Big News in the Birthday Party World

CRESTWOOD, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Noah's Ark Animal Workshop, the Crestwood, IL based traveling 'make your own stuffed animal' direct sales company, announces the acquisition of similar styled company "Stuff-A-Friend". The acquisition solidifies Noah's Ark position as the leader in the market of mobile stuffed animal workshops, and now boasts over 12,000 independent representatives throughout the United States and Canada.

"It is exciting to be able to reach a multitude of cities throughout the country!" said Dina Amico-Kriescher, founder and president of Noah's Ark Animal Workshop. "By strengthening our position in the market, our representatives have a better opportunity to earn income, while people everywhere now have the ability to experience in the tender thrill of creating their own stuffed animal."

Noah's Ark Animal Workshop is the original traveling "Stuff-N-Fluff" Animal Workshop where children and parents come together to stuff, name and love the animal of their choice and personalize their new friend with outfits, accessories and sound chips. With Stuff-A-Friend's similar concept, the acquisition was a natural fit for both companies. Stuff-A-Friend, the Valencia, CA based company, formerly owned by the Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company, is elated with the level of support Noah's Ark is able to offer their representatives.

The Stuff-A-Friend representatives will now be able to experience the same benefits that Noah's Ark reps receive, including an abundant line of unique products, and a customized rewards plan that awards vacations, cruises, financial benefits and more. The Noah's Ark business model offers a one-of-a-kind business compensation plan that assists reps in local and national team building, with a generous income opportunity.

Because Noah's Ark Animal Workshop is a traveling "Stuff-N-Fluff" Workshop, it is convenient for Noah's Ark to "set up shop" at home birthday parties, baby showers and playgroups, and for groups that would otherwise not have the opportunity to participate in a unique event like this -- groups such as preschool and day care centers, scouting troops, summer camps, children's hospitals and boys and girls clubs.

For more information, call me company at 1-877-NOAH-BIZ or visit the my Web site at www.funontheark.com.

A Happy B-day Tea

We spent the most delightful day yesterday with our good friends celebrating my oldest daughter's birthday. Her best friend, Emily, surprised her with a fancy tea party birthday that could rival any "retail" tea room around! She titled it "A Happy B-day Tea" and centered everything on the adorable beehive cake that she made, complete with candy bees. It was adorable.

She made some cute nametags with rubber stamped bees on them, served a wonderful menu of scones with devonshire cream, ham and mango pinwheel roll ups, banana bread, mini hot dogs in buns and pita "pizza" with hummus, basil and tomato. 3 of our favorite teas rounded out the meal and it was fabulous!!!

The beehive cake was really too beautiful to cut up and eat, but we did it anyway and it was delicious! Yum yum yum!

We love home birthday parties and this one was elegant and wonderful! Thanks for a special day!

Isn't Cake and Ice Cream still FUN?

I saw this story online at an Orlando paper. 
What do you think?
Annette

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Peer pressure pumps up parties
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Laura Brost and Mark Chediak
Sentinel Staff Writers

April 14, 2007

A balloon-covered ceiling will greet Kaitlyn Buddemeyer when she walks into the
Nickelodeon Family Suites hotel room on her 10th birthday next weekend.

Hand in hand with three friends who will be along for the milestone party,
Kaitlyn will visit the hotel's food court, play on the water slides, be treated
to a manicure and finish off the day snug in a colorful suite with popcorn to
top it off.

It's a birthday party far different from one that involves Pin the Tail on the
Donkey and a few cupcakes. But birthday parties that are more akin to mega
events don't seem to be out of the ordinary for today's children.

"I would have a sleepover at my house," said Kaitlyn's mom, Krystyn Buddemeyer
of Winter Garden, who borrowed the idea for a party at the Lake Buena Vista-area
hotel from a friend. "But I think that, honestly, the kids would be bored there
the way the parties are today."

To be sure, parents have been throwing birthday parties at pizza places, bowling
alleys and other kids' hot spots for years.

But these days, moms and dads say they feel more pressed for time and pressured
to keep up. They're increasingly willing to spend a little more on a party for
junior if it means less hassle, work and cleanup for them -- and that their
party will be as spectacular as the one the neighbors threw.

All this party planning, party hosting and gift giving means one thing: big
spending. Americans likely spend billions of dollars a year on birthdays. And
when children are the guests of honor, the costs can really soar.

One blog post on a Web site that urges parents to curb their spending mentions a
Windermere party that cost more than $200,000 for a 7-year-old's birthday.

Buddemeyer estimates she'll spend "$800, minimum."

Industry of birthdays

Not surprisingly, an entire industry has sprung up to cater to the demand, with
businesses promoting everything from video games to inflatable slides as the
best party option. And that doesn't even include the theme parks, where birthday
packages at Walt Disney World and SeaWorld Orlando can run hundreds of dollars
or more.

"Birthdays self-generate," said Shylo Sorensen, co-founder of Beat the Box in
Winter Park, which boasts more than 150 video games on big-screen TVs and
theater-style chairs for players. "If you do well and the parents talk about it,
it's like free marketing."

