Lately we have noticed a large trend in Shopkins themed birthday parties, and we think it's such a fun theme and goes perfectly with a beading birthday party.

Here is how to have an amazing Shopkins themed beading birthday party.

First you need some Shopkins themed party invitations.  A great way to make invitations is to use a free online printable or template to create a custom Shopkins birthday party invite.  Here is a sample of a fun and easy template.

Once the invites are sent out it is time to start planning your party decor.  Use lots of bright colours.  Use online printables to print out large Shopkins characters or banners with Shopkins characters on them.  Using marker, add faces to popcorn cups to make your own Poppy Corn.

A fun idea of what to do at your party is to make Shopkins themed bff necklaces.  Here is a link showing you how to make these necklaces.  You can add this charm to any of our amazing birthday party packages.

Another fun game is to play Shopkins trivia or provide Shopkins colour pages.  Visit shopkinsworld.com for great printables.

Make your own Shopkins themed pinata and fill it with candy and Shopkins. 

When choosing your cake, be sure to include Shopkins in the theme, the guests will be thrilled to receive their own Shopkins.  An easy and fun idea is to frost cupcakes in your favourite bright colours and then place a Shopkin on top of each cupcake.

We hope you find our Shopkins birthday party tips helpful! 

We have noticed a trend lately of moms booking Paris themed jewelry making birthday parties for their tween daughters.  After doing some research we totally understand why!  A huge part of any Paris themed party is pearls and we have so many packages where the girls make beautiful glass pearl necklaces.  To see these packages visit our birthday party page.

The first thing when planning your Paris themed party is to decide on your party decor.  From our research we have noticed that most Paris themed birthday parties include the colours of soft pink, white and black, pearls, the Eiffel tower, roses, flowers, ruffles and poodles.  Since Paris is known as the city of lights, hang up lots of lights and hang Monet inspired paintings on the walls.  

The next thing to decide is on your party activities.  Of course, jewelry making is the perfect activity (and it becomes the party lootbag).  Other fun activities are to hire a mime to perform at the party, have the children draw carton portraits of each other, or play Eiffel tower ring toss.  We also suggest that you put out a box full of feather boas, glass pearl necklaces, sunglasses and hats and have the girls do a fashion show.  You can set up a photo booth and take some photos to help you remember the party.  

Food ideas for a Paris birthday parties are croissants, cheese tray, quiche, french bread, macaroons, cream puffs, pink lemonade and fruit salad (a cute idea is to make mini fruit salads in cupcake liners).  It is always a fun idea to have a Paris themed dessert table with french themed desserts such as Macroons, Eclairs and cream puffs as well as candy, cookies and cakes decorated with pink, black and white.  Visit our Paris birthday party ideas Pinterest page for more ideas.

We hope you find our Paris Birthday Party ideas for tweens helpful!  Please leave us a comment and let us know how your party went.

One of our most popular beaded projects that we teach is our "three wishes" bracelet.  We have made this bracelet with kindergarten classes, Sparks (Girl Guides of Canada) and church  groups as a Mother's Day Workshop.  We have also made this bracelet at many of our school workshops.  This holiday season, we have been making this bracelet at all of our holiday parties, this bracelet is perfect for boys and girls, moms and dads (even though dads prefer it without a heart charm).

We love the idea behind this bracelet, the idea that the wearer has three wishes when they receive this bracelet.  We also love the simplicity of it, and how easily it can be stacked with other bracelets to have an arm party.

Materials Needed:
48-52 - 4mm glass beads
3 - 3mm silver beads
1 - lobster clasp
1 j- ump ring
1 - heart charm
2 - 2 mm crimp beads
1 - piece of tigertail the length of your
      wrist and then add one inch.
1 - flat nosed pliers.

Directions:
Using the flat nosed pliers and the first crimp bead, attach the lobster clasp to one side of the tigertail . 

String the heart charm, and then string half of your beads onto the tigertail.  String the three silver beads, these beads are the three wishes. 

String the remainder of your beads onto the tigertail.  Using the flat nosed pliers and remaining crimp bead attach the other side of the tiger tail to the jump ring.

Enjoy your beautiful new three wishes bracelet!

We recently did a bollywood themed beading birthday party where the girls made tikka headpieces.  It was such a fun party and it really goes perfectly with the theme of beading.  The party was such a hit, that we are adding this theme to our beading party packages.

Here are some tips and tricks to help you throw your own amazing bollywood beading birthday party.

A cake for a bollywood birthday party should be very colourful with lots of bold colours. 

