birthday party
Inspired… Our latest Designing Moms post.
Our latest post at Designing Moms
Photos courtesy of Docuvitae
Did any of you read The Last Lecture written by father of three and professor, Randy Pausch? At the time in 2007, he was dying of pancreatic cancer…he gave this amazing lecture on fulfilling your childhood dreams to his students at Carnegie Mellon. It’s been made into a book and you can also watch it here. I always love remembering something he said in that lecture:
“When I was in high school, I decided to paint my bedroom.
I always wanted a submarine and an elevator… And the great thing about this is
they let me do it. And they didn’t get upset about it. And it’s still there.
If you go to my parent’s house it’s still there. And anybody who is out there
who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedroom, as a favor to me
let them do it. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry about resale value on the house.” (from The Last Lecture)
I, like so many others, was inspired by his powerful message. He had learned something from the hardship he and his family was enduring and he decided to do something to benefit not only his own children, but many many other people simply by sharing his lessons…they are valuable lessons for us all. The lesson that has stuck with me on a day to day basis…as a parent…is this idea of letting our children paint their walls…yes literally…but it means something philosophically as well…help your children find their creativity…nurture it…I love the idea of letting my child be free to express himself whenever he needs to.
At the same time….“Mommy expressed herself when she designed and decorated your room!” “Don’t you love what mommy did????” I’m sure many of you creative moms can relate. So how do we both, instill in our kids an appreciation for good design and a respect for their personal objects? We want them to know it’s important to keep our things nice and neat…that’s a good thing to teach them…but…how wonderful to give them ample room for creative expression. I have found some ways to do this and so has my Tin Parade partner, Kristen. We each have created a sort of art nook behind our kids bedroom doors where they can hang all their precious creations.
Photo by Laura Kleinhenz at Docuvitae
and Kristen has a great chalkboard wall at kid friendly height that they can do whatever they want on.
I also have two chalkboard sections on my sons walls. These have worked great for us but I’d love to hear from some of you on what you did like this to nurture your child’s artistic side. Anyone let their kids paint a wall? I’d love to see it!
Also, I had to share this great product I came across in Land of Nod. It’s a wallpaper of frames…has anyone used this? I am dying to design a children’s room with this for someone.
Oh no…the star wars party!!
I just realized I was going to post my son’s Star Wars party and never did. So sorry. I know you’ve been lying in bed at night wondering…waiting…hoping…wishing you could wake up to my post on this party. Well. Let me start by saying….me…not so excited about doing a Star Wars party…but I ended up having a great time planning it and an even better time watching my little Jedi beam all day. He was so happy and full of pure joy the entire time. His friends also had a great time.
My goal was to make it super fun, creative and NOT canned….and trust me…that is exactly what you’ll find out there when trying to throw a Star Wars party….it’s mostly a bunch of …pardon me…crap! There are yoda erasers and plastic disks with a stickers on them that don’t actually work…and other mindless ….ahem…crap! Soooooo cut to…Ryan Larson cutting, sewing, sweating, gluing, yawning…..and voila! Take a look:
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- Jedi robes for all of the kids…even tini tiny ones for the toddlers.
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- I printed their Jedi Training Mission on their bags for the Darth Vader Pinata goodies.
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- Yes, I made a 7ft. by 7ft. Millennium Falcon Cockpit Window.
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- Props for photo backdrop. Complete with Princess Leia bagels on a head band.
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- Kristen’s little Jedi’s with the 6ft. C3P0 and R2D2
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- Jedi Master telling the young Padiwans their next challenge. (those are the lights sabers we had the kids make when they arrived)
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- Happy boy.
Also, here is the wording we used for the mission bags in case you are interested…feel free to copy!!!
Jedi Training Challenges
Do or do not. There is no try. – Yoda
ð Adorn the proper Jedi attire. (I made Jedi robes…I found the idea for how to make them on a moms blog somewhere on the internet but I havnt found it again…however it was brown felt, no sewing..and yarn belt)
ð Make a true light saber. (I found cardboard tubes at a fabric store from fabric rolls and taped the “handles” with grey duct tape and let them put their choice color of construction paper on the tubes)
ð Fly Han’s Solos spaceship with C3P0 & R2D2 (cockpit window/photo backdrop)
ð Form your battle plan. (coloring pages)
ð Learn the Jedi way from a Jedi Master. (we had a Jedi come for an hour)
ð Destroy the death star. (they had to use a water gun on a paper death star I made with a spot of paint that ran down the page when hit)
Jedi Training is complete. But the real test is yet to come. Young Jedi, your mission is to destroy darth vader. (this was a Darth Vader head pinata)
ð Vader has been defeated.
THE JEDI ARE VICTORIOUS.
GO CELEBRATE WITH CAKE!
for more fabulous parties check out our site Tin Parade Vintage Party Goods
