DIY : Allstar Baseball Party

Last weekend we threw an all star baseball party for Zachery's second birthday! It was a whole lot of fun and so fitting for our little sports lover.

If there are any other little baseball lovers out there with summer birthdays than this is the theme for you! We however just had to make the best of the indoors with our dreary January weather. Regardless of indoor/outdoor this theme was actually very simple to put together, which is handy if your life is like mine...FULL!

So first things first Rylee and I made a baseball piñata... think batting practice! This was a fun craft for her and me and it was cool to be able to teach her how to paper mache for the very first time! If you've never paper mache'd before, its super easy you just need to allow for drying time (however a blow dryer does wonders if your in a pinch). All you need is old newspaper or scrap paper (cut in 1 in. wide strips), a balloon, flour and water (mix smooth 1 to 1 ratio). Blow up your balloon, dip your strips in flour paste and apply to balloon overlapping a bit and leaving a hole at the top of balloon to add candy's. Let dry for 24hrs. I tied string around the balloon so that it could be hung later on and then put another layer on. Let dry 24 hrs. Pop balloon and pull it out. Insert Candy. Apply two layers over hole (allowing time to dry in between layers). Apply third layer with plain white paper strips. Paint white and allow to dry. Paint red stitches and allow to dry. And just like that your done!

In addition to the piñata we also played "Pin the Ball on the Bat". I just cut out some cardboard in the shape of a bat and printed out some baseballs and attached some scotch tape to the back to make them stick (obviously :P).

Next thing I made was the concession flag to hang over the snacks. I just used white cardstock for the flags. And I downloaded this baseball worthy font, and printed out the letters to trace onto red cardstock, cut them out and glue them to the white flags. A fun little thing we did for the kids was give them tickets that they could buy their own snacks from the concession. For additional decorations I used red sharpie to draw stitching on white balloons to make baseballs and hung them from the ceiling. I also used the kids baseball gloves as some added décor in the concession stand.

For food we went with the baseball classic, hot dogs, how can you not?! Then we had Baby Babe Ruth chocolate bars which I found at Walmart. We had snack size chips and popcorn (which could easily be substituted with Cracker Jacks...I wanted to but just didn't have time to make it). For drinks we had lemonade and last but not least the birthday cup"cake" was in the form of a baseball glove (with a HORRIBLE marshmallow baseball... definitely a Pinterest fail right there!).

**Some extra ideas for a summer party would be a slip 'n' slide for sliding practice, a board with cut outs for some good ol' pitching practice, and don't forget to pull out the BBQ for them hot dogs!