I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m the Room Mom for my 1st grader’s class and I love it!  What’s not to love about planning parties, right??!!  So I’ve been trying to figure out what we’re going to be doing for our Valentine’s Day Party and I thought I’d share with you some ideas for school parties, in case you’re helping with classroom parties as well!

Okay, I know this first activity isn’t very original, but the kids just LOVE to decorate sugar cookies, so that’s one of the activities we’ll be doing.  Give the kids 2 cookies each to decorate, adding their own frosting, sprinkles and candies.  You could have pink, red and white frosting to mix it up a little bit and of course your local grocery stores will have tons of sprinkles and Valentine’s Day candy to decorate the cookies.

You also have to have a craft or two, right??  I decided we’ll be making these cute conversation heart pencil toppers I found on Disney’s Family Fun website.  I thought they were fun and practical too!

Here are some other craft/activity ideas…

A Valentine’s Day candy necklace would be fun!  This idea is also from Disney’s Family Fun website.

These lollipop flowers from All You are simple and cute!

I thought these tissue paper flowers from Kaboose would be great for the kids to make and give to their mom’s.

Now for some games…

We are going to play a couple of games with conversation hearts.  For the first one, the kids will use chopsticks to see how many small hearts they can move from a large container to their plate/bowl in a certain amount of time (1-2 minutes).  Whoever has the most hearts at the end is the winner.

The second game is to see how many large conversation hearts the kids can stack on top of each other before the tower tips over!  The tower has to stand for 3 seconds and whoever has the most hearts in their tower wins.

Picture above and ideas are from One Charming Party.

Bingo is another favorite for younger children and here are a couple of free printable Bingo cards you can use.  Small conversation hearts, candy corns and M&M’s make great markers.

Sweet Shop Bingo from Birthday In a Box

Valentine’s Day Bingo from Simply Fresh Designs

I thought this Valentine food pair game by B. Nute productions would be fun too.

You’ve all probably heard of the game “Don’t Eat Pete”…I’ve never played it, but I hear it’s a HIT with the kids.  To play, you put a small snack or piece of candy (I’ll be using M&M’s) in each square.  One person leaves them room and everyone else decides which square is going to be “Pete”.  Then the child comes back and starts eating the candies one at a time.  When he eats the candy on the chosen square, everyone yells “Don’t Eat Pete!”

I found a couple of free, printable Don’t Eat Pete games for Valentine’s Day.  We’ll be playing this at our party…I just haven’t decided if I’m using one of these, or making my own with scrapbook paper…we’ll see how organized I am!!

LOVE this colored heart one from Smitten Blog Designs

Don’t Eat Val with cute doggies from Tip Junkie

I recently made my own version of Don’t Eat Pete for Valentine’s Day and you can download it HERE!

Do you guys have any fun games or crafts that would be great for school parties?  I’d love to hear about them!!

The post School Valentine’s Day Party Ideas appeared first on Paper Crush.

I’m really excited to let you know that I am going to be a regular contributor on the SNAP! Conference blog!  I will be sharing some party and entertaining ideas twice a month, with my first post starting today with details on the project pictured below!  So head on over to the SNAP! blog to check it out!!

In case you aren’t familiar with SNAP! – it is a 3 day conference on April 19-21, 2012 that is being held here in my hometown…Salt Lake City, Utah!!  Well, Lehi, Utah, actually (about 30 minutes from the SLC airport)…at beautiful Thanksgiving Point.  Seriously, a fabulous location with beautiful gardens, restaurants, and one of the coolest home decorating and accessory shops in the valley – The Emporium.  The conference is geared toward bloggers representing modern handmade, contemporary craft, mind-blowing events and home DIY.  There are some absolutely wonderful speakers lined up – seriously amazing!!  I personally am so excited about the event track – Brittany from One Charming Party is part of the SNAP! Conference team and some of the party experts that are speaking include Kim at TheTomKat Studio, Kara from Kara’s Party Ideas, Courtney from Pizzazzerie, Stephanie from Couture Parties and Michelle from Maddycakes Muse.  My darling photographer friend Emilie is also speaking, along with TONS of other well-know bloggers.  For a list of speakers, go HERE and for more information on the conference itself, visit the SNAP! website HERE.

I attended my first blogging conference in Arizona last year and it was fabulous and so much fun!  I hadn’t even started my blog yet, so it was wonderful to get some great information about blogging as well as meeting some amazing new friends that share the same passion as me!  So if you already have a blog, or are even thinking about starting a blog, I would totally recommend attending this conference!  If some of you are already planning on coming, let me know in the comments below – I’d LOVE to meet you!!  Or if you have questions about coming, just ask…I can help!

I also thought I’d share with you my Valentine’s Day party from last year.  I didn’t have a blog when I held the party last year, so it didn’t get posted until April.  This was my first party after discovering the online party world and I had so much fun planning this party for my daughter and her friends!

I loved the idea of inviting a bunch of little 3 year old girls over to make Valentine’s Day cards, decorate cookies, color, play some fun games and eat yummy treats, so that’s what we did!  Here are some of the party pics, which are fabulous, thanks to my amazing photographer friend Laura!  To see the rest of the pictures and details, go HERE to this blog post!

My amazing friend Laura made all the wonderful desserts! I told her I just needed 1 or 2 desserts for the moms to enjoy and this is what she came with – like 500 amazing desserts (and yes, they ALL tasted as good as they look!!).

Is anyone planning a Valentine’s Day Party this year?  I had to totally exercise some self control and not do another Valentine’s Day Party this year because I want to do an Easter Party really bad!  So I’d love to hear about your parties!!

The post Contributor at SNAP! Conference Blog + Valentine’s Day Party appeared first on Paper Crush.

Valentine’s Day is about 2 weeks away so I thought I’d share with you some of the fun, free Valentine’s Day Party printable packages I have found so that you can start planning your party NOW!

I love the black included with the various shades of pink in the collection from Anna and Blue Paperie which can be downloaded HERE at Catch My Party.

The non-traditional Valentine’s Day colors and beautiful graphics are what make this set from Party Box Design really stand out!

This classroom collection from Shindig Parties To Go! would be perfect for school parties.

LOVE this pink and gray design from Love The Day downloaded HERE at Catch My Party.

Beautiful red, black and gray printables from Flipawoo.

I recently used these 2″ circles for a project, created by Magnolia Creative which can be downloaded at Catch My Party.

This bright pink and orange monster collection from ellinee is perfect if you’re looking for something a little less traditional and would be great for boys!

Catch My Party has about 10 other Valentine’s Day printable party collections, so head over there if you can’t find something you like here.

Now, you better get planning…there’s not much time left!

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