Hello again! I’m thrilled to be back here to share more ideas on using your scrapbooking supplies for those special celebrations. You may recall my post last fall about my sister in law’s baby shower. Nowadays, you can find me over at my personal blog or here at BPC participating in one of the latest classes!
My son was born December 26, 2007. We celebrate his birthday with family, since we are with them over the holidays anyway. But inevitably all his little friends and classmates are busy with holiday plans when his birthday rolls around, making it difficult to throw a party. I’d heard about families that celebrate half birthdays and decided that this year we’d throw him a party to celebrate his four and a “half birthday” instead! We settled on a pirate theme for our celebration based on input from the guest of honor.
Digital Invitation Credits - Little Treasures Stickers” digital kit by Mindy Terasawa ; Treasure Map Deadhand font; Local map of playground from Mapquest.
Since we were having the party at our favorite playground, I had to keep decorations limited to our food table. I love parties that have fun themed food, which seemed like an easy way to add some charm to our casual event. I pinned a wealth of ideas on Pinterest for inspiration (follow me here), then put together my kid-friendly pirate picnic menu!
- Baby carrots with ranch dip were “Peg Legs”.
- Black grapes were “Cannonballs”.
- Pouches of Applesauce were “Ahoy Matey Applesauce.”
- Yogurt tubes (frozen to keep fresh!) were “Pirate Swords.”
- Mini Bags of Cracker Jacks were “Sailor Snacks.”
- Mini Sub Sandwiches were “Submarines” (close enough!)
- Pirate’s Booty Cheese Puffs were, well, Pirate’s Booty.
- Apple slices with a triangle of cheese on a toothpick mast were “Apple and Cheese Ships” set in a sea of blueberries!
Here’s where those scrapbooking supplies came in! No one would know how the food carefully tied into the pirate plot unless I made cute little menu cards.
I made up these sweet little cards up in less than an hour. In fact it may have been the hour right before the party started, but that's our secret.
Here’s the tutorial:
1. Measure your label punch to see how much space is available for the text.
2. Using Photoshop or your favorite word processing program, type in your menu titles in a fun font. Make sure to use those rulers on the top and side to stay within the size of your label!
3. If you are adventurous, insert an image from a digital scrapbooking kit next to your text. Tip - Most digital scrapbooking elements come in .jpg or .png format, which can easily be pasted into your word processing program. No Photoshop required! And if you are last minute like me, they can be downloaded almost instantly!
4. Double and triple check that your text/images will fit in your label! You may even want to print a test page on scratch paper.
5. Print, and then use your punch to cut out the labels. I cut my paper into strips before punching to make it easier.
6. Cut some patterned paper into 3”x 3” strips.
Tip - the 6x6 pads make this easy and have a smaller scale pattern which works nicely in this size!
7. Fold each strip in half to make a tent that has 3”x3” on each side. I was hanging my labels over the edge of some bowls and tubs, but you can also make a 3-sided tent or mount yours on a skewer – both would be cute!
8. Attach labels, and embellish as desired! I punched some circles and stars from various sizes of coordinating papers and layered them on a corner of each of the tents. I had included some mini compasses in the favor bags for the kids (they came in a pack of 24 and I only needed 12). So I affixed them to a few of the cards for a more three dimensional accent.
This was such a fun and easy project, and the best part was that I used leftovers from my stash and the favor bags to make them! I have a mini book of our celebration in the works, and these little cards are going to make fun accents on the mini book pages. I love to reuse decorations from our celebrations in my scrapbooking and Project Life. Aside from saving time and saving items from ending up in the trash, reused decorations become fun mementos for us to enjoy for as we flip through the book years from now.
I hope you’ll consider making some menu cards for your next celebration. They are an easy way to add character to your food table and use up that stash. Enjoy!
Supplies:
EK Success Photo Labels punch
Various circle and star punches
Little Treasures Stickers” digital kit by Mindy Terasawa
Basic Grey “Oliver” collection 6x6 pad
Mini Compasses;
Treasure Map Deadhand
