Space Party Printables

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiinally.  Seems like it's taken a million years to get these printables ready to share.  The Solar System poster is my favourite and was fun to make.  We used it for a Pin the Martian game, and now it's tacked to the wall in the kids room.  The badges were fun too, and looked super cute on the kids.  I really wanted to laminate them and make them into lanyards, but time and resources were thin, so a little duraseal and a safety pin hot glued to the back.  Bam.  Done.

I hope you get some joy out of these.  If you're on facebook or insta and you use any of them, tag me in your pics so I can look!  Links for all the printables are at the bottom of the page.

Enjoy x

Solar System Poster

Martians

Food labels

Nasa Badges

Rocket & Solar System

Generic labels

Space Party

Hurrah!  The baby slept some last night!  I feel *almost* like a regular person today, and in celebration of that fact I'm posting some stuff!  

Garland's birthday fell right in the centre of the most whirlwind time.  New baby, summer holidays, all the friends and family... Just... all the things.  A few weeks ahead of his party, Zan quietly suggested that while Garland had agreed to a beach party (coz, summer), he was secretly still hankering after a space party.  I was feeling all the post-baby-don't-leave-the-other-kids-out feels, so I felt I had to pull something out and make this party happen. 

I'm not gonna lie, I did love the challenge.  I immediately started making some party printables, ordered some cute stuff from Pop Roc Parties, and dug out all the spacey things I could find.  We stuck mainly to traditional party food - cocktail sausages, popcorn, fruit kebabs etc, and I made up astronaut packs with Mars bars, Crunchees and Milky Way bars for fun.  We had soda water and milk, galaxy jellies, mini donuts (UFO's), mini pavlovas (Moon Cakes) and scroggin (least popular by a mile).  I decorated some cookies to look like the galaxy and I was and am, total smug about how cute they turned out.  

I had initially planned a moon cake, but saw this Boston bun in the supermarket and was like, um, perfect!  So I made a Mars cake instead, and that was pretty fun. We had these candles from Pop Roc Parties, and I added this Space Shuttle from Toyco as a cake topper.  

Pin the Martian game

Party Favours, tutorial to come

I used black cloth as a back drop and decorated with this oversized moon I used in the classroom a few years ago (it looks like they've changed the design a little).  I also hung a bunch of cute starry balloons from Pop Roc Parties, and of course these space printables.  I do wish I'd printed out two lots and double-sided them.  It was pretty hard to get these pics.

I had the MOST fun making ID badges for all the kiddos, and I'll include the template when I post all the printables for you.  

We played Pin the Martian on Jupiter ('cause turns out Mars was too small for our party numbers...) and Pass the Parcel.  But the total absolute hundred percent highlight was when my brother-in-law dressed up as a froggy alien, and chased them around the lawn while they pelted him with water balloons.  It was everyone's favourite bit.  Hilaire.

I'll be back with printables and a simple tutorial soon.  Peace out x

Free Printable :: Weekly Planner

Click on the image to download :-)

Happy Wednesday!  Here's a little beginning-of-term freebie I put together for y'all (and me).  I always start out with all the best intentions to stay super organised.  Who knows if this will stick.  I haven't purchased a diary this year - until they design a planner that holds only the months of January and February, it's all a bit pointless.  Anyway, we do need to keep track of things somehow.  For instance, I completely forgot a super important medical appointment, just last week, eeep!  

Gemstone Party Printables

Using a drawing tablet hasn't ceased to be fun for me, and I hope to use it even more this year. My skill level is elementary so there will always be flaws aplenty, but I loooove this part of party planning.  It's one little creative job that I can still complete while breastfeeding, yuss!  

For Eleanor's Gemstone Party I made up printable invites, wrapping paper, bunting, food labels and a cake topper.  On a real note, I rarely send out birthday invites.  I think it's really nice to do so and they are sweet keepsakes, but I'm just not that organised.  The invites I made up for this party ended up simply being a creative project to share with y'all, since I never sent them out in time.

Click here for printable

Ahead of this party I ordered a roll of gold vinyl from Vinyl Home, and it was super easy to work with. The smallest amount is very effective and I'll for sure be using it for future projects. Beforehand I was nervous that once placed, the vinyl would be stuck for good.  I became super conscious of placing it perfectly, however found it to be quite movable in the end.  It sometimes did lift a little of the paper/ink, so care is required, but I didn't have to be too precious.  Yuss.  I prefer to craft lazily so that suited me juuuuuust fine.