If possible use edible beads.  The goes well with the theme of beading and the theme of bollywood.  Use lots of gold and silver to make the cake look magical.

Every party needs a few themed crafts to keep the guests busy.  A simple and fun idea with big impact is to use sticker gem beads to decorate around the girls eyes.  Purchase some henna tattoos and have the girls apply the tattoos to each other while you are doing the face stickers.  Finally, another fun use of stickers gems is to buy flip flops for each guest and have them decorate them with the sticker gems.  This also becomes a fun take home loot bag. 

Another craft that we love is to have the girls create a Tikka.  We will soon be offering kits and packages on making your own Tikka, but in the meantime, check out this link for making a diy tikka headpiece click here.

Now that the girls are all blinged out with their eye jewels, henna tattoos, new slippers and tikka headpieces, it is time for the girls to do something active. 

Purchase some glass bangles for each child.  This can also become part of their take home loot bag.  Put on a bollywood music video and let the girls have some fun dancing along.

For  more ideas and bollywood themed birthday party inspiration, check out our pinterest page click here.  We hope you enjoyed this blog post about bollywood birthday parties.  If you have any suggestions of your own, we would love to know about them in the comments below.

We have noticed that many moms booking Beading Buds jewellery making birthday parties often go with a tea party theme.  One of our favourite tea party themes is a Fancy Nancy tea party, because you can go so over the top with this theme.

Invite
Make the invite as fancy as possible using stickers, sticker gems, ribbons and glitter.  There are many websites with Fancy Nancy printables.  The official Fancy Nancy website also has lots of printables for you to use at the party as part of the party entertainment.

Party Decor
Fancy Nancy is all about being fabulous!  So this is your chance for a super girly and fancy party.  Decorate the chairs and tables with pink feather boas, tiaras, big floppy hats, fancy sunglasses and pearl necklaces (this can also double as a party loot bag). 

Hang up big bunches of gold, silver, black and pink balloons and streamers.

Cake
Do a pink cake or cupcake and decorate with pink feather boas, tiaras, big floppy hats, fancy sunglasses and pearl necklaces or any combination of these items.

Party Activities
Go to the Fancy Nancy website to get lots of great printables for the guests to use.  You can provide a box of dressup clothes and have the girls do a fashion show.  This is a great chance for you to get some great photos of the girls.  A Beading Buds jewelry making kit is also a great option, the girls can make beautiful fancy jewelry.

There are so many other great ideas for a Fancy Nancy Party.  Check out our Fancy Nancy pinterest page for more party inspiration.

My 6 soon to be 7 year old daughter has been asking for a slumber party for her 7th birthday.

I don't think that her friends (and their moms) would be ready for that yet, and I don't think I am ready to have 15 7 year olds sleeping at over at our house. 

So I decided this year to throw her a mock slumber birthday party so she can have still have some slumber party fun.

My daughter is really into American Girl and Baby Alive dolls, so to go with the theme of the party, we are asking each guest to arrive in their fanciest pajamas and to bring their favourite doll.

After the guests arrive, our first activity is going to be beading of course.  Each girl is going to make matching necklaces for herself and her doll.  We are going to do our Beading Buds package I.

After that we are going to make and eat our own pizzas.  For some additional fun activity ideas check out our pinterest board here. 

Next we are going to have some slumber party fun.  We are going to make facemasks, paint nails, give the girls and their dolls makeovers using make-up and give the girls all the best hairsyles that we can dream up.   We will also play some sleepover party games.  For ideas click here.

Finally we are going to end off the party with a movie.  Since we are having this party in November, it should be dark early enough for the girls to feel like it is a real slumber party.

I am so excited to start putting all the pieces of this party together.  We will keep you posted to see how it went!  Visit our pinterest board for more mock slumber birthday party fun.

This time of year winter themed birthday parties are so popular.  We love how pretty and magical this theme can be, with sparkly silver and blue decor, cakes and winter themed activities. 

We have snow princess beading party package that is ideal for a winter wonderland party, a Frozen party, or any other winter themed party.

Here are some ideas to  help you make your winter themed party amazing.

For inexpensive but big impact, gather up branches and spray paint them silver, then add some glue and silver glitter.  These branches can be placed all over to give the room a magical feel.

Another fun idea is to make your own paper snowflakes and hang them from the ceiling.

Blow up silver and baby blue balloons, cover the top of the balloon in glue and add glitter, and then hang from the ceiling.

Finally, use silver holiday decorations to help with the magical feel.

