Fake An Injury Party

Sorry for the length between posts but things have been pretty busy around here. This should have been up on the blog in November! My church's Adult Sunday School class has a big meeting every quarter. The October meeting always falls around Halloween so we decided to have a fun theme. I found the idea for a "Fake An Injury" party on Pinterest and the rest was history! Now, I cannot take credit for this idea. I follow a GREAT blog, inviteanddelight.blogspot.com, that has creative ideas for parties and gatherings. I also got some other ideas on Pinterest. I'll share all the information below with the pictures I took at the party.

"Used Band-aids" These were made with graham crackers, cupcake icing in a can, and strawberry-apple sauce. They looked nasty! (Idea credit: katherinemaries.com)

"Dirty Q-Tips" Small marshmallows dipped in creamy peanut butter on both ends of a toothpick. (Idea credit: katherinemaries.com)

"Brain!" Strawberry Jell-O in a brain mold. I actually purchased this directly from the Jell-O store online. It came with directions for different mixes to put in it to make cool colors! Find it here.

"Leprous Hands" Microwave-popped popcorn covered in white cheddar seasoning, placed in a vinyl, powder-free glove. I'm embarrassed to say that I misspelled "leprous" in the pic. Oops! These were my idea!

"Bandaged Heads" My co-host, Caryn, brought these. I think she got them in the store with everything included, minus the actual cupcakes. They are so cute! They were meant to be "mummy cupcakes" but we renamed them for the party theme.

Now, here are a few of the guests who showed up with "injuries"...

There are lots of other things we did that I didn't get pictures of. Everyone had to sign in like they were entering an emergency room. The paper required their full legal name, symptoms, etc. We read them off later and some of them were pretty hilarious. The food was served on cafeteria-style trays. We had a photo booth with doctor props. The booth was set up like a hospital room. The punch was blood red. Like I said, great ideas but no pics. =+( It was a great time had by all. I'm sure we'll do something like it again in the future. It is my hope that you will glean some ideas from this post and use it for your next Halloween party!

Cowboy Baby Shower

I must say...I love Pinterest! I found so many great ideas for this shower from there. I will do my best to share all the links for those that would like to have a similar party.

The idea of the cowboy shower came from the mommy-to-be. As you can see, they have three beautiful girls already. But this is their first boy! We sat down at lunch one day and talked about what she did and didn't want at the shower. From there, I did my research and came up with a game plan.

We used a large piece of jean material as our table cloth. We placed a few clean root beer bottles filled with sunflowers on the table. Overhead, my "partner-in-crime," Caryn, made the sunflower pomanders for a feminine touch. To make the plain white plates not so plain, we used Caryn's straw plate holders. She also found the bandanna napkins. Our menu was all Southwest-style:

Southwest Cornbread Salad
Red Beans & Rice (from a box)
7-Layer Dip w/Tortilla Chips
Fiesta Bites
Taco Bake
White Chicken Enchiladas
Fruit Trifle

Caryn made the cake and did an excellent job. I also found this design on Pinterest. But Caryn thought putting the flowers on top would be best. She was right! Not pictured is our drink station. We did a Root Beer Float punch with a sign that said, "Waterin' Hole." Wish I had gotten a pic of it!

The table cover for the favor table was made by a lady in our church. I believe it was originally designed to be a picnic blanket but it worked perfectly for our theme. The favors is a homemade trail mix (Chex, raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms) placed inside a small mason jar. We printed labels on brown kraft paper saying, "Happy Trails," and tied a piece of twine around the lid. Caryn did a great job placing the favors in the crates.

The gift table had the same jean material that was on the food table. I had some country garland in our puppet room that I used as decoration. And Caryn had some cow-spotted balloons put in the back.

At our Wishing Tree table, guests were invited to write a wish for the baby. The wishes were hung with twine on a small lighted tree. The wishing tree idea came from someone else. Although, I put my own spin on the tree itself. I found this lighted tree at A.C. Moore. I looked online for a link to it, but couldn't find one. The mommy-to-be is going to use it as a nightlight!

Now comes the fun part! We did "Wanted" photos! As you can see we had props for the guests to use. It may be hard to see but we used mustaches on the sticks. Every outlaw needs a good handlebar mustache! I found the mustaches (which were sticky on the backside) at the dollar store. But here is a link for some printable ones. Here are just a few pics from the guests...

I took ALL of the pics above on my phone, the Samsung Galaxy S III. I used my all-time favorite app, Pixlr-o-matic, to make the pics look more authentic. My only regret is that I'd had more room to take these pics directly in front of the panel board! They would've come out a lot better. But we had a great time and my main goal is that Mommy is happy with it.

Now, here are links to help you get some ideas!
Blog with the original cowboy/western shower idea
The invites we used
All the signs you saw in the pictures

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them here! Signing out...

Rebecca