Rainbow Cupcakes

This is not an original idea, but it went along with the Care Bears party theme. I used this photo for inspiration. There are lots of variations all over the internet, but here is how I made these cupcakes for Mia to take to school on her birthday. I briefly flirted with the idea of making the inside layered with rainbow colors like I had done last March, but I decided that the work I was putting into the outside was more than enough for something that was going to be served to a bunch of kindergarten kids. They looked nice, and they were tasty, too.

1. First, I made a double batch of my favorite white cake recipe, which yielded 28 cupcakes. I made them in rainbow striped cupcake liners which I had gotten at Jo-Ann. (Of course, you can use store-bought cake mix. This is just how I did it.)
2. Next, I made a batch of buttercream frosting. (Again, use store bought if that is your preference, but in my opinion, you cannot beat homemade frosting.) I added 5 drops of neon blue food coloring and mixed it in with my hand mixer, which I had already used to make the frosting. I used an angled spatula to frost my cupcakes.
3. I bought two packages of Airhead Xtremes Sweetly Sour Belts candy from Wal-mart. The flavor is called "Rainbow Berry" and they were about $1.28 a package. (I actually had to go back to buy a second bag after discovering that one bag has only 20 strips, so use this information to plan accordingly.) These come in strips that are about 5" long, and I cut them to about 3" and inserted each end into the frosting. Keeping them longer meant that the rainbows caved in on themselves, and just did not work to make the rainbows I was hoping for. I then saved the extra cuttings for snacking.
4. I made the clouds by putting Cool Whip (left over from the layered rainbow Jell-O cups that I served at the party) into a baggie, snipping off a corner, and piping it onto the frosting.

Thank You Cards for Care Bear Party

These are the photo thank you cards that I designed to go along with the Care Bears birthday party. The photos are the ones I took at the party using my home-made Cheer Bear photo prop. I made a simple fill-in-the-blank format so that Mia could help fill out the cards because I think that this helps teach gratitude, or at the very least, it helps with teaching social conventions associated with gratitude. My goal was not just to have her write "thanks for the gift," but also to let her know that we were thanking people for making her day special. For me, having a child's birthday party is about giving her an experience that she will remember as being a fun time spent with friends and family, and I want to pass this belief on to my children.

Materials:

• red card stock
• paper trimmer
• word processing software
• printer
• scissors
• scalloped scissors
• photos
• clear adhesive photo corners
• scrapbooking adhesive 
• white printer paper
• envelope template (optional)

Directions:

1. Using a paper trimmer, I cut the 8 1/2" x 11" card stock in half (hamburger fold) to get two pieces of paper. Next, I folded each one in half (hamburger fold again) so that I had two cards.
2. For the cover of the card, I found an image of Birthday Bear, copied it into Microsoft Word and adjusted the size so that I could fit 8 images on the page (in landscape format). I printed and cut out the images with scalloped scissors. Then, I affixed them to the center of the cards using scrapbooking adhesive squares.
3. For the wording on the front, I used the word art feature in Microsoft Word to type "Caring is Sharing!" for the upper arch and the date of the party on the lower arch. The font was "Care Bears Family" and it was a free download found here. I fit 9 of these upper arch over lower arch per page in landscape format. After printing, I used scissors to cut them into banners, following the curves of the text. Lastly, I cut into each end in a "v" to make the flags on the end of each banner. These were adhered to the front of the card using scrapbooking square adhesives that had first been cut in half.
4. For the inside of the card, I had the photos printed. Then, I used my paper trimmer to cut them down so that they would fit inside. I used clear scrapbooking photo corners, one per corner, to affix these to the inside of the card (on the left).
5. For the fill-in-the blank format that I put on the right side of the inside of the thank you cards, I again used the "Care Bears Family" font to type: "Dear _____________, Thanks for sharing in my 6th birthday fun! Thanks also for the ______________________________. It made me smile! Your friend, _____________" I used this image of Cheer Bear to tie it all together. (This was also used in the invitations, and of course, the photo prop.) I was able to get 4 of these fill-in-the-blank templates per page in portrait format. After printing, I trimmed them with my paper trimmer and adhered them with the scrapbooking adhesive squares.
6. The rest was up to Mia. I helped her fill in the names and the information about the gifts, and then she signed her name to each one.
7. I made some envelopes with white printer paper and my template that I bought many years ago at Michaels, wrote each child's name on the front, and sealed them with some Care Bears stickers that were a gift from my brother. You can use store bought envelopes if you don't want to make your own. I just have been making my own cards for so long that I don't typically have the right size envelope on hand, so I make those, too.

