How To Train Your Dragon Printable Party Set

My 8 year old loves How To Train Your Dragon, so it came as no surprise that this was the theme he picked for his party. It was so fun to do! All of the printable items I created for this party are available in the Etsy Shop. 

Decorations for the party included a lot of brown, red, black, and green, and was inspired by viking maps, dragon scales and fire!

Coming up with food for this party was my favorite part. The cupcakes are "Dragon scales". I made cupcake wrappers that look like scales and the "scales" that come up out of the cupcake are "Spree" candies. 

In the movie, the dragons like eating fish. So we had "Dragon Food"; Goldfish crackers, Swedish Fish (some were even dipped in chocolate) and, cool gummy fish I found on clearance at Michael's,

There was also Fireballs; red, orange and yellow gumballs and Sixlets bought at a party supply store, and Cheeseballs.

"Peg Legs" and "Shields were also on the menu.

Jelly Beans as "Dragon Eggs" too.

For drinks we had Viking Water (the water bottle labels are in the printable party pack)

and "Dragon's Breath". Red fruit punch with Dry Ice in it. I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of the snack table for most of our guests. I love the look on this boy's face that was caught in the picture.

And finally my personal favorite, the Tossed Sheep. I love the sheep in the movie.

They are just funny. So including sheep was a must.

I can't take credit for this super cute idea. I ran across it over on a blog called "Lil Mrs Tori"  Her "How To Train Your Dragon" Party is neat and geared toward kids a bit younger if you are looking for more ideas. 

We also had a banner that said "Happy Birthday" a bunch of plain colored banners and a old looking treasure chest. Because every viking needs a place to store his prized possessions!

Here is a sample of the invitation: 

So the idea for the party was that the guests would come and be taught how to be dragon trainers. As they arrived they could get their faces painted and "How to Train Your Dragon" tattoos. I hadn't even remembered that the characters had their faces painted in parts of the movie. My 8 year old sure did!

Each guest then got to decorate a shield. Since a "vikings most important item is his shield!" 

I made the shields out of round cake bases. They have packs of 10 at Walmart. I cut two slits in the center and put some wide twill ribbon through and looped it so that they would have something to hold onto. I then glued the smaller round (large cupcake bases I found at Michael's) on top to hold the ribbon in place. I found some How To Train Your Dragon stickers in the Dollar bins at Target (score!) So they decorated with those and crayons and markers. 

When they were done with their shields they got to select their dragons. I didn't get any pictures of this, but it seemed like everyone enjoyed it. I created cards that have dragons from the movie on them (included in the party pack). Then each child drew a card, the cards have different colored borders that match different Easter eggs. We hid the eggs throughout the yard before the party. Inside the eggs were a matching card that tells them about their dragon. The boys especially enjoyed reading them and telling each other all the cool things their dragons could do. After Dragon Selection, the kids were free to pick any of the other games to play (similar to a carnival). There was Flying Lessons. Paper airplanes that look like dragons that they flew off of the deck. 

Dreamworks has provided some awesome printable Dragon Paper Airplanes. 

They could also play the Sheep Toss game. 

I made some yarn poof ball sheep. An idea I came across over on Frog Prince Paperie

The original game idea was to get the sheep into a basket in a relay style game. We have a trampoline, and I knew the kids would want to jump on it, so I incorporated it into the party. I used some yellow tape to make some targets on the trampoline and they had to jump the sheep onto them. 

There was also a "Feed Your Dragon Game" 

I found some plastic fish, filled our mini wading pool and dumped the fish in. The kids then used nets to "fish" and then take the fish down to the dragons (a container with a picture of a dragon on it). Most of the kids did this one at least 3 times. My 2 year old did only this game! 

When it seemed like everyone had finished playing the games. I gathered all the kids up to play Dragon Tag. (Essentially freeze tag, but they all pretended they were dragons). After that they were tired! So we enjoyed the cupcakes and opened presents. 

Aiden says everyone has told him they had an awesome time!

The printable items can be found in my Etsy shop: 

New Sayings Images

Two new images are up in the shop! 

They feature two of my favorite sayings:

The first has been a sort of personal motto, and it is such a good reminder that I decided to hang it in our home. It now hangs in our entryway. I used burlap to mat it, I love the texture it adds and it was cheap. These images come as 8.5x11 jpegs, or .pngs with transparent backgrounds. Use them on layouts, cards or have them printed on canvas. The possibilities are endless! Find them in the DigiKindredCreations shop!

Mission: Accomplished Freebie!

My brother returned home from a Mission for our church. We haven't seen him in a long time and wanted to make a poster for him to see as soon as he got off the plane. We came up with this:

I thought it would be neat to share the Mission: Accomplished title I created (inspired by Mission: Impossible) I bet there are lots of creative uses for it.

To download just click on the image, then right click and select save image as.

As a .png:

As a jpg:

A big version that prints on two 8.5x11 sheets of paper. After printing you just trim off the margins and glue in place.

Enjoy!

New Army or GI Joe Themed Birthday Party Pack

(click image to see it in my shop)

I used this set for my son's birthday two years ago and it was a blast! 

This is one of the activities (actually what the kids did most of the time). We made these marshmallow shooters: 

Then staked green helium filled balloons to the ground with tent stakes. The kids enjoyed "target practice". 

The entire party was done on a $50 budget!
Decorations were so easy to find, if you have a boy odds are you have army men, we just set them out on the tables along with toy tanks and jeeps.

Green plates and tablecloths finished out the look.

Check out this Pinterest Board for more game, food and decoration ideas. I used many of these as inspiration for my son's party!

Layout a Week: Week 21 plus Freebie!

I just had to scrap these photos. My 2 year old loves playing in the dirt, our torn up yard is his dream! Not so much his mama's but we are working on it. In the meantime I'm glad someone is loving it.

I am offering the distressed doodled edge I created for this page as a freebie. Just click on it below, then right click and select save image as. Make sure you save it as a .png so it has a transparent background. Enjoy!

A Long Hiatus Layout A Week: Week 17-20

After a much needed vacation and a few weeks spent replacing siding on our home and painting it, life is finally mostly back to normal here. I apologize for the long break!

I have been working on layouts though. I've been creating simple templates and using them to scrap some simple layouts. I don't know about anyone else but I take way, way more photos of my kiddos than I'll probably ever be able to actually scrap, but I still want to present them nicely in my scrapbook. So I thought I would share them and some of the templates for you to use as well.

And a couple free templates for you! 

To download, click on the template, then right click and select save as. Be sure to save it as a .png image so it has a transparent background.

I would love to see your layouts using these templates feel free to share them here or in our forum.