Birthday party prep

We had the party this past Sunday. But I'm just now getting to the blogging thing. The girls and I took a sanity day yesterday and did a whole lot of nothing. I swung right from Christmas into party planing/birthday making mode so I needed a quite day.

The top pic is of the girls burring 'jewels' in a canning pot full of sand. I bought some of those glass flower vase beads at the craft store for less than $3 a bag. I made each child a little cloth bag with a ribbon draw string. Phil and I were up until almost midnight the night before stringing those darn ribbons through the bags. Nothing Like leaving it all to the last minute right? The bags from start to finish really didn't take that long. Only about an hour for ten of them. I just didn't get to it until shortly before eleven. Anyhow, the children got to dig through the sand and find five jewels each for their little bag. What a hit! I recommend it for any young child's party. My girls have been playing with their jewels non stop ever since. Isn't it fun that such little treasures can bring such great joy?!
I also made each child a crown. We've been playing with these felted crowns here for a while now as you may have noticed. And all our friends have fallen in love with them too. So they seemed like the perfect party favor. I needled felted simple designs on each one, sewed on a few sparkly beads, did a decorative stitch across the top and then used my sewing machine to sew on the back fabric and elastic. They were a lot of fun to make and looked beautiful on all those little party goers heads.