Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Frugal Teen Birthday Party *Part 1*

Today at 10:00am my daughters' birthday party began. Since they are a year and two weeks apart it makes a lot of sense to combine birthday activities. Last year we gave them a choice, have a traditional birthday party with lots of people or pick two close friends each and invite them for a sleepover at the cabin in the Adirondacks. They both jumped at the chance to have two friends spend the night in our little utopia. It went so well that we're in the process of doing it again this year.

The two and a half hour car ride up was filled with first days of school gossip and a few car games. Once we got here, the bathing suits were donned, the inner tubes and inflatable boats were pumped up and we hit the lake for some chilly fun (summer has definitely ended in the Adirondacks!)

For dinner the girls made their own vegan pizzas. I had the dough already made, they shaped the dough, grated their own cheese and put on their own sauce. In retrospect this went better last year when the dough was room temperature and easier to work with but it still was an overall hit.

Afterwards the kids did some crafts. We chose to decorate canvas bags that we had left over from a project a few years ago (they were from Oriental Trading). The girls used fabric markers and paint that we already had, although we did pick up a few new tubes just in case.

Our second project was to make record bowls. We took record that were rejects from my hubby's collection (either scratched or wrong genre) and put them in a 200 degree oven on a metal bowl on top of a cookie sheet for 2 to 5 minutes (it depends on the thickness of the record, older ones seem to be thicker). Then remove the cookie sheet from and oven and shape your bowl. The bowl on top of the cookie sheet can be placed right side up and you can push the softened record into it to create a bowl. Or put the bowl upside down and let the record begin to droop over it then use your hands to create your own shape. If you mess up return the record to the oven and try again.

Then it was time for cake and presents. One daughter wanted an ice cream cake, the other a cookie cake. These were put together in advance and were a big hit. Making your own ice cream cake is super easy, I'll post how tomorrow night. Right now I'm pooped and need to get to bed. The girls are winding up their night by watching a movie.

Tomorrow, breakfast, a little fun, lunch and the drive home...

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