My friends boy was about to turn 4 years old! Since we were still in a bit of a lockdown, large gatherings were not recommended. We needed some fun things to make this his best party every.
We needed:
- Birthday Banner
- Craft suitable for 4-6 year olds
- Cake Topper
- Grab Bags
- Jet packs
His parents were re decorating his room with a space theme, therefor it was only fitting we did the same for this birthday!
Birthday Banner
Birthday Banners are quick and easy. Make it neutral enough so you can reuse for upcoming years, using colours you know your kid. If you have a Silhouette or Cricut, it can speed up things. But banners are easy enough to make with scissors and stencils. We went with a Black, 2 shades of Blue and Yellow themed flags, with a metallic vinyl for lettering. You can use card stock for both the flags and letters, but vinyl eliminates the step to have to glue on, and you get a nice consistent stick.
Craft Room Recommendation: there is an awesome product that I treated myself to last year, the Creative Station by Xyron. You can feed your paper through the rollers and it will turn any card stock into stickers or magnets depending on what rollers you have loaded. This is not a necessity but an awesome tool to have!
Apply one letter per flag then used ribbon to string together. For the spacer flags, I cut our a bunch of stars on the scrap vinyl and stuck them on. For future years, this star flag could be reversed to eliminate any space theme for future parties.
Craft Time
I don’t have kids.. and as much as it amuses me to give loud or messy toys to all me nieces and nephews… I did want to come up with a craft that didn’t make a huge mess ( for fear she would make me help her clean up).
With the SPACE theme, some form of aliens were needed. And it just made sense to turn the kids into aliens. What I love about this craft, it seconds as party hats.
This is something that can be done with or without a cutting machine. The template is available HERE for download.
Cut out as many head bands as needed. I then went through all my small vinyl cut offs and made a bunch of stickers in various sizes. From eyeballs, to teeth, mouths and ears… And no cutter? No problem, hit up a dollar store and grab stickers, or take vinyl and cut our different shapes.
For older kids, get out the glue sticks. Maybe some googly eyes, and smaller peices. The great thing about this craft, you can make it as difficult or east as needed. Not a space party? Make magical horns for a unicorn party, big round ears for Mickey Mouse, different shaped headband for a shark or dinosaur. The options are endless!
Once everyone is done making their faces, we use Duct tape to strengthen and adjust the head band size for the kids. For non space parties, get some tape that best matches your party themed. I’m pretty sure they have every colour and pattern of tape out there now!
Cake Topper
I designed the font through Silhouette Studio. I used the fabulous OFFSET feature to create the background. Cut 2 black card stock paper for the background, and metal vinyl for the name. Glue the two pieces of card stock together, placing a wooden skewer between the layers. Peel of the paper backing of the vinyl and adhere this to the card stock. Check out my How to make the perfect sign for design tips!
Party Bags
With it being a much smaller party, we decided to personalize a lot of the gift bags.
We made the kids a space mask, personalized stickers and made sure there was some goodies for later. I found a great pattern on Silhouette Design Store. Rocket Treat Bags. This was a great way to use up small pieces of card stock and vinyl I had kicking around from previous projects. We had birthday masks as well as made each kid thier own stickers. Again using left over vinyl pieces. We added a little candy, and the party bags were done!
Rocket Packs
I had WAY to much fun making these. Kids have been in quarantine, weather has finally started to warm up and they can play outside again… so who wouldn’t want to strap on a rocket pack and fly around the yard??
Using 2L pop bottles, duct tape, polyurethane, sparkles and felt, we made 4 jet packs that would make any astronaut jealous. If you don’t have sparkles, grey paint will work! I would still use the polyurethane to help move the paint around the inside of the bottles for a smooth coat. By painting or adding sparkles to the inside, you’re accomplishing two things. First, durability, kids wont accidentally scrape the finish off! Second.. because they can’t scrape the finish off, you are not destined to find sparkles all over your house!
Clean out two pop bottles ( per pack). Make sure they are nice and dry. Pour about 1/4 cup of poly and coat the inside of the bottle. Now pour the sparkles in and rotate until the bottle is covered. Dump out any remaining sparkles to use for the next pack.
After the bottles have dried compeltly, its time to assemble and decorate. Cut yourself 3 feet of duct tape, and lay it on your work space, sticky side up. Approximatly the middle of your pop bottles, place them on top of the tape. Once you are happy with the position, take the ends of the tape and wrap the bottles together. Layer the tape on top of itself so you only see one line of duct tape hold the two jet packs together.
For the straps: Cut two 2 feet strips of tape. Lay on work surface, sticky side up, and turn the long edges into the tape so both edges meet in the middle and the tape is sticking to itself. Do this with both peices. Now, is a perfect time to get a little helper. Tape one end of each strap to the jet pack, ask your little helper to hold the straps, while the jet pack is on their back, and measure where the bottom straps should be attached ( as well as figure out the length) Adhere well ( this part is hidden when the jet pack is being warn so don’t worry about it looking pretty. Just make sure its attached well! You don’t want any crashes!).
Now its time to decorate these jetpacks.
I then cut two circles. Think of this as a pie, and remove a generous serving so you end up with a pac man looking shape. You can now make a cone with this shape. I used a glue stick to hold it together.
Then I added some card stock for embellishment and glow in the dark vinyl for a little more pizazz.
For the flames, use some yellow, orange and red felt from the dollar store. Draw out a flame shape on the red, then make the orange the same shape but smaller, and even small for the yellow. You can now squish the bottom of the flames into the bottles. This should be thick enough, the felt will just stay in the bottles, but for extra strength a quick dab with some hot glue should lock it into place.
Now the kids are ready for a out of this world birthday party! And you’ve earned yourself a glass of wine! Have fun!