(Ant)Arctic Party Planning: Pt 3

I am so excited to tell you about the goody bag. I know that some people go over board with the goody bag and it would be SO easy for me to, I swear but I am really kind of proud of the bag we put together without breaking the bank. My goal for the bags were things that weren't complete junk and not too much sugar, but also reflect my guy and his favorite things.

Each bag included a penguin chocolate bar. Which, okay, is sugar. But since this is it I think we're okay. And they're cute!

A polar bear book.

We love the National Geographic Kids Readers and have a lot of them. We are on our second home copy of this book as one met an unfortunate water spill fate. These books are quick reads and full of educational value so I feel great about their inclusion in the bag. Plus there is a picture of a walrus in the book too. Which is awesome. 

Then, the part I am the most excited about. The walrus shirt. My guy actually has a lot of walrus shirts. I am not quite sure how we get so lucky every season to find at least one walrus item, but we have and we'll just go with it. I wanted to make C a walrus birthday shirt and then I got the idea to have everyone get a walrus shirt too! So we made walrus bleach pen shirts. They were so easy and I think they turned out super cute. 

Bleach Pen is still processing here.

1. Pick a shirt. We got ours at Hobby Lobby, with a coupon so they were under $2 each. We did blue for the boys and pink for the girls. Stereotypical certainly, but two of the girls favorite color is pink and that topic is worked into every conversation. C's favorite color is green but blue matched the arctic theme a little better. So blue and pink it is! 

2. Put a piece of cardboard in the shirt so the bleach will not bleed through to the back. 

2.5 *optional step* Draw your design on the shirt with pen or pencil. 

3. Take your bleach pen ($3.02) and trace your design. The bleach pen will come out fast. Bear in mind that the bleach will spread to much thicker lines. You may want a paper towel handy because sometimes the bleach bubbles and you want to wipe that away. I have also seen recipes to make your own bleach gel and put it in like an old glue bottle. That would be even cheaper than the pen, but sometimes time is money and $3.02 seemed quite reasonable to me. 

4. Let the shirts cure. We let them sit for under 2 hours. Basically, when you can see the design on the underside of the shirt, your design is ready! 

5. Rinse the bleach off under COLD water. The gel will have dried a little and you may have to coax it off. 

6. Stick the item(s) in the wash on cold. Then dry them. 

7. Success! A personalized decorated shirt that is one of a kind and permanent! 

I know that C and M will wear their shirts a lot. I have no idea if the guests will really wear them, but they loved them. "Mom! I have a shirt to match C's!" "I want to try it on right away!" Who doesn't need a good pajama/play shirt in their life? I definitely bought them big so they should work for the kids for a long time! 

All finished! C's had a birthday hat, everyone else's did not.

So those three items made up my goody bags. They worked out great! I put them in blue paper lunch bags with their name written on them. I also used those bags to stash their pinata loot. Easy peasy lemon squeezey! And with that I conclude my 4 part Awesome (Ant)Arctic Party posts.