Winter Party -10yr- Blizzard Relay

For my Daughter's Summer Birthday we switched it up this year and invited her friends to have a Cool Time with Meg at her winter themed party.   

INVITATIONS:  We made snow globes using baby food jars and added items (carrot, black hat  both made from clay - buttons, coal, plastic snowflakes and snowflake confetti) to make it look as though a snowman had melted - from the heat of course.  We used a yarn scarf to attach a tag that had the details for the party on one side and this poem on the other side:  I made you a snowman/and it was a perfect as could be.  I scribbled in the snow next to it/details for my 10th birthday party.  It said to bring a sleeping bag, pajamas/and a pillow for your head.  Though let's face it, there's only/ a slight chance we'll even go to bed!  I put it in this snow globe/and ran to by a stamp.  But when I returned/the globe it was all damp!  

DECORATIONS:   I transformed our basement into a winter wonderland.  I moved out most of the furniture (not the TV) to make room for our dome tent which I turned into an Igloo by covering it in cheap white flat sheets and then used tempra paint on the edges of a shoebox for a stencil to make the ice blocks and then dry bushed the paint.  It turned out soo awesome.  I have pictures if anyone would like to see it.  I hung blue & white streamers around the opening at the bottom of the stairs that the kids had to walk through and also used it for a back drop for pictures later.  I blew up lots and lots of white balloons and put individual pieces of blue yarn in various lengths in each balloon (for a game later) and scattered them all over the floor.  With fishing line I hung from the ceiling stars that I traced with glow in the dark glue and snowflakes made from doilies.  I also hung from the ceiling white Christmas lights and sat all of my snowman decorations at various places around the room.  Fans blowing from all four corners of the room simulated a cold winter breeze and, as a bonus, it blew the balloons around like a snowstorm! 

FOOD:  Dinner was soup served in bread bowls, salad and chips/veggies & dip.  For the chips & dip I used a snowman cake pan and baked bread in it.  I hollowed out a hole in the stomach and filled it with dip.  There is a picture & recipe on Wilton.com in their recipe box under Bread Snowman.  The cake was white cupcakes decorated like 3-D snowmen.  The idea is from FamilyFun.com only tweaked just a little since their directions didn't work soo well.  I used a wooden skewer and three marshmallows.  Also, instead of a junior mint on top of a thin mint (it looked too small) we used the mini Reece's PB cups upside down on top of Grasshopper cookies.  Everything else worked great.  We had snow cones instead of punch.  The next morning we had snowballs (doughnut holes) and hot chocolate (chocolate milk in coffee mugs). 

GAMES/ACTIVITIES:   As the party guests arrived they were given a sheet that had the word SNOWFLAKE in big letters at the top and then numbered, blank spaces where they were to write down all the words they could make from it.  Ankle was one of the words  Amazing!    We then took the girls skating where I handed out matching gloves and scarves (that I bought from Ltd II at the end of the winter season buy 1 get 2 free sale) that would later be dried out and put in their treat bags.  I also arranged for a ½ hour private lesson before the skate session. 

The games we played (back at home) included a Snowball Relay - we used cotton balls and straws (they had to suck a cotton ball with the straw and carry it that way to the finish line).  A Blizzard Relay blow balloons across the floor to the finish line.  We played a game called What-do-you mean-no-two-snowflakes-are-alike? I gave each girl a snowflake that matched one hanging from the ceiling and they had to find their perfect match (the trick is to cut two doilies at once and then put a matching teeny tiny dot of color on the matches so you can quickly verify).  The first one to find their perfect match wins.  You could also time each girl individually for two minutes to see how many perfect matches they could find.  For lights out we put in the movie Ice Princess.  I'm not sure they actually went to sleep as I heard "American Eskimo Karaoke" filtering upstairs later on that night(or was it morning!).  I should have included "American Eskimo Karaoke" as an activity! 

Games for the morning included a timed Race to the Klondike. The girls really helped make this race much more exciting than I had planned because after the first couple girls went it turned into a mission to rescue a baby from a hungry polar bear.  At the first station they had to dress for the trip by putting on ski pants, a winter coat, boots and gloves (we used my husband's so they would fit everyone) and then they had to go to the ice fishing pond and catch a certain fish (one with a star on it) to feed to the bear.  The fishing pole was just a long stick with a string tied to it and a magnet on the end  the fish were laminated and had a paper clip on the end.  Then they had to go to the arctic circle where they had to weave yarn (leftover from the icicle game) around the four chairs that sat around a round table.  Finally they took the fish to the igloo, fed it to the bear, rescued the baby and raced to the finish line. The kids loved this.  Finally, I had the Icicle Game.  The balloons were divided up and the girls had to pop them and collect the yarn inside. Once all the balloons were popped the girls lined up the yarn end-to-end to see who had the longest icicle.  As a bonus this game helps clean up and get rid of all those balloons because The-Girl-With-the-Biggest-Pile-of-Broken-Balloon-Pieces can be a game too!  

TREATBAG:  The Treat bag was a plain white gift bag with the words Snow Much Fun stenciled on it.  I didn't, because of the time factor, but as a craft you could have the bags pre-stenciled and then let the kids put the snowflake stickers and other decorations on them.  Inside the bag were the gloves and scarves as the main treat, various non-chocolate winter candies (bought after Christmas) and a refrigerator magnet memento - I printed out a group picture of the girls from the evening, mounted it on a piece of cardstock that had Some of My Best Friends are Flakes as a title, laminated it and put a magnet on the back.  I finished it with a silky blue ribbon used to tie a bow on the handles. 

Truly this party was SNOW MUCH FUN!