Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Princess Bride Backyard Movie Night

Another end-of-summer backyard movie night?!?! Inconceivable!
 
There's a shortage of perfect parties in this world.  It would be a shame to miss this one.
 
 Fun, food, friends...fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... all wrapped up with an outdoor screening of the fantastic, Princess Bride.

 


Guests were greeted with Inigo inspired "Hello" tags to fill out and mustaches to wear.
 
I used Avery 5141 tags and printed the template right on them in Microsoft Word.
Feel free to use the Word Document for yourself.
 
Guests had a blast filling out their tags.  Take a look at some below.
 
 
Rodent's of unusual size?  I don't think they exists.
 
My ROUSs were made from large black trash bags stuffed with blankets and decorated with grey construction paper.  Easy-peasy.

 
 
There's nothing, for miles.
 
I was inspired to paint these wood signs after seeing these on Etsy.com.
 
 

The girls at the party got to make Princess Buttercup crowns (above).
 
The boys got Dread Pirate Roberts masks and swords (below).

 
You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
 
I found the image on my sign on Pinterest.  The link leads to myteespot.com.
 
To make the masks I used a 36"x36" piece of black felt, mask template, yard stick, white colored pencil and scissors.
 
 
I traced the mask template (printed to 8" wide and cut out) in the center of the felt and drew long "ties" using the yard stick.  I got 12 masks from the 36"x36" piece of felt.
 
 
 

 
 
Have fun stormin' da castle!
 
 
I love this print on Etsy, so when I wrote on my chalkboard sign, I used it as inspiration.
 

CAUTION: EEL INFESTED WATERS

 
I'd hoped to get some of these fantastic pool toys, but since they're discontinued, I ended up with these teeny-tiny toys.  The kids had fun with them anyway.
 
The signs were spray painted wood with a stencil I'd cut from my Cricut.
 
 

 


 
Can't have a Princess Bride party without serving up some MLTs!  Mutton (in this case, ham), lettuce and (perky!) tomatoes.  Mayo and mustard, on the side.  And don't you just love my fire place bellows? 
 
I was inspired by this sign to make my own.  My sign.

 
Hot R.O.U.S. dip (buffalo chicken), straight from the Fire Swamp, served with the Chips of Insanity (tortilla chips)
.

 
MLT 2.0 (mozzarella, "lettuce" & tomato), caprese boats.  Mozzarella balls, grape tomatoes wrapped in a basil leaf, skewered with a sword (of course!) and drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
 
 
 
6 (chicken) fingered snack made with Tyson Anytizers Chicken Fries.
 

 
Peanut (Princess) Buttercup Cookies.  Yum!  I used this recipe from Real Simple.

 
Iocane.  I'd bet my life on it. 
 
I used these great bottles of candy powder then created labels from this great image by Purple Cactus Designs and taped them over the fronts of each bottle.

 
The minute his head is in view, hit it with the rock!
 
Dont'cha just LOVE my Fezzik doll?!  I won him when I entered a Princess Bride t-shirt contest, years ago.
 
Candy Rocks         Signage
 

 
No more rhymes now, I mean it!
 
Peanut M&Ms, salted shell peanuts and circus peanuts.
 

 
Pudding cups with "Lightening Sand" on top.  I used this wonderfully yummy recipe from Ma Nouvelle Mode.
 
 
Miracle Max's Miracle Pills.  I used this recipe for Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treat Balls, then put them on sticks.  I found the sign image on Pinterest.  The link led to the image only, no one to credit.  :(
 
 
True Love's Kiss(es) Brownies.  I used a box brownie mix, mini muffin tins and added a milk chocolate Hershey's Kiss 2 minutes after removing them from the oven.
 

 
Feel free to use my food tags.
 
 
And they lived happily ever after.  Well, except for Vincini. 
 
 
Movie screen.

 
Movie snacks.
 
 
 
 

Monday, May 5, 2014

Lion King Safari Baby Shower

Looking to throw a Lion King baby shower?  Well, Hakuna Matata.  No worries.  You'll find lots of inspiration, ideas (and free printables!) here.
 
 
 

Feel free to my invitation layout.  Add your own text to make it all your own.



Include, with your invitation, a diaper raffle ticket.  Ask guests bring a package of diapers for Mom & Baby and raffle a prize for those that do. 
 
I wrapped a box in themed paper and used it for the tickets.  For prizes we had a fruit basket and BaByQ Grill kit.  I got the zebra print box at Hobby Lobby.  We supplied extra tickets for those that forgot theirs.
 
 



 
 For a guest book we used a hard cover copy of the Lion King.

 
The gift table was decorated with kraft paper vines and a "welcome baby" banner available FOR FREE over at the Disney Baby website.

The vines were made by twisting strips from a roll of kraft paper, then attaching cardstock leaves.  leaf.svg   leaf.png

















Mommy and Daddy-To-Be got fancy chairs to sit in while opening their gifts.
 
 

















The guest tables were each decorated with animal print table runners (8' tablecloths cut into strips) and a small diaper cake topped with Lion King characters and animal print balloons.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3576WASOHK8RTZjY1hzeXp2dXM/edit?usp=sharing    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3576WASOHK8cmhXczNORVNRaWM/edit?usp=sharing    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3576WASOHK8SFM2QTZqbVk4SUU/edit?usp=sharing    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3576WASOHK8TXhZRVNZb3puTU0/edit?usp=sharing
 
 Guests enjoyed fruit from under our pineapple palm tree.  A PVC tube, attached to a piece of plywood, was covered with corded pineapples.  The top pineapple was garnished with artificial palm leaves.

Behind the main food table I'd cut silhouettes from the famous Simba presentation scene from The Lion King.  They were placed over orange paper I'd purchased in a large roll.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The larger items, the rock, tree and sunset, were cut by hand.  The animals were cut with my Cricut.

Feel free to save the images to cut by hand or download the .svg file below the image.

Zebra.svg                                        Zebra2.svg
 
 Giraffe2.svg                                         Giraffe.svg

Elephant.svg                                  Elephants.svg
 
Birds.svg                                                                             Rafiki.svg
 
Little Debbie Zebra Cakes on lollipop sticks.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Hershey Hugs melted on pretzels, topped with orange M&Ms.  Animal crackers with frosting dip.

Cheese popcorn in animal print paper cones.  The animal print paper was purchased from Oriental Trading.  Visit Wiki How to learn how to make your own cones.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

For favors, everyone got boxes of animal crackers with cute Simba tags and colorful ribbons.  The  3"x3"x3" acrylic boxes were purchased on eBay
 
Favor label
 
 
 
 The adorable cake was made by a local bakery.
 
 

And this adorable diaper cake was made by me.
 
   


Got a couple extra minutes?  I'd love for you to be one of my "100 people surveyed"!