Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Party - Part 1

It's that time of year again, when I start thinking about R's upcoming birthday celebration.  Since he is the most important thing in my life to date, I usually make a big deal of it.  This year, he has been bitten by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bug, so it seemed like the appropriate theme for his 6th birthday party!

Although I spent months planning this party, because I have no life I like to be prepared, it really didn't take that much work to throw it all together.  Just a couple of weekends working on the projects, and you're done!  It's really the mental preparation that takes the most time.

Turtle Shells

 I used the basic directions from here.  I did a few things differently though, as you'll see.

Step One:  Painting your shells

If you follow the tutorial above (as I did), it recommends using 2 shades of green.  I used an olive green and a basic grass green spray paint.  Then, I sprayed all of the pans.  I wasn't sure which color should go on top, so I did 2 of them with the olive green color first, and 2 with the grass green color first.

Buy one extra foil roasting pan and cut out the natural indentions in the pan with an Xacto knife.  Use this as a stencil to paint a 2nd color of green over the first.  I also threw in a few brown splotches here and there, to make it look a little more authentic.  Well, as authentic as a foil "turtle shell" can be, anyway.  I was painting something else brown at the same time, so it was no trouble.

  I think they turned out well.

Step Two:  Attaching the Harness

I bought a 4 foot spool of 3" brown ribbon (unwired), and cut it into 8 equal strips, which would make them 1/2 foot each.  You need 2 for each shell.  Then, I attached some large half-rings (I know they have a name, but I've forgotten it) to 4 of the ribbons, so that each shell gets a ribbon with the rings and a plain ribbon.   I ran the ribbon through the sewing machine to attach the rings, but you could also glue the ribbon.  Hot glue or I imagine super glue would work fine.

Next, I used the Xacto knife again to cut at least 3" slits into sides caddy corner from each other.  You might have to cut several times to get the knife through the gathered parts of the foil.  It's not difficult though, just make sure you get through.

Then, I slipped the ribbon through the holes and hot glued the ribbon together so it would stay in place.

And, you're done!  It was really an easy project with a LOT of payoff.  The kids loved them, and I thought they looked great too!

Eye Masks

Next were the eye masks, in the ninja turtle colors of red, blue, orange, and purple.

I bought 1/2 yard of each color.  Then, I cut strips off about 3" in width.  I wrapped it around R's head to measure where the eye holes should go, and marked it with a Sharpie.  After that, I just cut out diamond holes where I had marked it.

I made two of each color.  One with the eye holes, one without.  I wanted the kids to have a belt in the same color, so that they could stick their weapons (see tomorrow's post!) in it.

Upcoming:  Ninja Turtle Party - Part 2: the Weapons