Welcome to Care-a-Lot! (A Care Bears Themed Birthday Party)

As soon as Christmas was over, Mia was asking me when we were going to start making things for her birthday party, which was last Saturday. This gave me about a month to get everything ready. She had chosen the Care Bears theme, and it didn't take me too long to discover that it wasn't something I could find in any stores. There were a few things on Amazon and eBay, but nothing that seemed worth the cost. I wasn't too concerned, though, because Mia agreed that we could do a lot of "rainbow" colors for decorations and such instead of focusing just on Care Bears.

Plus, I love a creative challenge. I think that is why I do parties in kind of a crazy-big way, not that I think it isn't important to celebrate my kids' milestones. I do, of course, or we wouldn't do it. Truly, though, this mama loves herself a good project, and doing themed birthday parties allows me to express myself creatively with quite a few of them. Thankfully, Mia's desire for advanced planning helped me pull it off without getting getting too stressed out. In fact, I feel pretty fulfilled for making her 6th birthday party a success.

The Invitations:
I designed a fairly simple invitation in Microsoft Word that would allow me to print 4 per page. At the top, I centered this "Have a Rainbow Day" image. For the wording, I used this free "Care Bear Family" font that I downloaded. (This is fun because the punctuation includes hearts.) I used different colors of the rainbow to set apart the key words: red for "What," orange for "When," yellow for "Where" (Note that the where is "Care-a-Lot" and I added our address in parentheses.), green for "RSVP," blue for "Cell," and purple for "Home." After the important information, I typed "Please help share in the birthday cheer!" emphasizing the words share and cheer because they related to the Care Bears theme. I also added "Your presence is your present," which didn't make too much difference, but it was worth a try. I included this image of Cheer Bear, which I made smaller and flipped in my word processing program. After printing, I cut them apart with my paper trimmer, used scalloped scissors to add decorative trim to the top and bottom edges, and then adhered them to red card stock.

The Decorations: 
I tied together some Dollar Tree balloons (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) and had my husband put them on the mailbox, but they must have blown away at some point during the party.

Guests were greeted at the front door by a fun "Welcome to Care-a-Lot" sign that I made from a cardboard box and acrylic paint. The wording is again done in Microsoft Word with that same free font. You can find complete directions for the sign here.

I made these super simple and very inexpensive zig zag streamers following the directions I found on this blog. My only change that I would suggest is to specify that I used construction paper that was first trimmed in half (like a hot dog). Then, I saved myself some time by cutting several pieces at once. They don't need to look perfect. I used Scotch tape to hang them from the entryway to the dining room, three of each color: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. I had one extra streamer per color, so I hung them at the end of the hallway going into the kitchen, so that when people came in the front door, they saw the same rainbow: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

The buntings on the ceiling were probably the most annoying thing for me to do for this entire party. I am not sure I even would have done this if Mia hadn't caught me looking at the picture online (which did not include any directions, by the way) and announced that she really wanted it for a decoration. I knew it would be inexpensive, so I decided to give it a try. I purchased some 97 cent table cloths from the party aisle at Wal-mart (red, orange, yellow, and green -- plus I already had the blue one that I had found at a garage sale over the summer -- for 10 cents). I cut the table cloths in half, and then folded each one in half again, length-wise, so that they were not as transparent. I used pieces of double stick adhesive that I had cut prior to getting started. They were about 1" squares, and I used at least 3 or 4 per section. (And then, I was climbing up again the following day to apply a bit more since some were falling down...) The white balloon cloud came from that same Dollar Tree bag of balloons (There were really quite a few in there, maybe about 45, so it was a pretty good deal.) and is tied together with light blue curling ribbon (also purchased from Dollar Tree two years ago). I also had a purple table cover from Wal-mart that I trimmed to fit our dining room table and our card table, taping down the ends so it didn't slip.

