Here Comes The Sun: Sunshine Party Just for Kids

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As you know, we’re thrilled about summer. We’re spoiled by the Colorado sunshine. There’s nothing like a sunny, blue-sky Colorado day. We celebrated sunshine with our little darlings, and it was so much fun! Oriental Trading Company helped us make a bright and colorful party – they were the source for all our party goods.

Not only is this party all about the sun, but it helped us introduce the Beatles to our kids. Here Comes the Sun is a classic, so you can bet the kids had “doo, doo, doo, doo” stuck in their heads, just like we did.

All the details from the party are below.

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DIY Felt Banners
Cut the felt into a banner shape. Cut and trace paper (or stencil) letters onto colorful felt. Once all the letters are traced, cut them out. We made banners with the lyrics to the song, Here Comes the Sun. Glue (hot glue worked great) the letters onto the white felt banner. Find tree branches or wood rods to hang them. We used hot glue to roll them on a tree branch. We made DIY Tassels to hang on the bottom of each one from felt. First we cut strips of felt, then cut tiny strips 3/4 way up each piece, and rolled it into a tassel. We used hot glue to keep it rolled tight.

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DIY Sun Decor
A sunshine party is not a sunshine party without, well, the sun. Buy yellow tissue paper fans, open them up, and then glue a circular piece of orange paper in the center. Easy-peasy.

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Sunshine Craft
Our girls love to craft, so the highlight of the party was the sun sand key chains from Oriental Trading. They made colorful sand art that they now proudly carry on their backpacks.

When they weren’t crafting with sand, they were doodling with chalk. The girls drew variations of the sun and its rays, and hopped on each one. They were walking (or hopping) on sunshine.

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Other Details
A fun favor from the party was a sweet new pair of sunny shades.

Popcorn is always a favorite snack for our kids. We served the popped goodness in bright yellow popcorn boxes. We pulled the sun shapes from extra pairs of sunglasses for a fun popcorn box detail.

We absolutely love, love the glass milk bottles. They were perfect containers for the sand, as well as juice for the girls. A straw was taped to each bottle with yellow patterned washi tape.

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Enjoy the summer sun!

Oriental Trading sent us some items of our choosing for this post, free of charge. We’re so happy they did! All opinions are honest, and our own. No other type of compensation was received. Thanks for supporting the companies that support j. sorelle. We love Oriental Trading, even before this post.

DIY Trolls Halloween Costume

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Can’t Stop This Feeling by Justin Timberlake is a song that’s been on repeat in our home all summer. Now with the anticipation of the movie Trolls {in theaters November 4), the song is being played even louder while simultaneously having a dance party! We’re so excited about the movie. Jessica’s kids wanted to be Poppy and Branch, two characters from the movie Trolls. Today she’s telling us how she made one Poppy costume and two Branch no-sew DIY Halloween costumes.  You still have one week to make this costume before Halloween – you can do it!

Materials:

  • Felt, 23 green sheets {about .25 cents each), 1 light green sheet, 3 white sheets
  • White acrylic paint, Plaid Crafts
  • Peel-n-Stick permanent fabric fuse tape {this worked well for me, but Hello Wonderful made amazing felt costumes with a hot glue gun, so that’s an option, too}
  • khaki pants, cut like shorts
  • Turquoise sweatshirt, Wal-Mart
  • Pink pants and long sleeve shirt, Wal-Mart
  • Pink glitter boots, The Children’s Place
  • Grey long underwear, Costco
  • Troll wigs, Wal-Mart or Amazon
  • Black spray paint
  • Vests, Carters
  • Velcro
  • Faux flowers
  • Scissors {good for fabric}

Directions:

Branch Costume

Cut out felt leaves. I used a leaf cut out as my template, and then I cut, cut and cut some more.

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Add Peel-n-Stick to the back of the leaves, and begin to layer the leaves on the vest, from the bottom-up.

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Cut the khaki pants to be shorts.

Cut green felt squares and rectangles to place on shorts to look like patches.

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For Branch, I needed a black wig, but couldn’t find one, so I spray painted a purple wig black.

The grey clothes underneath not only keep the kids warm, but it’s the color of the Trolls skin. Win-win!

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Poppy Costume

Cut the sleeves off a turquoise sweatshirt. I used the Peel-n-Stick tape to ‘hem’ the cut seams.

Cut petals with white felt. I used a cut-out petal, similar to the leaf vest process. Add Peel-n-Stick to the back of the petals and add the petals to the bottom of the dress to match Poppy’s design.

Paint the bottom of Poppy’s dress to look like the real thing. I free-handed the design on the bottom.

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Use scraps from the sweatshirt sleeves to make Poppy’s headband. I used the Peel-n-Stick tape to make the headband edges more seamless.

Paint faux flowers turquoise and hot glue them to the headband. Cut small felt petals to glue behind the flowers.

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Poppy’s dress has a little wrap around the neck, so I used the hood of the sweatshirt to wrap around the neck. To keep it in place, I added a small strip of velcro to the hood and sweatshirt.

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GIMME’ MORE!
Check out all these other amazing no-sew costumes!

Fairy Costume | Design Dazzle
Bumble Bee | Sugar Bee Crafts
Cat | Paging Supermom
No Sew Ideas | Rachel Teodoro
Moana | Houseful of Homemade
Alice in Wonderland | Polka Dot Chair
Rain Cloud | Make It Love It
Dinosaur | Ginger Snap Crafts
Bubble Bath | Giggles Galore
Hades | House Wife Eclectic 

Day 12: How to Make a DIY No-Sew Felt Crown

NYE no sew felt crowns

On the 12th day of Christmas, j. sorelle gave to you…DIY no-sew felt crowns for New Year’s Eve.

Our children love creative play, and Jessica’s daughter LOVES to wear crowns. And, we have NO idea how to sew. So, for our Dec. 31 New Year’s Eve celebration, we made no-sew felt crowns for the kids to wear until midnight {or their 9 o’clock midnight celebration}.

It’s an activity and party favor all in one, and it can be duplicated for future birthday parties.

how to make a no sew felt crown

No Sew Felt Crown Tips:

  • You can find the templates for the crowns here. Our inspiration came from Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom and she has a template too.
  • We used a Sharpie to free-hand bubble letters and numbers on felt {CELEBRATE, PARTY and 2015}, then we cut them out with scissors, and used a hot glue gun to glue them to the hats.
  • We learned the hard way that it’s best to measure your child’s head and place the pre-cut elastic in the middle of the crown before gluing the tips of the crown together. It’s easier than inserting it once the tips of the crown are glued together.
  • Hot glue pieces of velcro to each end of the elastic, so the crown is easily removable.

{images via j. sorelle}