There are so many fun desserts that you can have at you party that help to tie in the theme of beading with the frozen winter wonderland theme.  Macaroons look like beads and they can be frosted in silver and blue.  You can have blue cupcakes with little beads on them, and you can take marshmallows and dip them in blue jello powder and cellophane wrap them.  The marshmallow looks like a bead, and is a great lootbag idea that is inexpensive, simple and perfectly themed.

Our snow princess kits are the perfect addition to any  frozen winter wonderland theme party.  The kits come packaged individually for each child with a variety of blue and white glass pearls and a stunning heart clasp starting at $6 per child.  The activity takes the girls about 30 minutes to complete is the perfect lootbag.  For more information, click here.

Happy party planning!

Jewel Sparkles, one of the main characters from Lalaloopsy, is named after her infatuation with the most sparkly jewels she can dazzle herself with, and that is why beading is the perfect activity to have at your Lalaloopsy party.  With all the bight colours and quirky options, this is such a fun theme.

When planning your Lalaloopsy birthday party, buttons are a fun detail to incorporate to tie everything together.  You can make your own paper buttons and attach to straws, you can add fondant buttons to candy apples (click here) or cupcakes, you can make button cookies (click here) and you can draw button holes onto paper plates to turn them into giant buttons.

Jewelry making is a fun craft activity that keeps the children entertained while they make their own lootbag, for more information on our jewelry party kits, click here.  Another fun lootbag idea is to buy Lalaloopsy cups and fill them with treats and other goodies, you can then cellophane wrap them to have a simple but beautiful lootbag.

There are so many fun cakes and cupcakes that you can do for this theme. 

For more DIY Lalaloopsy birthday party ideas, click here to visit our pinterest page.

We hope you have a great Jewel Sparkles Lalaloopsy Beading Birthday Party.

Lately we have been obsessed with pink and gold birthday party decor, cakes, and everything else birthday party. 

We love how girly, luxurious, glam and pretty it is, and can go with so many themes. 

There are so many ways to incorporate pink and gold into a jewelry making birthday party.

For more pink and gold beading jewelry making party ideas, visit our pinterest page click here.

Another way to include pink and gold in your beading birthday party decor is to include pink and gold food in the shapes of beads such as macaroons, cakepops or cookies with sprinkles that look like beads.

One of the ways to use pink and gold in your jewellery making birthday party is to use it in your party decor. 

A great way to do this, is to use pink or gold beads, this helps to tie it in with the theme of beading and jewellery.  We absolutely adore this spray painted gold tree with pink crystals on it.  It adds such a magical and luxurious touch to any birthday party.

We also suggest pink and gold tissue paper flowers, garlands and balloons to complete and pink and gold party look.

Complete the pink and gold party look by using these colours in your loot bags. 

We  absolutely adore these beautiful loot bags.  We love how the polka dots on this tissue paper as well as the decals on the front of the bag look like beads and how they pull the whole pink and gold beading theme together.

Our princess kits are the perfect addition to any  pink and gold theme party.  The kits come packaged individually for each child with a variety of pink and white glass pearls and a stunning heart clasp starting at $6 per child.  The activity takes the girls about 30 minutes to complete is the perfect lootbag.  For more information, click here.

Happy party planning!

Over the past 6 years, as moms have booked parties, we have always suggested that they do a candy kabob making station at their party. 

This activity goes so well with the theme of beading, the kids love doing it, it is such a fun and easy activity and it becomes a inexpensive  and beautiful lootbag for them to bring home.  

Below are instructions for candy kabob making.

YOU WILL NEED:

• Gummy candy
• Ribbon
• Bamboo skewers
• Clear cellophane bags (I used 4×6 bags from michaels.)

Choose a variety of candies, if you are following a colour scheme at your party, this is a good chance for you to continue with that theme.  Each kabob uses  10 to 15 gummies per skewer, depending on candy size.

Place the gummy candies into bowls and place in the middle of the table.  Set up a skewer at each child's spot, have nametags ready so that the kabobs can be labeled with they are completed.

Have each child place the candies onto the skewer, pressing the candies 2/3 down the skewer. Alternate styles, sizes, flavors, and/or colors. 

Make sure that the children are careful with the bamboo skewers.  One of the ends is very sharp and the children may poke themselves if they are not careful.  Keep placing the candies on until the skewer is 2/3 full, all the way to the top on one end.

Place each kabob into a clear cellophane bag and tie with a ribbon.  Place a label with the child's name on the finished kabob.

For more amazing candy kabob inspiration, click here.