Jake & the Neverland Pirates Party: Games

For my son's 4th birthday we had a Jake & the Neverlands party complete with tons of games!  Kirsten and I like to make as much stuff as we can and challenge ourselves to make most of it out of "junk" or leftovers from our office. 

Come on in.......

"Dress like a Pirate and Walk da Plank"  My husband screwed two boards together, Tyler and I painted the words, we had the crates, blue tarp from wal-mart, small crocs from dollar tree and the rest is below....

The croc was made from green bubble wrap we found in the mailroom at work.  The croc legs are made from cardboard boxes painted green, glued and tied with yarn.  We made the croc body "sections" with rubber bands and the spikes on his back are cut from a rubber hand we found at the dollar store.  Googly eyes and white styrofoam balls from hobby lobby. 

Pirate hats made from black foam sheets.

The original plan was to cut these using the cricut but that didn't work (even with a deep housing blade) so we cut a template and traced onto the black foam sheets.  These were super easy to cut out by hand.

Embellished with red glitter glue.

Measured and secured with elastic (dress rehearsal required!)

Jake's spyglass.

The spyglasses were made out of paper towel rolls, black paper and gold duct tape.  Super easy!  We secured the black paper to the rolls with hot glue. 

Again, dress rehearsal required.  ;-p

Every pirate party needs swords but we didn't want to fork over $3 per sword for the party and we wanted them to be a little safe (the kids ARE 4...) so we decided to make our own out of cardboard.

I cut a sword template with my cricut (two cuts taped together) and we found the perfect box by our freight elevator.  We traced the swords and cut with a box knife. 

We gave the swords stability with some popscicle sticks and painted them blue and red (black handles).

Testing the sword stability.  (LOL!)

I'm gonna stop right here and make a note about our crafty blog name, Corporate Crafters.  Do you see the view in most of these pictures?!  It's pretty nice, huh?!  ha!  Kirsten and I do the majority of our crafting during our lunch hour in the vacant office next to mine.  We are here 9 hours a day with an hour commute each way......when else do we have time to do these fun things?!  You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff you can get done in 1 hour!

Back to the party......

"Shark Infested Waters"  The object of this game was to "hook" as many necklaces as you could before the sharks attacked!

Green tub is from our farm, sharks from dollar tree, beads from oriental trading and my sis in law, hooks..we made!

Red solo cup, wire hangers, foil

We made the hook part out of wire hangers and pushed them through the bottom of the solo cup.  Make sure and leave enough hanger so the kids can grab and hold the hook inside the cup. 

Cutting the wire was SO hard.  I had to used all of my body weight to make a "simple" cut.  Kirsten captured a bit of this on video.....

Dress rehearsal.  (I texted this picture to several of our friends asking "arrrrgh you ready to parrrty?!"  At this point, I think I had forgotten that this party was not for me...hehe.)

"Trolling for Booty"  We always have fishing at our parties so we tailored this for a pirate party and added crocs to the sheet.  The kids used a real fishing pole and caught Jake fruit snacks from HEB.

"Tic Toc Croc Bean Bag Toss"  Kirsten painted this bad boy!!!  The red is a table cloth so the bags would fall behind.  We also used this as a photo booth of sorts.

"Buried Treasure"

The treasure box was not one of our favorites projects UNTIL it was done and now it's one of our favorites.  I don't have any crafting pictures but we wrapped a paper box with brown paper, outlined with gold duct tape, drew planks with a black marker, secured a pirate hat to the front, and zip tied the lid on.

I'm not a fan of sand so we used rice!

The kids dug for necklaces, doubloons, rings and bracelets.  Wal-Mart has Jake cups that we used to collect their loot.

"Jake's Tattoo Shop" (tattoos from the dollar spot at Target)

I didn't get a very good picture of the "ship rides" but you get the idea.......  (tractor rides are also always a part of our parties so I made a mast, hung colorful streamers on the trailer and we called it a ship ride!)

The masts were easy to make!  I bought some cheap mops and back scratchers from the dollar store and secured them together with hot glue and twine.

The red and white striped fabric was from Wal-Mart.  I secured the fabric to the cross bars (back scratchers) with hot glue.

Jake printable from the Disney website (safety pinned)

One of my favorite games was the "Cannonball Fights"

I used large cardboard boxes and covered them with table cloths, zip tied a mast on each and called them ships.  I was trying to make the cannonballs safe for little ones so I ordered pirate and ship themed beach balls from oriental trading!

The games were a huge hit amongst the kids and adults!

Decor post here.

Card or Gift or Mini-Album

This was a really fun project to make. It can double up as a card on a gift, the gift itself or a mini album because there is plenty of room to add baby pictures on and in it.

I cut all of the items with my cricut and layered each element in and then tied it all together with ribbons as well (these are baby themed but any "theme" would work, think new house, graduations, any kind of gift giving opportunity).





These are so much fun to make!!

Outfit that turns to a scrapbook layout into a gift idea.

I made this scrapbook page to match the outfit to give as a gift.

