Winter Decor & a Snowman Party

Ok, I realize that it's a little late to be showing you this when it's almost Valentine's Day already.  But since I've been having technical difficulties I'm runnin' a little behind.

Anyways.....a few years ago I realized I was never ready for the house to go back to "normal" after Christmas, so I decided to start decorating with snowmen for the month of January.  I stick with a mostly blue and white, not-too-Christmasy theme.  

While I was putting it all up this year, it hit me that mid-January is the perfect time for a party.  People kind of get the after-Christmas blues, cabin fever starts setting in (at least up here in the frigid North it does) and so I decided to take advantage of the decor already being up and have a Snowman Party for my daughter and a few of her friends from church. 

You might be wondering why I have brown candles up there instead of white ones, but it's because they're Peppermint Cocoa scented ones and I think that's perfect for Winter.

I love how the fake snow appears to just continue on into the picture.  I wish I could say I planned it that way, but that would be a lie.

My mom bought me these playful little guys a couple of years ago and I think they're just adorable.

I found the runner at Dollar General this year for $2 in their after Christmas clearance stuff.

I hung a couple of these ornaments around on the ceiling fans as light pulls.

One of my Christmas presents from my mom this year was a Cricut cartridge that cuts really detailed snowflakes, and even makes 3D ones.  I tried it out and hung a few in this doorway.

They are so intricate and pretty.

I even embellished the tissue box.  I don't normally have tissues sitting around as part of the everyday decor, but it's just that time of year, ya know?  It seems like we always need them.

It hadn't snowed much at all previous to the party, but the day before it put down a couple of inches of beautiful sparkly snow, as you can see in the background of this picture.  I guess the shovel worked.

In researching Googling ideas for this party, I came across a ton of super cute things, but my goal was for this to be CHEAP and LOW stress (aka EASY).  So I stuck with the most basic and cost effective ideas.

 I blew up a ton of white balloons and scattered them everywhere just to add to the "snowy" party effect.  They were a hit!  The kids had a blast with them.

I had some leftover styrofoam cups from something or other so I drew snowman faces on them to dress them up a bit (amazingly enough I thought of this on my own, didn't even need Google or Pinterest for that).  : )

I found this book at Rite Aid and we started off the party by reading it.

Here's the table all set and ready for snack time.

I found the napkins and snowman straws at Wal-mart in their after Christmas clearance stuff (75% off).

They had "snowballs" to eat (powdered donut balls) and "melted snow" to drink (milk).

Next up, it was time to build a snowman.

They had a lot of fun with it.

Then they had a "snowball" fight.  I divided them up into teams and each team had a "fort" (a cardboard box).  I had rolled up a ton of pairs of white socks into ball shapes and those were the snowballs.  The object was to see which team could throw the most snowballs into the other team's fort in a set amount of time, 1-2 minutes.  This was a bit chaotic and crazy, but they seemed to really enjoy it even if not all of them completely understood the rules.

We ended the party by watching, "Legends of Frosty the Snowman."

By scrounging through every last Christmas item shopping Wal-mart's after Christmas clearance sale (again, 75% off!) I was able to find enough little snowman themed favors for each child to have 3 different things, and I only spent $10.  Since almost everything was different, I made them up into little gift packages, wrapped in snowman paper of course, so that there would be no fighting over who had what.

It was great fun and I'm so glad I did it.  Setting up and cleaning up was a breeze since most of the decor was already up and was staying up for the rest of the month.

So...a little late but I hope you enjoyed a peek into life at our home this past month.

                                                                 

Linking up to:

Wow Us Wednesdays #51 - Savvy Southern Style

Whatever Goes Wednesday #102 - Someday Crafts

Thrifty Thursday #45 - Thrifty Decorating