Party Preparations

I'm doing a post specifically on the goodies at the party.  The main reason is because I'm going to link up on other blogs so other people can see.  I want other people to see because I had a hard time finding anything online that had to do with a reptile party, so I did it all myself.  Maybe I can help some other "reptile party seeker" out!!

This is the invitation.  I made it (high quality in Photo Shop) and have been doing invites on the side for about a year now.  My hope is to get my invitation blog/business up and running this summer.  Please, please email me if you would like me to design one for you and I'll get the prices to you.

I'm not one to run to the grocery store to buy a cake, cupcakes or cookies if I can make them myself and they turn out better.  I used two white cake mixes and did the colors like I did here, but did green and yellow.  I also just bought two containers of white, whipped icing to ice them with.  I wanted something super cute to go on top of the cupcakes and I found EXACTLY what I wanted at the dollar store.  I found plastic lizards in packs of 4 for $1.00!  I colored the icing green and I think they came out great!  This also gave the kids something else they could take home because the lizards were a pretty good size.

I wanted to have some type of fruit to serve with the cupcakes so that not everything would be jam packed full of teeth rotting sugar.  So, I went with frozen bananas dipped in chocolate.  I wanted to half bananas and do them that way on a stick, but with little ones, they needed something more manageable.  So, I cut the bananas in about 1.5" pieces and stuck them with the little decorative forks (pack of 75 for $1.00 at the dollar store).  These were so fun and the kids LOVED them and had many parents asking how to make them.  The one thing I will say is that you have to move fast on these suckers because bananas thaw out quick.  All I did was:

1) Cut bananas.

2) Put them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet in the freezer for about 2 hours.

3)  Use the chocolate melts that I use for these and get to moving FAST.  If you want to sprinkle them, you have to sprinkle immediately after you dip them in chocolate.

4) Freeze until ready to eat.

Now the goodie bags...this is what took me so long to come up with because there was NOTHING online to help me or get me started on ideas.  There was one thing I knew the bags HAD TO HAVE in them...a rubber snake.  You know how hard these suckers are to find that are less than $3.00??  I stumbled upon them at Wal Mart for $1.00 each.

What's inside:

-Laffy Taffy

-birthday & animal silly bands

-Pixie Stix

-Unfrozen popsicles, 5 of them (dollar bin at Target)

-Toy Story markers (dollar bin at Target)

- RUBBER SNAKE!!

The favorites out of the bag were the popsicles and the snake.  I loved putting the popsicles in there because that's totally unexpected and who doesn't love popsicles in the summer??  One thing, I busted 3 or 4 when I was pulling them apart to put in the bags.  They are MUCH easier to pull apart when they are frozen.

And last but not least...the thank you notes...

I hope someone can get some good ideas from this and let me know if you are doing a reptile party and what you're doing.  I would love to hear from you!