I took a close up picture of the animals on the outfit, printed them out in color and then used some scrapbook flock to enhance them a bit and used them as the embellishment on the layout. I can't wait to do this again, flock is really fun to work with (and really easy too) (seriously, glue, drop, shake - wait to dry).

Tip:  set up and let your flock dry PRIOR to cutting the image out.  It is much easier to flock that way and also you will get a cleaner edge/cut of your image.

 



And here is the finished product with the picture on it.  The funniest part of this, is that Katie had been planning to complete this layout at a scrapbook retreat we were on and she had been planning the perfect set up... meaning I was still setting up my stuff and she finished a complete layout in that time, she was laughing to herself the whole time and then shouted "I've finished a layout!!!"  I guess I was a bit crusty in my response seeing as how I hadn't even started anything yet which makes us laugh even harder now because I was bummin that I hadn't even started yet .... but looking back on it now... it's HILARIOUS!!!!  Sorry Katie ;) 

Here are some goodies I've made for a baby shower for next week. The mother LOVES yellow... and LOVES butterflies.... so here is my interpretation.

Diaper butterflies


Ginormous diaper butterfly (yes it's all diapers and 3 scrubbies for the body)


Some baby girl socks I crocheted beads around for some fancy socks :)

these started out as plain onsies, I cut vinyl on my cricut to make a template and then painted them with fabric paint

Here is a mini album for her to carry around with her.

I didn't over embellish the inside becuase it was getting too thick and it didn't have any pictures in it yet...LOL so I just added some color to the tabs.

Here is the gift basket so far, I have one more flannel blanket to add and then will just pull it all together, Mikayla also made a butterfly to go in the basket as well so that'll be in there too. I hope I remember to take a final picture LOL

Wedding Gift: word scramble

We have some friends that are HUGE board game players so I knew I wanted to incorporate their love for games into their wedding gift.  I came up with the idea to frame a word scramble (that was unique to their life) that could also double as home decor.  On the opposite side of the frame I used scrabble letters in the shape of a cross that spelled "Love You."  I also wrote their wedding date on the scrabble tiles.  (1-14-2012)

There are 18 hidden words in this scramble!  I used red ink for their last name so it stood out from the other letters. 

The hidden words are:

• Amy
• Andrew
• Lilly (their doggy!)
• Husband
• Wife
• Wedding
• Ring
• I do (2 times!)
• Love (2 times!)
• My
• Best
• Friend
• January
• Fourteenth
• Twenty twelve
• TX

Scrabble tiles........

John Deere Taggie Blanket

I made this John Deere taggie blanket several years ago.  I don't have pictures of the progress but I followed this tutorial and it was super simple.

Baby Shower Gift: stuffed baby

One of my favorite baby shower gifts for an expecting mother is a "stuffed baby!"  The babies can also double as decor if you're the hostess!

Supplies:

• Footed pajamas (or a 3 piece set that has a hat and booties)  I usually buy a 3 month outfit so there is enough room to "fill" the baby.
• Hat, if not included with outfit
• cloth diapers (5-6)
• tissue paper
• pins
• tulle- 1.25 yards
• base for the baby to "sit" on (round hat box, bottle drying rack, charger, etc.)
• 5-7 items from mommy's registry (I typically try and get body wash, pacifiers, diaper ointments, etc. Items that are sturdy and "stand up" are best!)

Stuff the baby's legs with cloth diapers and then fill the "body" with registry items. 

Stuff baby's arms with tissue paper (I used colored tissue for this baby and let it stick out a little.)  After you layer all registry items in the "body," stuff/lay/wrap the items with tissue paper and cloth diapers so that the baby is somewhat smooth.  Snap the outfit closed.

The head is the hardest part for me and it usually requires a repair or two after transport to the shower.  I crumble plastic grocery sacks (or tissue paper) into a ball and then wrap the ball with a cloth diaper.  Use pins to secure the cloth diaper together and then pin the head to the baby.  Add the hat (it usually stays on without pins).

I like to find a cute box to sit the baby on...this one happens to have something inside the box too!  Sometimes I'll accessorize the baby with a pillow, toys, etc. but not always.

Gather the tulle around the base and baby and secure at the top with ribbon and a card.  (I always secure the tulle with a rubber band before wrapping ribbon around it since that seems to keep it all together.)  Pulled tight, the tulle will help keep the baby sitting upright.

 

Here is a little froggy baby that I made for a gender neutral party.  This was a 3-piece set rather than footed pajamas and it worked great!

Same steps....

The mommy-to-be registered for a drying rack that worked perfectly for the baby "base!"

The most recent set of babies I've made were for a friend having twin girls.  I learned that a hat with a face on it is SO much easier than trying to balance a baby head and hat!  Plus, these kitty hats are to die for!

Check out those little bottoms!

Wrapped in tulle and ready to go!  (I couldn't find a good base for these babies so I bought two chargers...they worked perfectly!)

The funniest part about the stuffed baby gift is that I always always always feel like I need a "disclaimer bag."  Basically it's the bag with all of the tags from the clothes, cloth diapers, anything else I needed to open so that the mom knows I bought it all new.  It's become quite the little joke!