Adventures in Party Planning: Bubblepalooza

Blowing bubbles is kind of a last day of school thing at our house.  Don't remember how the tradition got started, but come 3 pm there you will find us, sitting on the front sidewalk, maybe doing some chalk drawings on the side, and eating popsicles and blowing bubbles.

This year is a graduation year for both boys - one departing kinder and one departing fifth - the only time that our household will mark two such milestones at once.  So I'm thinking that a full-blown bubble party is in order.  Toying with the idea of getting a baby pool, filling it with bubble solution (LOTS of bubble solution), and letting the boys use a hula hoop to create bubbles big enough to stand in.  I may also arm each of them with a fly swatter (a NEW fly swatter - otherwise, eww, gross!), as I hear tell that the fine plastic mesh creates lots of Don Ho-worthy "tiny bubbles."

Found these bubble cookies on a stick on Remarkably Domestic's blog site.  Really cute, and I have the perfect shades of blue food dye in the baking cabinet to make these really pop.  Um, small pun intended.  POPsicles, soda POP and POP Rocks will complete the theme.  (Yes, I realize that that's a lot of sugar.  No, I'm not worried that they will stay up all night.  It's the last day of school.  They will be exhausted from all of the excitement and will be out by 8 pm.  Seriously, this is not my first last-day rodeo.) 

You could build a great birthday party around this idea.  Find some polka-dot gift wrap (I found white paper with turquoise polka dots of various sizes at Dollar Tree a few months back) to use as a table runner, fill a glass jar with gumballs to match your party colors, and let kids fill their own treat bags.  Bubbles and bubble wands are the other obvious choice for favors.  If you want to take it to another level of fanciness, lots of boutiques are selling pewter bubble wands in whimsical shapes (stars, hearts, etc.).  Whether you choose "fancy" or "plain ol' plastic," fill cylinder vases with clear and iridescent marbles (to mimic bubbles), intersperse those with the bubblegum jars down the center of the table, and display the bubble wands with their handles stuck down in the marbles.

I remember doing a craft with the kids involving food coloring and bubble soap.  You mix colors, give the kids a straw and have them blow bubbles onto a white sheet of paper, capturing the splatter pattern of the bubble as it pops.  This really only works with school-aged kids, as little ones will (pick one, or two, or three) drip the colored bubble solution onto their clothes/somehow pop the colored bubbles on their clothes/suck instead of blow, ingesting a bunch of colored bubble soaps that they will throw up, in a Technicolor mess, on their clothes.  No matter the means to the end, the end will involve you, a bottle of Shout and a sink.

Bubble on, party people . . . .