American Girl Crafts Party!

Today was the day for our American Girl Crafts party!  We had girls who ranged from 2nd grade to fifth, with the majority going into 4th grade.  I have mentioned this party in my last two blog posts--it has been my favorite upcoming project and has given me something really fun to look forward to when work has been so overwhelming!  It required a little bit of prep during my absolute busiest time of year as well as coordination of little girls' busy schedules, but we had so much fun!

To tell you about the process: I had to submit an interest in hosting a party to houseparty.com.  Once I was accepted, I had only 30 minutes to email invitations to at least ten guests.  That was a bit tough and I got a little creative, but we did it and received our party pack-- a huge box of American Girl My Life scrapbooks and oodles of stickers, pockets, stamps, tapes, and other embellishments.  It was fantastic and so generous!

I took advantage of back-to-school time and picked up glue sticks, Teflon scissors, markers, colored pencils, Sharpie no-bleed fine writing pens all at bargain prices.  I added in some stamps and stamp pads, patterned paper, paint chips (for illustrating favorite colors), and punches!

I created real invitations.  You can see the post for those by clicking here. I also made my own little photo journal to try out the style of scrapbooking the girls would be doing, although they needed no instruction from me and went to town on this!  You can see my post with my journal by clicking here.

Piper and I made simple favor bags using Close to My Heart stamps, the same Smash Tape I used on the invitations and my journal, and some American Girl Crafts stickers from Piper's stash. That Tiny Attacher courtesy of Sara Andrews really came in handy!

Inside are colored pencils, markers, doll-sized forks and knives, a notepad, candy, and a coupon that we were asked to give to our guests.  I found the doll-sized forks and spoons in the party department at Walmart.  They are supposed to be for appetizers but with clear mini ponytail holders that we included, they are perfect for dolls!

We picked up some fun, kid-style finger foods-- white grapes, baby carrots, brownie bites, strawberry mini muffins, Cheez-its, mini pretzels, M&Ms, and Sour Patch Kids.  I was going for non-staining foods so the girls could craft and eat without getting their papercrafts soiled.   We were trying to think things through but that pesky detail about table space... not so much... I did add a card table to the end of our kitchen table, but we were still pretty crowded!

Even so, those girls were so creative and made some really fun pages!

At some point, the girls were ready to just play and goof off.  A couple girls kept crafting but my kiddo couldn't resist time with friends and dolls!

In the end, after all of her sweet friends left, as I was picking up the house, she told me, "I want to finish my book now!"

I got messages from two moms that their girls crafted again when they got home too!

And the funny thing is that recently my kiddo told me she didn't like paper crafts.  After today's party, she told me she loved this.  I think her new love of photography really played into this too and crafting with friends is always fun, right?  She actually told me she finally understood why I like memory-keeping!  How about that!?

OK, moms, for a little personal critique of the American Girl Crafts:  The 'My Life' journal's size and writing prompts on the pages seemed pretty perfect for these girls.  The glue pen that came with the journals was okay but it was a problem if a girl "over-dialed" the size.  Unlike regular glue sticks, the glue couldn't be pushed back down and because it was skinny, that could be a mess!  I was glad I had regular glue sticks for them to use!  The embellishments were much-loved!  The hottest stickers were the ones with descriptive words they could use on pictures of themselves.  The individual chipboard letters were also very popular!  One little girl really rocked the 'Keep It Clips' but most of the girls seemed to be unsure of how to use them, gearing more toward tapes and stickers.  The Design It Tape was not as popular as the washi tape I provided.  (They LOVED washi tape, by the way!) The sticker pad that featured photo images of dolls, pets, and accessories were fun for all of the girls! They also seemed to love the self-inking stamps and the 'Stuff It' pockets they could add into their books!  My kiddo loved the dimensional stickers but I think she was the only one who used them.  Overall, I think this line is really great for girls and makes it easy for them to create something fun!

This project created a really fun 'snapshot' of my daughter's interests and insights at this age-- and I like that because it is more true to her than anything I could scrap or journal about her.  This is really a special scrapbook for that reason!  I like how fun and fast this was for the girls to put together!

Thank you for checking my blog post today!  This was such a fun break to a super-busy summer!

American Girl Crafts Party! Step One: Invitations

Summer for our family is all about work, but when Jenny of Jenny K. Scrappin Addict sent me a link to an American Girl Crafts Houseparty opportunity, I decided that it sounded like too much fun to pass up.  I mean, can you think of a better combo for a 9-year-old girl than American Girl dolls, crafts, and friends?

I was shocked when we got our party pack and saw all the fun stuff they sent!

I knew we were going to have some pretty excited girls!  Fabby stuff and lots of it, all coordinated, fun, and just right for crafty girls!

The Houseparty model is that you email invitations to ten people (mostly to prove that you are going to invite people I think and it is required for the selection process so we did it) but honestly, email invitations are not our style and they are always a little too impersonal so the first order of business was to create some fun ones to snail-mail out!

The American Girl Crafts stuff they sent was centered around a Smash-style scrapbooking line for girls in the American Girl brand called My Life Scrap and Stuff Books.

They sent enough for each girl to have one and then sent three-of-some and five-of-other packages of embellies, Stuff It Pockets, Design It Tape, stickers, Keep It Clips, stamps, and who-knows-what-all for the girls to share when putting together their books.  I wanted my invitations to have that kind of 'smash' look but I didn't want to open any of the American Girl Crafts supplies, saving those for the girls!

I started with taking some fun photos of my daughter with one of her dolls.  Her idea was that the doll would hold a banner, looking a little 3D.

We tried several things and my daughter had her own ideas...

But in the end, we picked this one.

I cut out around them so they would pop a little.

I used Cricut Creative Memories Holiday Frames and Tags to cut the banner at 1-3/4".  I used some Close to My Heart letter stamps that I got free a while back for the letters on the banners.  I ended up outlining them with micro pen to help them stand out on that chevron paper.

I used a mattress needle to lace twine through the banner cut and left tails long enough to wrap around the doll hands.

Next, I used the new Artbooking Cricut cartridge from Close to My Heart.  Wowsers-- so many cool things on that!  I picked a sunburst from page 52, cutting at 5-1/4".  If you are looking for a great rep to buy this from, check out my friend, Christie!  If you contact her at christie.tompkins@gmail.com, she can give you prices, specials, and discounts going on!  Christie is someone who lives just a few miles from me, but we met through the Cricut Circle message board and then in-person at a crop.  You may know her as SingnScrap if you visit that board.  Yes, she has a great voice and really does sing with a group!

I cut the card bases at 9"x6" and folded down to finish at 4-1/2" x 6".  I have a confession:  until this project, I have never used washi tape.  I bought a roll of Smash washi tape just for this project.

I also added it to the factory-made envelopes that I just happened to find in my stash that were the right size to make them coordinate a bit with the cards (and to make them stand out in the mail so they wouldn't be overlooked once delivered).

Mailed and official!  We are having a party!