Sorensen said parties have become a bigger slice of his business in part because
parents enjoy not having to worry about the details of hosting the event. "They
can sit back and have a glass of wine," he said.

The cost of celebrating at Beat the Box: from $5.25 a person to $250 an hour for
a private party.

At Farris and Foster's Chocolate Factory in Orlando's Baldwin Park neighborhood,
parents and children pack the Willy Wonkalike store on weekends for
chocolate-making parties that cost $10 to $11 a person.

"It seems like the parties are bigger than I remember when my kids were growing
up," owner Jon Foster Lanenga said.

Suzie Sublette, 41, took her daughter Alex and Alex's friends last week to Club
Libby Lu, where rock-star-style makeovers for young girls can cost up to $35 a
person. Sublette chose the Florida Mall store for the fun -- the girls dressed
up in glitz and glitter for Alex's ninth birthday -- as well as the convenience
and time saved.

"Nowadays, we're just too busy," said Sublette, whose husband, Bill, is a former
Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives. "There's very little
time anymore to clean your house, shop for all the stuff. Kids today are much
more precocious than we were."

At SliderZ Adventure Center, a 10,000-square-foot facility in Oviedo filled with
inflatable houses, slides and moonwalks, birthday parties make up about 90
percent of sales. The cost to throw a party ranges from $150 to $450.

Co-owner Darcy Umstead, mother of three, said she thinks the parties at her
facility are sometimes more about the parents than the kids.

"I would say a lot of it is [pressure]," Umstead said. "Sometimes it's not about
the kids anymore. . . . There is that occasional family where they're trying to
measure up to Mr. and Mrs. Jones -- and that's where it loses its focus on the
kids."

'Can be really damaging'

Lynn Hartle, associate professor of early-childhood education at the College of
Education at the University of Central Florida, said all the emphasis on the
material side of parties could end up doing more harm than good.

"They can be really damaging in terms of children's outlook about what's
important in life," Hartle said.

The quest for bigger and better celebrations led one Midwestern professor to
co-found Birthdays Without Pressure, a group that helps parents find ways to
respond to social pressure and tone down parties.

William Doherty, a professor at the College of Education and Human Development
at the University of Minnesota, said he has heard from hundreds of parents
across the country who are concerned that birthday parties have gotten out of
control.

"It's an arms race -- and it's driven by a small percentage of parents who push
the envelope deliberately," Doherty said.

It was on Doherty's Web site -- BirthdaysWithoutPressure.org -- that the lavish
Windermere party showed up in a blog entry. The posting described a $250,000
event taking place in a rented ballroom. Highlights included limousine rides to
the event as well as helicopter and horse rides.

Oviedo resident Cheryl Hittel didn't spend quite as much on a recent party at
SliderZ for her daughter Sierra's eighth birthday, but she said the price tag
still seemed steep.

"This is an expensive party," Hittel, 45, said, estimating she spent about $200
for 18 kids to bounce, open bags of goodies and eat pizza and cake.

But along with the convenience of not having a party in her home, Hittel sees
other reasons for such parties.

"[It's] the socially acceptable thing to do. This is how it is now," she said.
"I don't see it going back to having cake and ice cream."

Laura Brost can be reached at lbrost@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6063. Mark
Chediak can be reached at 407-420-5240 or mchediak@orlandosentinel.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, Orlando Sentinel

Visit OrlandoSentinel.com

Have your own birthday party business!

I just got word that Noah's Ark Workshops has extended their special $29 starter kit. So if you've ever thought of starting a VERY FUN birthday party business yourself with your kids fill in the form below and I'll send you some quick, no obligation information on how it works! It's really fun!!!

I'm interested in more info!
Primary Email:
First Name:
Phone number:

From Trash to Treasures....more on homemade decorations

As I said before, I love birthday parties at home. Such great memories. Here's another fun and easy decor idea that came through my inbox from family fun magazine that would make for a great craft for the kids to do at a girl's spring birthday party or a teddy bear tea party!

Take empty cardboard egg cartons and cut them into individual cups. Paint the cups inside and out with fun spring colors like yellow, lilac, pink, etc. Use a pencil tip to poke a hole through the bottom of the cups and insert a straw (if you can get green straws with the little bendy thing on the end) into the hole for the stem. Put two cups on each straw for a pretty colorful flower. Place several egg cup flowers into a vase for a bouquet or cut the straw and wear them as a corsage!

Fun, easy and CHEAP! And the kids will love it!

Old fashioned decorations!

Sometimes we tend to forget the oldies but goodies when we're planning our birthday parties for kids. Because we can just run to the local Walmart or Target and get prepackaged everything we forget the fun of making homemade anything!

Here are some fun decoration ideas for your next party...fun to make and fun to see!

1. Paper Chains - Just cut different colored papers into long strips, glue the first strip together to form a ring, then take the next strip, slip it through the ring and glue it into a ring and so on. Use bright colored construction paper and go on forever!!!

2. Crepe streamers - take two fun colors of crepe streamers, tape them together on one end and then twist them into a spiral. Hang immediately to keep it spiral. Love this one!!

