LuckySponge's Profile

Agreed. I used Oxyclean to get wine spots out of a favorite shirt and a couple of washes later it had holes in it!

I just threw my first bday party for my son who turned 4 on Saturday and it was a hit. Keep it small - I allowed him to pick 4 friends (one for each year of his age). For every kid, you'll have 1 or 2 parents plus siblings, so limit the guest list. I had mine from 2-4pm, so could limit food to snacks and cake. I opted not to do a craft project as I didn't want to deal with a mess and needed to keep costs down. Instead, I focused on fun games, decorations, and cake.

Games: We did "pass the parcel" (google it). Our party theme was dinosaurs, so put a dino temporary tattoo (found on ebay cheap) in small balloons and wrote each kids' name on them and we had a dinosaur egg hunt. When they found their "egg" they brought it back and everyone had to hatch their egg by sitting/stepping on the balloon to reveal the prize inside. I had adults ready to help apply the tattoos. We also played dinosaur stomp where I tied a long piece of streamer to each child's waist making a long tail hang down in the back. The kids had to stomp on each others tails to break them off.

Decor: Kids love balloons - leave some loose on the floor for them to play with. As guests arrived they were immediately drawn to the balloons.

Cake: We did a dinosaur cake at my son's request. He did a stellar job, but I also made cupcakes in ice cream cones that were frosted and covered w/ rainbow sprinkles and little dinosaur toppers that I made. The kids couldn't wait to get their hands on them.

That's what worked for me and I had other parents telling me they would have me plan their next birthday party. It went really, minimal mess, low cost and most importantly everyone had fun! Good luck.

I love receiving cards and have total respect for people who have their act together enough to send them out. For me, it's just too stressful to try to conquer that task and I think it's better for the environment and wallet to forgo them. However, I do like to send a hilarious and personalized e-greeting from jibjab.com. It's free and the kids love to watch themselves animated as do the recipients.

We just sampled a bunch of greys for our family room that is adjacent to a couple of blue and green rooms. I also was looking for a BM grey as I really like their colors best, but I prefer the Sherwin Williams Harmony paint. We narrowed it down to Grey Owl and Titanium from Benjamin Moore and selected Titanium as the winner for our room. It is a soft warm grey - not bluish at all. Grey Owl is very much a true grey if that's what you're looking for. Both are designer picks as favorite greys.