summer kickoff party 2012

The first day of summer is just around the corner, so we were delighted to have a bunch of friends join us on the patio last evening for our now-annual summer kickoff party.

Let’s take a closer look at those toppings on the ice cream sundae bar, shall we?

We served just one kind of ice cream (vanilla) with ten topping options: sprinkles, mini marshmallows, gummi bears, peanuts, mini M&Ms, crushed Oreos, peanut butter chips, chocolate syrup, caramel sauce, and whipped cream. I’m not sad that we have leftovers.

The kids outnumbered the adults 15 to 11, and they entertained themselves with five beach balls, one stomp rocket, and loads of glow bracelets. Michaels sells glow bracelets in tubes of 15 for $1, so I love to hand them out generously at parties like this.

The first official day of summer isn’t until tomorrow, but it feels like it’s already here. Welcome to summer!

mini paint can party favors

Four score and seven days ago, Magen had a birthday and invited several friends to celebrate with a sleepover. One of the little party favors is still sitting on Magen’s nightstand, which either indicates that it was amazing… or that she can’t get it open to access the goodies inside.

When I was shopping for party supplies back in June, these little paint cans at Michael’s caught my eye, and I knew immediately that I wanted to use them as favors.

The brightly-colored paint cans are so fun and festive, but I opted for the clear paint can instead.

The sides of the paint can are flexible plastic, so I suppose the all-metal cans would be more durable, but the clear plastic of this style really allows you to show off the contents.

I stuffed the little paint cans with fun but inexpensive treats — flavored chapstick, a flip-flop keychain, bubbles, paper soap from Pier 1, and a few Starburst and Laffy Taffy.

The lids were easy to put on, but they were somewhat challenging to remove when the girls discovered the favors at the end of the treasure hunt. (They were easily popped open with a table knife.)

I personalized the mini paint can favors by adding a little paper circle with each girl’s name on the top. I forget what kind of glue I tried to use, but it didn’t adhere well (as in, not at all), so I ended up just using a little loop of tape to attach the circles to the lids.

There are endless possibilities for these mini paint cans, so I’m eager to find another excuse to use one!