The Food:
Since we were having a party with the most of the girls from the kindergarten class, and then having some family afterward, I wanted to keep the food simpler than I have in the past. (Basically, I told myself I am not serving a full meal, and I made myself stick to it.) I didn't even make a "fancy" themed drink; I just offered milk, apple juice, or water. I am kind of proud of myself for this. And they ate and drank from our regular kids' plates and cups from IKEA, because I hate buying stuff that would just get thrown away. For food, I offered crackers and heart shaped cheese. I took some sliced deli cheese that I already had and then used my little metal heart cookie cutter (actually, I think it's meant for fondant, but you get what I mean). I thought about doing a rainbow veggie platter, but my kids are not huge fans of peppers so I just did red grape tomatoes, orange carrots, and green cucumber slices so it wasn't truly a rainbow.

One of my only big to-dos for food was making the rainbow fruit kabobs, which were inspired by this photo. I used bamboo skewers, which I broke about in half. On each one, I threaded a whole strawberry, an orange slice, 3 canned pineapple pieces (note for future reference: buy something larger than tidbits), a slice of kiwi, a couple of blueberries, and a couple of purple grapes. Then, I cut off the sharp end of the skewers, and arranged them on my tray.

My other kind-of-a-big-deal food was 6 layered rainbow Jell-O cups, which were inspired by this blog. I used 5 ounce clear plastic cups that were left over from my failed chocolate business (waste not, right?). I did this as inexpensively as possible by getting Kroger brand gelatin for as many layers as possible, and I also bought as many sugar free varieties as I could get since the kids wouldn't likely know the difference, and why give them more sugar if I didn't need to? I bought the small 3 ounce boxes (0.3 ounces for sugar-free varieties). I used the quick-set method involving ice cubes, so each layer set up for about 20 minutes before I was adding the next layer on top. (I actually had this almost down to a science by the end: put Jell-o in refrigerator, set timer for 15 minutes, wash bowl and spoons, put water on to boil around when timer went off, repeat...) I guesstimated that 2 tablespoons of each flavor would be about right, and it was nearly perfect for making 16 cups. (I had determined that 16 cups was the max amount that would fit in my cake pan, and I planned to put the Jell-o cups in the pan to make it easier for all the in-and-out of the refrigerator. It was a great tip I had picked up here.) My layers from bottom to top were: Grape Jell-O, Berry Blue Jell-O, Kroger Sugar-free Lime Gelatin, Sugar-free Lemon Jell-O, Kroger Sugar-free Orange Gelatin, and Kroger Sugar-free Cherry Gelatin. I topped the rainbow cups with Cool Whip "clouds" and served them with the cake in lieu of ice cream. One good thing about this was that I didn't have to dish up any ice cream.

The Cake:

I promised Mia a Care Bear cake, and I used this photo for my inspiration. I used my favorite white cake recipe and tinted the batter pink with Wilton icing color, purchased from Jo-Ann with my coupon. The head is a 9" round and the body is a 10" round. Plenty of cooking spray and waxed paper cut to fit the cake pans helped ensure that the cakes came out without breaking apart. I also used my cake knife to trim them so that they were flat before frosting them. The neck looked a bit skinny, and my cake, overall, was quite short since I should have doubled my recipe. I made 6 (short) cupcakes. One is the muzzle. One is cut in half and used for the ears. The other four are the paws. All are covered with plenty of frosting to keep them glued together.

For frosting, I made the Wilton buttercream recipe, which I again, tinted pink, and applied with an angled spatula. The center of the ears, the belly, and the mouth/nose area of Cheer Bear are all done with plain white buttercream that I had set aside.

