Think you need to be rich to throw a great children’s party? Think again! A rich imagination is all you need to thrill kids with a party they will always remember.

For several years, Pam and Ed Dart of Spectacular Catering from Placentia, California have staged barbecues that corporations line up for. Want to know one of their secrets? Staging. This transforms a simple party into an event. Creating an atmosphere that sparks the imagination and enthusiasm of children is easy if you apply the following tricks of the trade.

Create Excitement Right From the Start

Your party starts with a great invitation. Planning a detective birthday party? Send a note with “Help me!” scrawled on the front of a torn piece of notepad paper. On the other side, write, “Celebrate my birthday. Find me at…” Include all the party particulars as part of a coded message.

Plan a Movie Set

The environment you create is central to the success of your party. Imagine being invited to a dinosaur party and arriving to find a steaming, foggy jungle at the entrance. This is easy to do.

1. Start with a few houseplants.

1. Add a silk tree or two.

1. Rent a fog machine.

If you can’t rent a fog machine, create the same effect using a bucket of water and a block of dry ice. Place the bucket behind a shrub and blow the icy mist with a small fan.

Search the Internet for dinosaur sound files and play them in the background. Your guests will be enthralled as they travel back in time to the age of the dinosaurs.

Keep Them Busy

Plan party activities around the party theme. A pirate party screams for a treasure hunt. Make a course the kids will remember.

1. Reverse engineer your route. Start at the end and make your way back home.

1. Add a “dead man’s bones” stop. Make this clue stop a screamer by wrapping a distressed pant leg around a clean, dry chicken leg bone. Bury the pants with just a bit of hem and the leg bone emerging from the soil.

1. Make the map part of the fun by creating intriguing clues, embellishing it with swirling fonts and pictorial hints. S. E. Overmyer, a graphic artist and owner of Kitty and Nevermore, suggests downloading free fonts from online sources to add a realistic charm to the map.
2. Stain the maps with a strong tea solution, slightly burn torn edges, and add a drop of cooking oil here and there for a truly authentic-looking treasure map.

Fun With the Food

Don’t serve burgers and beans on a paper plate at your party.

• Use old or disposable aluminum pie pans for plates and serve drinks in mason jars for a cowboy theme.

• Make a volcano cake with flowing lava frosting or a dinosaur-shaped layer cake.
• Move beyond JELL-O brains and spaghetti guts at your mad scientist party by serving real food in beakers and test tubes.

Your rich imagination can create party effects that will make unforgettable memories for the kids that attend. Choose a theme and let your creative juices flow.

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3.

Jessy is a stay-at-home mom and family blogger for Dobovo, the family-friendly accommodation resource of Kiev apartments on a budget.

Guest Author: If you have trouble figuring out what to wear every day, or you can’t find a certain piece of clothing you’re looking for, or you have shoes that have lost their partners, it might be time to organize your closet. If looking through your closet makes you feel anxious and feels like an insurmountable pile of stuff, you definitely need to organize your closet. Giving your closet an organization overhaul will make you feel refreshed about your wardrobe and style. Suddenly you’ll realize you have more to wear than you did before, and it might even feel like you have an entirely new wardrobe. And if you live in a small apartment, reorganizing your closet is a must to save room and get the most out of your living space.

If you have a very large closet or your closet is jam-packed with stuff, organizing it may seem like a really daunting task. It doesn’t have to be. Just start slowly and do a little at a time. Any improvements at all should make your life a little easier. Here are some tips for organizing your closet.

Clear It Out

First, take absolutely everything out of your closet! You will need to go through it all and organize it, so it’s easier to start with a clear space. After you pull everything out, clean out the floor and shelves of your closet by dusting and sweeping. It will also be a lot easier to evaluate your closet and make alterations to your storage options if necessary.

Pare it Down

Now go through everything you have in your closet and get rid of absolutely everything unnecessary. If you have clothes that don’t fit you or you never wear, donate them. If you are unsure about something but haven’t worn it in over a year, just let it go. The worst thing you can possibly do for the organization of your closet is to hold onto items that are only taking up space.

The Hanging Bar

The hanging bar in your closet is the best place to store your clothes. Hang up everything you can, except for items that won’t go on a hanger or will be stretched out by one. Hang your clothes up in groups, according to whatever organization method works best for you. A common method is to separate clothes by type – all long-sleeved shirts together, t-shirts, pants, coats, skirts, etc. To save space, consider adding a second hanging bar your main one to create a second row of clothes. Do not have it go all the way across to leave space for longer items that need to hang.

Shelves

If you can add a couple shelves to your closet, it will be very helpful for storing things that don’t hang. You can fold sweaters and put them on shelves, or you can use your shelves for storage boxes. You can add some inexpensive shelving if need be.