For the next invite I played around with glitter and jewels.  I'm guessing this second version would be the most fun for a child to receive, though I prefer the look of the first ^.  Glitter will always be a favourite.  I think I've already explained the magpie thing... 

OHbaby! feature + free printables!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you will already know that the Spring issue of OHbaby! magazine is out, and The Golden Adventures has a party feature within its pages!  Once again I teamed up with my baker buddy, Alice, and we put together a fun and nostalgic 'Little Explorer Party', perfect for nature-loving kiddos.

Party planning never gets boring for me, and this one was a pure joy to work on.  One of my favourite projects to date, definitely!  I had a lot of fun designing printables, two designs of which are currently available for (free) download via the OHbaby! website (food and drink labels - see below), and the rest of the collection available right here in this post!

You really don't need to save these printables for a party - I'm sure you could find some pretty creative uses for the food labels, and you could make summer camping fun by customising your drinks with cute stickers!  Head over to the OHbaby! website to collect both designs :-)

Today I'm also sharing a couple of other printables, including one of my favourite elements from the party, the Field Notes journal (click on the link for the free download).  We trimmed ours down to cover small journals found in a dollar store, but you could print them big enough to fit a larger journal too.  With a pencil, a compass and a magnifying glass (both found in a dollar store), your little explorers will have a collection of party favours that will extend into hours of future play.

For more details on what we filled our ration packs with, check out the full article in OHbaby! (article also available via their website, for a small fee).

Our invites were sadly never photographed, but if you would like to download them, follow this link.  I made them up by cutting out the centre of each magnifying glass and replacing it with clear cellophane (you'll want to print this sheet onto a thicker cardstock).  We used the other little images to create a simple garland that decorated our table.  

 

This little scout badge (click and download from the image below) can be glued to cardboard and attached to a safety pin.  We left these on the ration packs for kids to wear on the day of the party, and take home afterwards.

I've also included a downloadable file for our illustrated scavenger hunt, perfect as a lead-in activity for younger guests (for older kids, a written list with more challenging items might work better).  We found this to be an excellent warm-up activity as our guests arrived, encouraging them to work together as they explored the environs, and taking the edge off any lingering shyness.

I hope you get a chance to check out the full article via OHbaby!  I was pretty pleased with the Cookie Butterfly Collection - a genius merging of ideas between Alice and myself.  I'm currently sketching ideas for a (low-key) birthday party for Eleanor, and looking at these pics makes me want to scrap everything and have another go at this one...

Classroom funs

This year I'm working part-time in a Yr 1-2 classroom, and while I've been trying to get my head around standards and assessments and classroom planning etcetera etcetera, I've also been looking for ways to bring a little bit of colour and fun to our lessons.  I thought I'd share a few of my finds - some are pure gold...

This very cute (and easy) tutorial was created by Rubyellen of Cakies.  There are always sweet ideas on her blog, if you aren't already following her, I suggest you start!  For this craft project, check out the cute vid over on the Cakies instagram feed.

We purchased these beautiful alphabet cards for our classroom - our intention is to enlarge them to A4 and laminaaaaate!  They will make a beautiful frieze and we'll use them daily for alphabet knowledge activities.  We bought the alphabet cards from Fine Toy Co and they're even nicer in person.

Many thanks to my older sister who got me on to sparkle stories.  Originally I subscribed for us at home, and then I realised they'd be perfect for the classroom too!  There are sample stories on the website, and a few free ones on their blog too, if you want to try before you buy.  We've been listening to 'Junkyard Tales', 'Martin & Sylvia Saturdays' (with activities and printables!), 'Sparkle Sleepytime' and most recently 'So Many Fairies'.  I loooooove the idea of weekly stories delivered to your account, such fun!  And just this afternoon we all had a wee nana nap, listening to the stories while soaking in our own sweat (it is hot today!).  It was not as unpleasant as it sounds. 

Eeeeeee, Lotta!  This magazine is so, so good!  I think we had about 6 issues, but I just went on the website and backordered the rest of the collection.  Aside from having gorgeous covers, Lotta mag is packed with activities and ideas for kids.  They also have a ton of online templates to go with each issue, many of which are perfect for the classroom, and of course, home.  

I haven't used Playful Learning a lot, but the site is a great entry point for beginner teachers (like me) and homeschooling parents.  Plus, it's totally beautiful!  I'm a sucker for packaging...

Speaking of which, Mr Printables.  Everything cute.  I've downloaded a handful of printables to use as classroom decor, and for fill-in activities.  I actually can't stand how clever some people are.

So, got any tips for me?  Hit me!