This turned out to be the easiest party ever!  The bowling alley provided the food and drinks.  I just had to bring the cupcakes and loot.  Instead of a loot bag, I made all the guests a personalized glow in the dark birthday bowling t-shirt and handed out silly bands and glow sticks that they could wear around their wrists and necks as they bowled.  This was simple and the kids loved their shirts and had a blast.  The best part was it was over and done within a few hours and my house was not trashed in the process!  It isn’t gender specific, so we have done similar parties for both kids.

Bowling Invitations:

For the invitation, I made circles on my word processing program (PAGES on my Mac) and filled them with black. I then typed the information inside one circle and the “announcement” in another using white font. I was able to fit four circles on each page (two invitations). I printed them out on white card stock and then cut-out the black circles with my circle cutting set from Creative Memories.

I stacked the circles and then used a brad to hold them together. The brad also allowed the top circle to slide up to open the invitation and reveal all of the details. For the pins, I oriented my page so that it was landscaped and then printed the word STRIKE vertically down the page. When I figured out the size and font I wanted, I simply copied and pasted it 2 more times, so that I was able to print 3 per page. I printed this on white card stock as well. I made a bowling pin tracer and carefully set it over the word so that it would sit towards the left side of the pin. I then traced and cut-out each of the pins by hand. Finally, I added some narrow red masking tape for stripes and attached the bowling ball. They were cute and easy to make. Here are the PDF’s to give you a better idea of how I did it. (You’ll notice the PDF is for Shay’s birthday and the photos below are from Eden’s….I did used the same idea for both of their parties.)
INVITATION PDF
PIN PDF

Cupcakes:

I can’t say I’m very proud of these babies, but the good news is that we all get better with practise. These simple cupcakes had poorly made fondant bowling pins. Can you believe the horrible job I did on the red stripe? The bowling balls were Whoppers with 3 “finger” holes punched in each. Nothing special, but the kids didn’t care.

Personalized Birthday Bowling Shirts:

I found free bowling clip art on line and used the images to create personalized shirts for each of the kids. The top right corner on the front of the shirt had a small bowling logo with their name printed below. Shay’s also had “The Birthday Boy!” under his name. If you click on the image to enlarge it, you’ll also see the pop he spilled down his front!

On the back of each t-shirt was a large bowling picture with the date printed below. Of course, the shirts were white and glowed in the dark. The boys were thrilled with their glow sticks and shirts and it made for an easy party.  The shirts were made using t-shirt transfer sheets. I bought them at Michael’s using the 40% off coupon. You need to read the directions carefully as some instructions require you to print your document in “mirror” image. On my Mac, you do this once you press print and then select “layout” and “flip horizontally”.

Happy party planning!

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