Storage Boxes

Use storage boxes for your shoes – clear works best so you can see them, or put a label on the outside. Label all your boxes. You might use them for other things, like storing jewelry or accessories like gloves and hats. Try to group together everything you can so you can easily locate whatever particular piece you’re looking for.

The Closet Door

If possible, get a rack for hanging ties, scarves, and belts and hang it over your closet door. This will help maximize your space and is a great way to organize those items.

Rotate Items

If you are short on space in your closet, consider rotating your clothes. Only keep clothes that are in season in your closet, and store the others. Get storage bins to put your summer clothes in when it’s winter, and vice versa. Put them in your attic or your parent’s basement; anywhere but in your closet will help you stay organized and keep the amount of stuff you have in there to a minimum.

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A couple months ago my clothes dryer developed a horrible squeak. The heavier the load, the louder the squeak.

Not having the money to do repairs right away, I opted for using the clothes line to get us through the summer months.

Let me tell you – it was so nice to see such a drop in our electric bills. But, as with all good things – that too must come to an end. With all the cooler weather and rainy days as of recent, it became painfully obvious that I was going to have to do something about the dryer.

I only had a few options:

1. Call a repairman

2. Get rid of the dryer and get a new one

3. Fix it myself

I did try to call a repairman first. Let me just say that finding an appliance repairman these days isn’t an easy task. There used to be several of them locally, but now – the closest one is about 20 miles away. When I spoke to the closest one, he told me what he thought the problem might be and how much it would cost to have him fix it. Frankly, it would be cheaper to replace the thing with a nice used one from a local vender known for quality used appliances.

Next, I phoned the used appliance store – they had several in stock ranging from $80 – $175. For me to get what I wanted and needed, I was looking toward the higher end. Knowing that, I wasn’t quite ready to settle on that option. I still felt like there was more I could do and more I could save.

With the knowledge I’d gained from the first phone call, I hoped on Youtube and searched squeaky dryer, replacing bearing and glides.

After seeing how easy it would be to do the work myself, I clicked over to Amazon to see if I could find the parts I needed.

Of course, Amazon has just about everything under the sun – they had the parts I needed for $25! I placed my order with a shop called Partshouse.

The parts arrived in just a few days and earlier today I decided it was time to tackle the job.

My husband asked if I wanted help, but I felt confident this was a job I could do on my own and TWENTY minutes later, I had the job done, the area cleaned up, swept, vents cleaned out and was on my way with the weeks laundry.

If your dryer is squeaking – I would start off looking at the glides (sometimes called slides) and the front bearing. The job sounds WAY bigger then what it actually is – the parts are affordable – especially on Amazon and you can save yourself a bundle!

ou’d think waking up to a snow storm and a 180+ local school closings would make for a pretty rotten day – but not here! No Sir!

I woke the kids up a couple hours before Justin had to be at his final college class for the semester. Rather then have him drive himself in this horrible weather – the three boys and I went on a snow day adventure.

We dropped Justin off at his class – went for lunch and did a little shopping to pick up a few gifts that remained on our list.

Once Justin sent me a text that he was ready to be picked up – we checked out and headed back to pick him up then off to the college bookstore to sell his first semester books in hopes of getting enough back to get his second semester list.

We’d been alerted to the benefits of renting books on BookRenter.com – and wow – what a HUGE savings for sure!

Once at the bookstore – I asked Justin if he wanted me to go in with him. He told me I could if I wanted to. Jokingly, I told him I’d go in with him and use my powers of influence to make sure he got at least $230 out of his books.

That was our goal!

We entered the bookstore and took our place in a very lengthy line. While in line, while Justin was noticing the pretty girl in front of us, I was noticing she had a book in her hands that was on the list of books Justin needs for next semester. I wanted to make sure to listen to how much they were going to give her for that book because I’d just seen the book on the shelf priced at $155.25.

While at the checkout, the girl was told they weren’t buying that particular book back. She seemed disappointed.

As she was about to walk out the door, I approached her and asked if she was wanting to sell that book. She explained the store wasn’t buying it back from her – I told her I’d be happy to buy it and asked how much she’d like to have for it.

I felt my soul break into a dance of cartwheels inside when she said “Fifty-dollars.”

Deal!

I asked her to wait for just a moment while Justin was being taken care of by the book return agent.

The girl scanned each book carefully – and once she’d entered all the books, she told Justin they’d give him $252!

Remember I said I was going to use my personal powers of influence to get $230?

Those powers of influence were nothing more then claiming a set dollar amount.

We got that and more.

Tonight we placed his order through BookRenter.com – that order, coupled with the $50 purchase we made today resulted in a HUGE savings.

The original cost of the books he thought he was going to face was $624 – with a little effort put into searching on the internet, asking good friends via Facebook, a little belief in the Law of Attraction and claiming all that is good – we ended up with a total of $162.12.

That is a savings of $461.88