It is fortunate that Valentine's Day is around the corner because that meant that seasonal heart-shaped candies were easy to find. Cheer Bear's nose is a red cinnamon jelly candy, which came in a bag for $1 at Kroger. The foot pads are pink marshmallow Peep hearts. I cut one in half, and placed the sticky sides down on the frosting. The eyes are a regular marshmallow, which I cut in half, and again, placed the sticky sides down. Then, I used black decorating gel to make the pupils. The freckles are red non-pareils (which I got for $1 at Target last Christmas). I used red decorating gel for the mouth and eyebrows. The most important part of Cheer Bear is her rainbow belly badge, which I made using red, orange, yellow, green, and blue mini M&Ms. (Note: The leftovers made delicious cookies, and I think I will buy the mini size for baking from now on.)

My cake display was a piece of cardboard that I cut to the size I wanted. Then, I took some colored tissue paper from Dollar tree, and folded it so that the 5 bands of color: pink, red, yellow, green, and blue all fit in approximately equal amounts. I used Scotch tape to affix the tissue paper to the back side. I used more wax paper circles on top of the tissue paper to try to avoid having the buttercream completely soak the tissue paper. It didn't work perfectly, but I am sure it didn't hurt either. I found these tall rainbow colored candles at Wal-mart for about $1.50 and the birthday girl was quite happy with the whole cake presentation overall.

The Activities:
When guests arrived, they each got a party had that I made from colored cardstock using this template and directions. I made 2 hats of each color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Brett helped me assemble them, since I was struggling with getting the tabs into the slots correctly. Then, I found images of Care Bears online, put them in Microsoft Word, adjusted them so that they were all the same size, and printed them. I cut them out, leaving about a narrow white border. Then, I applied them to the hats with Mod Podge and a foam paint brush. After they dried, I added the ribbon ties. The directions didn't say how much ribbon to use, or even what kind of ribbon to use. I used narrow ribbons, about 1/8" wide, most of which I already had at home. I needed to buy orange and blue, so I got those at Wal-mart for about 50 cents each. (I actually got more of a turquoise shade because I planned to use it as hangers for the sun catchers they were going to paint.) It turned out that this project was kind of a waste because the hats wouldn't stay on the girls' heads, and when they were all leaving, there were some disagreements on who had which hat since I had used a different Care Bear for each, and apparently some are more desirable than others. Anyway, they looked great, but I am not sure I would take the time to make my own hats again, unless I used elastic cord, perhaps.

After they got their hats, I took their photos with my Cheer Bear photo prop, which was placed in front of yet another Wal-mart plastic table cloth. This one was a turquoise, which I thought would make a nice "sky" backdrop. It was doubled over and taped to our fake fire place.

Another party activity that we had was painting rainbow sun catchers that I had found in the craft aisle at Wal-mart for 53 cents each. To prepare before the party, I tied a narrow turquoise ribbon hanger to each one. I attached a piece of masking tape to each ribbon and folded it over to make a flag, which I wrote each child's name on. Then, I poured small amounts of sun catcher paint (which I borrowed, but you can get it from Oriental Trading) into small plastic cups with lids. These were also left over from my failed chocolate business so I didn't have to go out and buy them. I used 2 cups per color so they would have enough to share without having to wait for a color, or at least that is what I figured. Each kid got a paper towel and a small paint brush to use. This worked fine. The girls were very neat and put the lids back on without even being asked. We just left them on the paper towels on the counter to dry during the party and sent them home flat at the end. The most interesting thing, to me, was that none of them looked anything alike even though they started with the same sun catchers.

The home-made rainbow pinata was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I don't have any useable pictures of the game itself seeing as how it takes 3 hours to make something and it ends in about 5 seconds. The good news is that it was a pull-string, so it was not destroyed in that 5 seconds. My plan is to hang it in Mia's room.

Another game that I created was "Pin the Cupcake on Birthday Bear." I taped Birthday Bear to the same table cloth we had used for our photo back drop. This one lasted a bit longer than the pinata, and everyone was anxious to have their turn. We used Mia's winter scarf for a blindfold and that was very effective.

