes from the fabric I had bought. I originally had the idea to cut and sew a gore into the side to really give it that "cape" look. I did this to approximately 4 capes before I realized that it was a huge waste of time - the kids weren't going to care and it would be especially stupid if doing this ended up eating all my time and preventing me from actually getting the damned things done! So, instead, I planned to leave them square and just let the fact that they would be tied at the top give them that truncated-triangle shape. I then broke out the sewing machine and began! I grabbed one of the capes that I had done the gore on, sewed that bit together, and then hemmed the neck-area. I then ran trim from a couple inches off the side, down the side, across the bottom and up the other side with a couple extra inches there as wel. I stitched it all together, admired the way the ties worked really well, tried it on the kids - all of that. Then I sat down to do my next one. As I went to unwrap some trim to being going along the outside, I realized my biggest mistake as of yet. I had *thought* that I had purchased enough trim to go around all of the capes. I had bought 4 rolls of it. Unfortunately, doing one cape had left only enough on the one roll to do 4 ties - no where near enough to actually trim the entire outer edge. I sighed, frustration setting in, and decided to go ahead and hem the entire outside of the cape instead and just attatch ties to the "neck" area. I did, and it looks like a cape and is pretty cool (if I do say so myself). I have now decided that the cape with trim all the way around will be the Birthday Boy's (I will do another with trim all the way around for my daughter - probably from some trim that I have that she is absolutely in love with). After all, the Birthday children should stand out, right?
So, here I sit, blogging to you and taking a break (because my poor ankle couldn't take it anymore!) after having done something like 20+ capes (there's a very small stack left to do, but I can't work up the emotional wherewithal to walk over there and count them). I haven't done the ties on any of them, but they are hemmed. Once I get the last bit hemmed I will break out the trim to make ties for all the capes and sew those on too.
Oh, I hear a knock - is it those nice men in the clean white coats? I could use a nap!
Update: The capes all got finished (as did the rest of the goodie bags). I decided to go ahead and skip the hook-and-eyes on the "belts" and instead just had the kids pull them on. The party was, sadly, sparsely populated but the kids had a good time anyway. I have decided to never be so psychotic again! If we do something like this, I'm getting freaking RSVPs and sewing things early so I don't do the mad rush at the end. All-in-all, this experiment was a Learning Experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment