Day-Lee Life: Bowling Party for Ethan's 10th Birthday

Ethan's 10th birthday was approaching quickly and it dawned on Russ and I two weekends before it that we had yet to plan his party. What to do??

Thank goodness for Google and Pinterest. Within a couple of hours we had weeded out lots of ideas that would have been cute and fun but out of our budget, and landed on an idea that was easy, affordable and excited the birthday boy.

The Location

The regular bowling alleys would have been too expensive for us for the number of boys invited but thankfully our local university, Fresno State, has a bowling alley in its student union that can be reserved by anyone and is so much less. Their party package is $17 per lane/per hour for minimum of two lanes and two hours. That includes the cost of shoe rentals too. Such a deal!

The Invite

Then I was on the hunt for a cute invite that I could quickly create using supplies I already had on hand. I'm a scrapbooker so knew that shouldn't be too hard to find. Back to Pinterest I went and found my inspiration http://pinterest.com/pin/62557882296408493/. Here's my adaptation below and how I made it.

Did I mention I scrapbook? First task was to go
shopping amongst my paper supplies. I knew I'd
have something that would work for the invite's
background and bowling ball.

I knew this was a steal when I found it at Tuesday Morning
and would come in handy for a project one day. I trimmed the
12x12 sheets to get two pieces that were 5.5"x8.5".

I used a plastic cup to trace circles onto black
paper for the bowling bowls.

I used a small circle punch to make the three
circles needed for each bowling ball to be
the finger holes.

Using Microsoft Word, I typed up the wording
and to save paper, copied to get three to a sheet.

Also using Word, I inserted a clip art image of a
bowling pin.

I resized the image.

I added a text box to fit within the bowling ball
so I could add the details of the party.

I formatted the text box to have no shape fill
and no outline.

Then I glued all the elements down on the blue
metallic cardstock for the finished invite.

The Favors

I was trying to think of something that would work for 10 year old boys as a party favor. I think they've gotten to the age where it isn't really necessary to give gift bags put I still wanted to give something to take home as a small thank you for coming to celebrate with us. I decided on a plain chocolate Hershey bar (Ethan's favorite) and doctored it up to fit the theme.

Chocolate Hershey bar recovered to fit the bowling theme

The Cake

I enjoy making the kids' birthday cakes. I'm not trying to win any competitions for cake decorating...obviously :)

They never turn out exactly the way I envision in my head and I always end up getting frustrated somewhere along the process but I still like doing it for each child.

I found these miniature bowling pins and ball at
World Market by total chance and they were on clearance
for $5. They were perfect for the cake and bonus is
Ethan has a tabletop bowling game to play now.

Party Time

I had each boy sign the matting around the picture as a momento
for Ethan to keep. I plan to swap the picture out with one of him
with all his pals.

The Cake Table

Ready to start bowling!

Ethan's first frame

Cousins & Best Friends

Ethan and his pal Logan

The party was at 2pm so wasn't planning to serve
anything but cake and water but the boys kept saying
they were hungry so we ordered pizza.

Noni and Papa watching all the action.

Grandma giggling with Kendall and Ben being
camera shy.

Rebecca waiting for her turn as Uncle Aaron and
Amanda watch.

My oldest brother David wanted to bowl too.

David and Ben

The 2 hours was just the right amount of time for the party. They
all had a chance to bowl two games and I think they would have
started to lose interest if it was any longer.