All in all, this was a great party. Things went smoothly. We had a nice turn-out. Everyone had a great time. Most of the things I planned came together almost exactly the way I imagined them. It didn't cost me very much. And most importantly, there was one very happy little girl. That's enough to validate all the time and energy I spent pulling this off.

Cheer Bear Photo Prop

I started doing photo props for birthday parties two years ago when we first started having little friends for guests. It works triple-duty as party decor, as a party activity, and as a cool souvenir to include in the thank-you cards. Plus, following the party, these end up as bedroom decor, so they definitely serve their purpose and make it worth the time invested in making them. Two years ago, it was a stand-up Ariel that I ordered online and painted. Then, last year, it was a bit less work for me because I got enlarged color copies of Fancy Nancy and did my own version of home "laminating." This year, however, Mia chose the theme of Care Bears, which I couldn't find anything for anywhere I looked, and I tried many stores: Dollar Tree, Michael's, Jo-Ann, Target, Wal-mart, Meijer... The only place I saw any Care Bear items was online, and since I wasn't interested in ordering anything, I realized I would have to make it myself. Here's how I did it.

Materials:

• good sized cardboard box
• scissors/X-acto knife
• Care Bears image for inspiration
• pencil
• black Sharpie marker
• acrylic paint (I used white, hot pink, fuchsia, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
• paint brushes
• plate/tray to hold paint
• ruler
• about 50 cotton balls (optional)
• Aleene's Tacky Glue or white glue (if using cotton balls)
• turquoise plastic table cloth (optional for photo back drop)

Directions:

1. I cut the side off of a good sized corrugated cardboard box. I re-used one that had been used for shipping Christmas presents to our house.
2. Then, I found the image I wanted to use. My picture was from a coloring book that Uncle Ryan sent Mia as a birthday present.
3. Next, I drew the Care Bear onto the cardboard using a pencil. My Cheer Bear is about 25" tall and 17" across at the widest point.
4. After that, I cut out Cheer Bear. I used mostly scissors for this, but switched to my X-acto knife for tight corners and curves.
5. Then, I gathered my paints, brushes, and a palette. (Okay, my "palette" was a plastic take out lid that I am re-using. It washes cleaner than the Styrofoam trays that I frequently use for painting, and since I switched colors often, this was helpful.) To get the pale pink of Cheer Bear's fur, I made an approximately 50/50 blend of white and hot pink paint. Of course, her belly, eyes, and snout are white. The rainbow is pretty self-explanatory: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. I don't know why there is no purple, but that's her belly badge. Accents include the red heart tush tag and hot pink heart nose, freckles, eyes, and eye brows. One lollipop is painted fuchsia and purple mixed with white. The other is painted purple and hot pink mixed with blue. The sticks are white. Apply as many coats of paint as desired for the coverage you want, and allow all paint to dry completely.
6. After the paint was dry, outlined it with a black Sharpie marker. This made it look more finished.
7. To make the Care Bear stand up, I took another side of the box (this time a thinner side) and folded it in half so I had two equal size pieces. I used a pencil and a ruler to find the center of one, then I made it into a semi-circle shape. I cut it out, traced it onto the other piece of cardboard, and then cut it out. My semi-circles are about 12" wide at the base and about 5" tall at the center.
8. I painted both of the semi-circles white, let the paint dry, and then flipped them over and painted the other sides white as well.
9. Next, I used my scissors to make a small wedge-shaped notch (the smaller point faces the straight edge of the semi-circle, which is the base) into each of the cardboard semi-circle. At the widest, they are about 1/4".
10. I took another thinner side of the box, drew a cloud shape onto it, and cut it out. Again, I painted it white, but only on one side.
11. I fluffed out some cotton balls by pulling them apart with my thumbs and forefingers and then I glued them onto the cloud shape and both of the semi-circles (one side only) using Aleene's Tacky Glue. This added a lot of dimension and made it more cloud-like.
12. To set up the photo prop, I slid Cheer Bear onto the two wedges of the semi-circle shapes so that the fluffy sides faced out. After that, I just propped the fluffy cloud against the front. I took a bit of extra cotton ball and glued it to the tops of the semi-circles that were showing a bit just to make it more cohesive. I set Cheer Bear in front of a turquoise plastic table cloth (97 cents at Wal-mart) that I had doubled over and taped to our fake fireplace. As the guests arrived, I took their photos next to Cheer Bear, and I once I get them printed, I will include them in the thank-you cards.