3. Balloons - buy them, blow them up and hang them on the birthday child's chair and all over the walls. Even throw them all over the floor!

4. Mobile - Create various shapes from construction paper (or gold and silver cardstock), punch a small hole in one end, string a string through the hole and hang the shapes at various lengths from a wire coat hanger that's been decorated with pipe cleaners, tinsel or crepe paper!

5. Tissue Paper Poms - Use a drinking glass to cut about 8 pieces of colored tissue paper into circles. Stack the circles on each other and then fold in half and then quarters. Sew the point of each corner with a piece of knotted thread and then open out each circle of paper. If you leave some of the thread hanging you can use the thread to hang these in doorways and windows, etc. or use floral wire to make a "pom bouquet".

Bringing back memories? There's nothing like a fun birthday at home to create a lasting memory for years to come! That's why I love my Noah's Ark Workshop business... we bring the party to the home of the birthday child. Home parties are wonderful!

So pull out the construction paper, glue, tape, streamers and more and get to fun and work! Enjoy!

Tips for a Great Teddy Bear Party

Here's an article that I posted here last year but I thought you'd enjoy it again!

A great teddy bear birthday party is not a difficult thing to pull of with a little creativity and some things that you can find round your house! Here are some quick birthday party ideas for making the party "beary" fun!

Invitation ideas
Buy some inexpensive rubber stamps with bear images and let your little one make homemade invitations. Or cut a piece of cardstock into the shape of a bear and write your invitation on that. Free clipart can be found for this purpose in many places on the Internet. Make sure you include the request for all the guests to bring their own bear to the party too!

Decoration ideas
When kids think of bears they usually think of honey and bees, so a big hit for decorations is LOTS of yellow and black balloons and streamers. If possible have various teddy bears all around the room as well to tie in the theme.

Menu ideas
When you're hosting a bear event even your menu should be centered on teddy. Here's a cute way to turn Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches into a beary fun treat!
Spread your peanut butter and jelly onto eight whole-wheat hamburger buns. Now here's where the fun begins. Cut four of the eight buns in half. On a large tray or covered cookie sheet, arrange the buns into a shape of a teddy bear. For the tummy, put one whole bun and surround that with 4 half buns. Another whole bun becomes the head/face, with two half buns on the topsides of the head for the ears. Two whole buns become the legs and the final two half buns turn out off of the body to make arms. Garnish the face/head bun with raisin eyes and a strawberry slice mouth and you've got a bear! Use a separate tray for additional sandwiches and watch for all the smiles! Mix some honey and yogurt together for a great dip for cut fruit and your menu is complete!

Bear Party - Activities and craft ideas
Crafts with a bear theme abound but here are some quick ideas for your bear birthday party. Make a paper bear chain (paper dolls) that the kids can color and decorate. Use paper plates to make paper bear masks. Bead a bear collar (necklace). Take a picture with all the kids and their own bears and decorate a simple scrapbook page to honor the occasion. Decorate teddy bear cookies with colored icing and various decorations.

Bear Party - Game ideas
Pin the honey pot on the teddy bear - if you have an artist in the family, draw a large teddy bear on poster board and cut out honey pots. Blindfold each child individually and see if they can put the honey pot into the teddy bear's hand.

Hot Teddy Bear - like hot potato only pass the teddy bear to the music. When the music stops, the person with the teddy bear is out.

Toss the honey pot - draw a large bear head with an open mouth on poster board and lay it on the floor. Using yellow beanbags as the "honey" each child throws the bag to see if it will land in the bear's mouth.

Take home gift ideas
Purchase yellow lunch bags (available at party stores) and decorate with bee stickers. Fill with gummy bears, teddy grahams, miniature stuffed teddy bears and fun bear jewelry. Or if you want to go all out, hire a stuffed animal party planner to come and have each child make their own stuffed animal as part of the party.

A fun request

I got an email from a Noah's Ark Workshop customer this week that was so fun! Her son LOVES vacuums so she wanted some vacuum birthday party ideas! What a great mom!!!!

Honestly she stumped me but when she came back with the idea of using new vacuum bags (new ones only ladies - lol) as the goodie/treat bags then my brain kicked in. She also mentioned the larger vacuum bags with vacuum attachments as the centerpieces. TOO FUN!

1. The Vacuum birthday party cake - Serve Dirt Cake

2. A birthday party game: Play plug the vac in the outlet (not with a real outlet silly... draw them) - like pin the tail on the donkey

3. Another birthday party game: Use a real vacuum with a clean bag and play a blindfolded game where you throw little foil balls on the ground and they have to take turns sucking up the balls. (kind of like the opposite of the pinata thing - ooooh wait, even better have them suck up candy pieces! YEAH!)

4. A fun birthday party activity: Search the thrift stores for a couple of old canister vacs and use the canister as a "car" for driveway vac races.

5. Another birthday party game: Use the "dump" lever of the newer bagless models of vacuums to do a relay race where they fill up the canister and then dump it into a bucket.

LOL! Maybe I better stick to Teddy Bear parties with Noah's Ark Workshops instead??