For invitations, I took inspiration from a scrapbooking layout I saw online. Sorry, I cannot locate the page to give credit to the creator. I used elements that I had to come up with the invitation.
For the goody bags, I'd rather avoid the plastic toys and candy if possible. I included a kit to build a wooden catapult. They did have kits for rockets, but the birthday boy thought the catapults were a bit more fun. I made Lego kechains for each of the bags by drilling a small hole into the top of each piece and then used some jewelry wire and a key chain clip to put it all together.
I also had these cool paper rockets printed off at a local copy shop onto cardstock. Paper Rocket They took a bit of fanangaling to fold them properly, but they are extremely cool when they are finished.
Finally, I made miniature pinata rockets and filled them with a few small candies. My son told me that I had to include a few candies in a goody bag!
I was inspired by these cool little mini pinatas Not Martha .
For my rockets, I blew up water balloons as they are such a great size for these rockets. Then I made a paste of 1/2 water and 1/2 white glue. I cut paper towel into strips and glued them on for the first layer. The paper towel gives the pinata a super base to start with and has a wonderful texture. When that was dry I added two layers of tissue paper. After the first layer of tissue paper was dry, I was able to poke the ballon where the knot stuck out and remove the balloon. I also pushed the candies through the opening. I made a loop out of some plastic cording that I had, and stuck part of it into the hole. I then added the last layer of tissue paper and paste. After it was dry, my son added the "Pull Me" tags and decorated each rocket with foam shapes.
The rockets were a lot of fun to make and really didn't take that much work.
My son was thrilled to make a table cloth for the party. I had some brown wrapping paper tucked away. It had been used as stuffing in a box I received in the mail. It turned out to be just the size of our table. My son worked diligently on the rocket illustrations for the table cloth.
I try not to use food colourings, so birthday cakes are often a bit of a challenge. My son told me he wanted a bundt shape cake (or bowl cake as he calls it) I went from there and added a rocket in the centre. I used cherry juice to make a tiny bit of red icing for the flames. I'm sure the cherry juice has lots of food colouring in it too, but it makes me feel better.
The birthday boy was pretty excited about all the work we did to make the day special.
For party activites, I started out making Pocket Rockets with the kids. (I changed the sie to 2"x6" and used a semi circle to construct the cone) They each made two. One they inserted clay into the cone, and the other they left empty. We flew them inside the house and observed which rockets flew better and why.
Then we decorated film canisters and took them outside. I filled them half full with water and the kids quickly dropped in a 1/4 piece of Alka Seltzer. I snapped the tops on, flipped them upside down and we began the count down. The kids thought these were pretty cool. You can go here for further instructions.
After some snacks and presents, the kids made paper rockets similar to the rockets on the found here.
My husband made the rocket launcher listed on the site. The kids had a blast with these! They were able to use their knowledge of the clay in the first pocket rocket to see why clay was again needed in these rockets.
Finally, we blasted off a few water rockets. I spray painted several pop bottles silver and added some cardboard fins. Fill the bottles 1/3 full with water. Take a cork, insert one of those pins you use for blowing up basket balls and set the bottle upside down on a frame of bricks. We used an air compressor to send these water rockets into orbit. These were also a huge hit!
Having children around anything that is popping or taking off should be done with caution. We had safety glasses for all of the kids, and they were kept well back of the launchers.
I can't believe I don't have a single picture of the rockets, but when you are in full mommy/hostess mode, you don't have a lot of spare time!
The party flew by, and the kids all had a great time. Many of the parents stayed, or came to pick their children up early so they could watch too!