Welcome to Care-a-Lot! Sign

It only just dawned on me last year with the Fancy Nancy party: the front door is the perfect place to set the tone for the party, right as guests enter the house. So, for Mia's 6th birthday with a Care Bears theme, I decided the welcome sign should be a rainbow with clouds that read "Welcome to Care-a-Lot!" in rainbow colors. I think it looks nice and cheerful, plus I can imagine it being on her bedroom door for quite awhile following the party, so I think that makes it even more worth my time.

Materials:

• cardboard
• pencil
• tracing paper (optional)
• scissors/X-acto knife
• acrylic paint in rainbow colors
• paint brush
• something to hold paint
• word processing software
• scrapbooking markers in rainbow colors
• clear con-tact paper 
• Mod Podge (optional)
• double-stick adhesive
• masking tape

Directions:

1. On a piece of cardboard, draw a rainbow shape. I noticed that the semi-circle window at the top of our front door looked a bit like a rainbow, so I used a pencil and tracing paper to help me with this. I had to trace just one half, cut it out, draw it onto the cardboard, flip it over, and then trace again. It didn't look exactly how I wanted, so I did some additional drawing, erasing, and more drawing until it was more like I envisioned. I cut out my cardboard rainbow with scissors mainly, using my X-acto knife when things got tricky around the curves.
2. Then, I drew in lines to divide it into six bands, one for each color. Then, I got out my acrylic paints (first making sure I was wearing my old paint clothes) and painted it red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The yellow required more coats to cover the brown cardboard.
3. After the paint dried and I felt it looked good enough, I sealed it with a coat of Mod Podge, which I applied with a foam brush. (Tip: If you are not familiar with Mod Podge it's an awesome, multi-purpose tool that you must have if you like to do crafts, serving as both an adhesive and a protective sealant.)
4. For the lettering, I downloaded this free font called Care Bear Family. In Microsoft Word, I used the word art function to make the lettering in outline style using the largest possible font size, 96 point. I did this in landscape format and dragged the margins to adjust the lettering so that it was even bigger, as large as could fit on one page. After printing it, I folded the paper in half (like a hot dog) so that "Welcome to" was on top and "Care-a-Lot!" was on the bottom. Then, I took my scissors and cut out cloud shapes. (If you want, you can draw them first, but I just started cutting.) 
5. Next, I took my scrapbooking markers and colored all of the letters so that they had all the colors of the rainbow, from top to bottom: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. When I was done coloring, I cut four pieces of clear contact paper so that they were about 1" larger than the paper all the way around. I "laminated" the clouds, each one between two pieces of clear con-tact paper, so that the sticky sides were pressed together. I trimmed off the excess so that they were cloud shapes once more, leaving about 1/2" border. Lastly, I used strips of double stick tape to adhere the word clouds to the cardboard rainbow.
6. The day of the party, I used masking tape to put this on the front door, and it looked very colorful and cheery.

DIY Pin-the-Cupcake-on-Birthday-Bear Game

If you read my previous post about making the rainbow pull-string pinata, you know that party planning is in full-swing here, which hopefully helps you understand why I have been absent from the blogosphere for about 3 weeks. Here is a party game that I came up with and designed all on my own, thankyouverymuch. I am pretty doggone proud of myself. (It was inspired by my pin-the-tail-on-Ariel game that I made 2 years ago, however, this one I made from scratch.) This project was much simpler than the pinata, but it definitely helps that I am decent at drawing. Otherwise, it would have been a hopeless endeavor. This cost me less than $12 total, including the cost of the poster board and the cost of laminating. I think it ended up being my most expensive thing I have made for Mia's Care Bears party, but still it is not that bad, especially considering that it is exactly what I wanted, and it wasn't something that I could have purchased.

