My after-christmas White Elephant Party is this weekend, and I thought I’d share a little of the party preparations with you today.

First off, if you’ve never done a White Elephant Party, they are a lot of fun… I try to do one every year, and this year –since my December was so busy– it’s happening after the holidays. In fact, a White Elephant is a great *after* the holidays party since people probably received one or two things that they could stand to regift! A White Elephant (also called a Yankee…

One of my favorite parties to throw during (or after!) the holiday season is a White Elephant gift exchange party.  We do one every year, and it’s always a lot of fun.  It’s also a great icebreaker party or office party, too!

Last year, I made up some invitations, a rule sheet, and a number sheet so you can easily throw your own.  Since some of you might not have been around last year, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to share them with you again.

Just go here for the invite, the rules, alternate rules for large groups like office parties, and…

There is an old tradition among our group of friends called “Soup Night”. As the weather gets colder, and there aren’t as many outdoor activities to bring us together, it’s great to have an excuse to get together with friends for fun and fellowship. Thus, “soup night”.

To do your own soup night, pick a core group of friends to host for the next (say) 4-6 weeks (skipping for holidays as necessary). It’s best to pick a consistent night, like every Wednesday. Each household hosts one night, and provides the main meal, some form of soup. Other guests chip in apps,…

Happy weekend… this is from last year, but it was so good, I thought it deserved a repeat!

My dear creative friend, Chad, made this for the Halloween party last year…  and was kind enough to give us a tutorial, so we can all make our own!

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I’m working on this year’s party for The Boy’s #4 Birthday right now (DRAGONS! Coming Soon!), which got me thinking about last year’s party. For the #3 party, we did a Robot Spaceman theme, and everyone loved it, so I figured some of you might be interested in what we did….

This is a cute party idea, that kids like, and is fun to do. You can seriously go retro with this, and decorate with Tin Robot toys. Or play up the spaceman side of it with stars and outer space decor. Think space, rockets, robots, stars… there are tons of…

We’ll be back with more Shrinky Dink Test lab tomorrow–the experiments continue–, but today is your special Holiday edition!

For the 4th of July, my husband and best friend were running the Peachtree Road Race, so I decided to have brunch at my house and invite over friends for mimosas and food. Since we were doing mimosas (champagne and OJ for the uninitiated), i figured everyone would be drinking out of stemmed glasses and they’d get mixed up, so what about making some fun, temporary glass markers using shrinky dinks. I made up 6 the night before on a whim, and they…

Since the Robot Party posts are scattered around as I finished each element, here’s a round-up post with all of the stuff you can use for your own robot party..! (My own, plus links to other good inspirations)

Invitations & Thank-you notes (download the graphics free for personal use)

Favor Bags (Robot Spaceman Cowboy!) Here & Here

How to Make the Robot Cake

Other great inspirations for your robot party!
- Hello Naomi’s to die for Robot cupcakes

Hostess with the Mostest has a great writeup of her robot birthday party, and some great pics and ideas..

The Toy Snob has a fun round-up of all kinds of…

I used this graphic for the goody bags at the party. Feel free to steal, along with the Invites and Thankyou note graphics, for your own robot parties!

This was a quick coloring job because i finally got around to doing it the morning of the party. But printed out on your average home printer, it looks fine.

Related:
Robot Cake Tutorial

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Links to all the other related posts at the Robot Party Round-up.

I promised a tutorial on how I made The Boy’s UltraFab Robot Cake, so here it is… And honestly. It’s pretty easy.

Ingredients:
3 boxes of cake mix* and whatever ingredients they call for.
1 batch of cream cheese icing**
1/2 batch of no-cook fondant***  (edit: recommend this instead: marshmallow fondant recipe_)
food coloring****

Tools:
1 angel cake tube pan (Like This) for the body. This is deeper/larger than your average tube pan.
1 metal bowl (for the head)

Step 1 – Bake your cakes. I was lazy and just went the cake mix route.

Head: 1 box of…

Edit: Cake Tutorial is up! So check it out!

Birthday party was a smashing success! As I mentioned, it was a robot theme (homemade invitations and thank-you notes here)
You’ll have to wait til after my mini vacation for all the good stuff – I’m going to write up a tutorial on the cake. But here is the ultrafab Robot Cake! (click through to see bigger)

And the goody bags, a last minute addition – [edit - Here's the illustration I used, feel free to use it if ya like]The not-yet-colored version of the space cowboy is here.

A good time was had by…