Thoughts from me beneath my willow trees.: Bubblegum Birthday Party

It's been way too long since I posted anything, so it's time. :) In one of my last posts, I showed you how we made a Princess Tea Party Birthday for my daughter's then 3rd birthday. A few months ago she turned 4 and decided on a Bubblegum party. Now, in our house, our girls are not allowed to chew gum until they turn 4, so pretty much since the day she turned 3 she has been planning her bubblegum party!

Of course I had an entire year to plan this, but alas, I only really started about 6 weeks prior; and then it was mostly stressing that I wouldn't have time to do what I wanted. I finally settled on bubblegum machines for the party guests. I had thought I'd just head on over to the local Dollar store and pick up a machine for each child, since I had seen these over the prior Christmas, but they did not have any! Now what?! Well, I decided I'd better figure out how to make them instead. So, here is what I came up with.

Aren't they cute? They turned out to be pretty simple. Even the girls helped. You will need:

A small (about 4") terracotta pot and corresponding saucer. (about $1.25 for the pair)
Glass bowl/globe (I found mine at Michael's because I needed seven, but I tried the second hand stores first. They did have them, just not seven matching, which I wanted) ($1 each--same as second hand stores)
Wooden ball/knob ($1.50 for a package of 8)
Paint (scrounged in my basement for some lovely pink)
Ribbon (found 9 yds for $.069 at the Goodwill)
Paint pens (not necessary, but much easier) ($5-10 depending on the package size, coupon)
Kid craft paints (also not necessary, but I had them on hand)
Hot glue gun

We started by painting all of the pottery parts pink. I covered the kitchen island with paper, got out the paint smocks, and let the girls paint their bubblegum machines. While the paint was drying, I painted the wooden balls, each a different color. For this, I used the kids craft paints. Next was to hot glue my ribbon around the base of the bubblegum machine (which technically is the top of the pot, but it's flipped upside down). After I finished that, and still had the glue gun hot, I glued the glass globe onto the machine base, and then finally I glued the wooden 'gum ball' to bottom of the saucer, which is the lid to the machine.

All that is left is to fill them, which the birthday girl got to do. All of our guests were allowed to chew gum, except for one. I, unbelievably, was able to find jelly beans that looked EXACTLY like the gum balls! Sometimes I just amaze myself. Ha, ha!

The next fun thing was to collect items for the goody bags. Last year I made each child their own fuzzy bag/purse. This year I found a package of hot pink, fabric bags at Michael's for $1 for a package of 3. I just embellished each a bit with ribbon and their initial and there we go!

I hit the dollar spot at Target and the local Dollar store. There we scored wands, lip sticks, and of course lots of bubblegum! We also made bubblegum necklaces with shrinky dinks. Cute, but next time I'll make a larger hole for the string and use thicker string to avoid the tangles.

Party favors are covered. I even sewed little 'bubblegum' pillows for decorations. I hung these from the ceiling and passed them out as the guests left. It turned out well. Here's a peek at the pillows.

And below the pillow is a view of the whole set up. Complete with kitten attacking the balloon strings. :)

And, last, but not least, the cake! Couldn't resist a copy of the bubblegum machines, but in order to keep my stress to a minimum, I just drew it on the cake and did not carve a bubblegum machine out of cake.