Materials:

• white poster board
• pencil
• scissors/X-acto blade
• black Sharpie marker
• acrylic paint (yellow, white, turquoise, orange, pink)
• paint brushes
• plate for holding paint
• magenta Sharpie marker
• tracing paper
• boxboard (cereal box)
• markers (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)

Directions:

1. First, I found and printed this picture of Birthday Bear to use as my model. (I did this in black and white to save ink.)
2. Next, I drew my version of Birthday Bear onto a piece of white poster board. I broke it down into shapes starting with the round belly (I think I actually used a plate or something to trace around), and several circular shapes for the head, cheeks, and paws. The poster board had a grid on it which annoyed me at first, and then I realized that it would be helpful in the long one for finding more accurate proportions and placement.
3. I painted my Birthday Bear with acrylic paint, allowed it to dry, and touched it up as needed. Then, I outlined everything with a black Sharpie pen and used a magenta Sharpie to color in the sprinkles on the cupcake.
4. To make the game pieces, I used a piece of tracing paper and a pencil to trace the outline of the cupcake on his belly badge. Then, I cut it out, traced it onto a piece of boxboard (cereal box), and cut that out. This became my template for the pin-the-cupcake game pieces. I was able to trace 11 of them onto the poster board, using up a lot of the white space around Birthday Bear. I colored them with regular old markers, nothing special: 2 red, 1 orange, 2 yellow, 2 green, 2 blue, and 2 purple (since Mia and I had already agreed on largely using rainbow colors for the birthday decor). 
5. I took my nearly-completed game to Staples to have it laminated. The only downside is that it cost $10.60 to have it laminated, but that was a necessary evil for it to a) survive being played and b) spend the rest of its natural life living on Mia's bedroom door or wall.
6. Finally I used scissors to cut him out. For the small section between his arm and leg, I used my X-acto knife to trim this area. I figure that we can use a dry erase marker to write names on the game pieces and then put some rolls of tape on the back, that way the birthday guests can play the game more than once if they want.

DIY Rainbow Pull-String Pinata

Mia requested a Care Bear pinata for her upcoming birthday party. While I had successfully made a Lightning McQueen pinata for Logan's most recent birthday party, so she felt she should get one, too. The car was pretty boxy, which lent itself well to using a cardboard box. It only seemed fair to make her a pinata (before hopefully retiring from making pinatas), and I planned to work with cardboard again. However, I didn't think I could pull off something with some much roundness for my second-ever home-made pinata. So, I convinced her that a rainbow was perfect, and thankfully, she agreed. We had already decided that rainbow colors would be used for our decor since Care Bears are hard to find. This pinata took about 3 hours total to make and it isn't something I would recommend for craft novices. It is a pull-string pinata, because after spending all that time, who wants to see her creation beaten to a pulp in mere seconds? I'm not completely crazy, after all. The best thing, besides that it looks exactly the way I want (unlike the kind that I would have had to order online), is that it cost me nothing but my time since I already had all of the supplies at home. After the party, I plan to hang it from a hook in a corner of Mia's room. Mama's on a roll planning the Care Bear party.

Materials:

• corrugated cardboard
• boxboard
• scissors
• X-acto knife
• masking tape
• crepe paper in rainbow colors
• glue stick
• string (I used bakers twine)
• light blue curling ribbon 
• Scotch tape
• paper trimmer (optional)
• pen/pencil
• push pin

Directions:

1. Find a large, flat piece of corrugated cardboard. Cut it in half. To start the arc shape, I traced the top edge of a frying pan on one piece of cardboard. Then, I free-handed the rest of the rainbow shape. I cut it out and then traced it onto the other piece of cardboard, and then cut that out, too. The base of my rainbow ended up being 13 1/2" in diameter.
2. Draw a vertical line to find the center of your arch. A ruler helps with this. Then, I decided that my rainbow would be 4 1/2" wide. I used a ruler to help make lines (for the straighter parts only; there was free-hand drawing involved with the curved sections) to divide it into sections for each color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, so 6 altogether. I started at the bottom left and worked my way over to the center. Next, I cut out half of the inside arch (not the whole rainbow), flipped it over on top of the cardboard, and traced it to get the mirror image for the bottom line of my arc. Then, I cut out the second half of the inside arch. I now had a rainbow shape, which I traced onto my second piece of cardboard, and then cut out for a total of two complete rainbow shapes for the sides of the pinata. (Tip: It was easier to cut this if I used my scissors first on the straight sections and then cut into them with small pieces using whatever angle was handy. I just pulled away little bits at a time until I was finished rather than trying to cut it all out in one, long line.)
3. For the bases of the rainbow, I used a ruler to measure 2 cardboard squares measuring 4 1/2" x 4 1/2". I cut these out with scissors.
4. For the top and bottom arches of the pinata, I used boxboard (mostly cereal boxes, but there was some Barbie packaging involved since it was after Christmas and this was handy). I used my paper trimmer to measure strips that were 4 1/2" wide and then scored the boxboard with the trimmer. This gave me an easy line to follow with scissors. I think I needed a total of 3 boxes to get the amount I needed.
5. To assemble my rainbow, I started with my square bases. I used masking tape to adhere the bases to the cardboard arches -- 2 strips of tape per side on the outside and 3 strips of tape per side on the inside. I laid the arch flat on the table upright to make this easier. (Tip: Tear off several strips of tape prior to starting and have them near your work station. I just taped them along the edges of my table. My 3 year old helped by handing them to me one at a time.) You want each piece of tape to be folded horizontally so that about half of the tape is at the top and the other half is at the bottom of your cardboard seam. It doesn't have to be perfect, just sturdy enough to hold.
6. Next, I used my strips of boxboard to cover the top of the arch. Again, I used masking tape, both inside and outside. When I would get the the end of one strip, I would slightly overlap the next strip to the first and secure them with more tape. Working around curved sections required shorter pieces of tape. (Tip: Make sure that the inside of your boxes is facing the outside of your rainbow so that you don't have printing showing.)
7. I decorated the rainbow pinata with strips of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple crepe paper, all of which I had already, amazingly enough. (The red, yellow, green, and blue came in twin-packs from Dollar Tree. The purple was purchased at Target for her birthday party last year, and I have no clue about the orange, unfortunately.) I folded the crepe paper in half length-wise, cut strips, and used a glue stick to adhere them. I just started with red, and worked my way to the end, overlapped as needed. (Tip: As with the tape, it was easier to work around the curves using smaller lengths of crepe paper.) I did both sides like this as well as the top arch, which in retrospect, I could have made all red and saved myself some time. Oh, well. The inside (bottom) of the arch I did all with purple because I was tired by that point and wanted to be done. It looks just fine. (Tip: Do NOT use any other type of glue. It will be too wet, which will make your colors run and tear your crepe paper.)
8. To make the trap door, I cut away 3 sides from the underside of one of the bottom squares. The 3-sided flap is set in about 3/4" all the way around. Then, I used an X-acto blade to make slits in the bottom square, about 12 around the outside edges, and 6 in the center (on the flap). I cut lengths of light blue curling ribbon, inserted them into the slots, leaving an inch or so on the inside, and then carefully curled the rest. One length of ribbon was taped securely to the inside of the flap to actually open the pinata. All the rest are for show. I may have added extras to fill it in, but I don't remember now. On the other side of the rainbow, I added several more curled blue ribbons and just taped them on with Scotch tape.
9. For hanging, I poked 2 holes in the top, first with a push pin, and then I enlarged the holes with a pen. I struggled with getting my bakers twine in there and finally figured out a system that worked. I put the un-knotted bakers twine through the tops of each hole, pulled it through until it came out the bottom (luckily I could reach my hand all the way in), tied the ends together to make a secure knot (I had to knot it a few times to prevent it from slipping through the holes), and pulled it back through the top for a hanging loop.
10. The pinata only opens on the one side. Before the party, I will fill it with goodies and close it up, probably adding a little tape just so it stays closed long enough.