Oriental Trading Makes Back to School FUN!!!

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received these products free of charge,from Oriental Trading, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about them, all opinions are my own.

If there is ONE company I can count on for party supplies, 

it IS Oriental Trading!

So when they asked me if I wanted to host a Back to School bash, I was thrilled to say "YES!"!

Hmmmmm....

Can you guess what our theme was?

If you guessed 

"Paint Your Way Back to School"

and 

"Super Power YOUR School Year"

you would be right!

We saw the adorable tool boxes and knew a paint party was at hand, but we wanted the kids to seize upon the current super hero trend and 'seize the day' this year for school! 

Isn't the SUPERHERO CITY TRAY WITH CONES just too cute? It is SO easy to put together! the bottom base has punch out tabs, and then the bottom city panels form a square and slide into the bottom tabs. Then you punch out the tabs and cone holes on the middle panel, add it to the city panels, and then add the second layer of panels. Then punch out more holes and tabs, and put the top piece on. The kids had fun punching out all the city windows on the skyscraper, and then it also slides into the tabs for easy construction. But because the city scenes also interlock, you actually have a pretty STURDY construction! 

You get 32 small paper cones, each with their own attached glue strip for quick assembly as well, in blue, yellow and red. We opted to fill HALF of them with Mounds, Almond Joy and Snickers, and Kisses on the bottom, to go with our little signs " Hope You Have Mounds of FUN This Year!" and "Have Lots of Joy and Snickers this Year!" An added bonus for the kids was being able to split the treats after the party! We alternated the cones with cupcakes in the same bright colors, some with superheros, others with emojis (cause you know, kid speak, LOL).

The bright colors were back in evidence thanks to the great SUPERHERO LUNCHEON NAPKINS , SUPERHERO PLASTIC TUMBLERS, and SUPERHERO PAPER DESSERT PLATES. You get 8 plates per pack,  16 napkins per pack and a dozen cups per pack.We kept that same punch of color with a matching Yellow TABLECLOTH  and Red DINNER PLATES (for lunch, that we had left over from a previous event)! The Superhero theme at Oriental Trading also includes balloons, cupcake holders, totes, stickers a backdrop, and more! We ALL loved the bright colors!

The first thing we had the kids start on was their DIY UNFINISHED WOOD TOOL BOXES. These adorable boxes came plain, as you saw above, and NOT put together. Because they are balsa wood and the tabs can be hard for little hands to keep together, I DO recommend putting them together BEFORE the party. I added some wood glue to keep them super sturdy, as the kids would be adding desk essentials like glue, pens, pencils, scissors and markers into them, and we wanted them to stay put together. This is also a HUGE time saver! You also get 12 of the boxes, so we saved leftovers for the kids to decorate for their teachers, aka MOMS (as all the kids are home schooled!). Most home school parents don't really get 'Back to School' teacher presents, like traditional teachers, so it was a little bit of lagniappe for us to give them! As you can see, we also put the paint into individual cups and handed them out to curtail the 'I needs'. It worked SUPER well (well except for the Green Lantern paint that would NOT come off anyone's hands, even though it was finger paint! It finally did, but we all laughed over it!).  

As you can see the balsa wood soaks up paint, so we had the kids paint one layer, then move on to their First Day of School DIY UNFINISHED WOOD SCALLOPED PICTURE FRAMES (6 per pack), which they also painted. made of pine and balsa, they only needed one coat. . As the kids all started/were starting on different days, we didn't take pictures to put in the frames, but that is a great idea to do, if you're hosting a party! The frames do come with a plastic picture cover, so be sure to remove it before the kids start painting or coloring the frames!We all decided the ombre box was the coolest looking one! Here's another look at how great the frames turned out! Yes our 'ombre' girl made a matching frame! You can see JUST how cute the daisies look with added SELF ADHESIVE JEWELS we had left over from a previous project!

As you can see there was an addition to the Superhero theme- SUPERHERO SWIRL LOLLIPOPS! You get 12 lollipops- with 3 different flavors (mixed fruit, apple or cherry) on a 3" plastic stick, with red and yellow color paper capes that can be decorated too! Because they are individually wrapped, they are great for take-home items too! Although our kids had to savor one as they were working on their craft projects! And of course the girls declared that flowers make learning fun, and have their own superpowers, so we gave them each 2 pencils to decorate with PRIMARY PATTERNED WASHI TAPE and some SELF-ADHESIVE DAISIES WITH JEWEL CENTERS! You get 5 rolls, each with 16 feet of washi tape on this great colored set, and all the kids used it, and we STILL had some left to decorate other items with! You get 3 dozen of the daisies, and they did double duty, as they got added to the frames and boxes later too! Both of these were easy projects to do, and the kids were able to complete them while the boxes and frames were drying, and we set up for the next big project!

We gave the kids the option to paint their DIY WHITE CANVAS TOTE BAGS, to use FABRIC MARKERS, or Fabric Crayons, and they chose a mixture of all of them, as you can see. We have some pretty great artists I think! Some chose to make the bags into snack bags for Field Trips, others for bags for bible study class, or for taking to cop-op days! The bags were really easy to use, and we were actually surprised that there was NO bleed through! We did put wax paper in between them, just to be on safe side, but as the markers dried so quickly, they were able to color on both sides. You get 6 bags per pack, and when we realized how well constructed they were, we wished we'd gotten another pack for the moms to decorate too! If you re looking for an option for older teens or adults, these bags are a great idea!


Here's another look at the boxes we put together for each kid. They each also had a bag of Skittles, cause of their 'Super Power' colors, Bookmarks to color (that all emphasized reading), a special animal eraser, and a mini science project. They got to make Lava Lamps, that also doubled as 'fidgit' bottles! The bottles were super easy to put together- just recycled water bottles filled partway with oil. Then the kids added an equal amount of water, some food coloring (it was interesting to see them all pick different colors), and some Alka Seltzer tabs, and wa-la: instant lava lamp, that showed them the different properties of matter, water tension AND wave action. You have to LOVE projects that serve multiple purposes! You can check out our post from last week to see how Miss Grace's 'lava lamp' turned out! By having all the boxes set up and ready to go, each kid knew they all had the same items, and it reduced the set up time for each project, as they just pulled out 'their' item to use. Which was why we started with the boxes and ended with the bags, that way everything was contained until they were all done, and nobody's got mixed up!

We had one more project left that wasn't actually in their baskets, as it was still in the dryer, as we had to get the sizing out of the t-shirts! We gave the kids their choice of tie-dye or crayon art we had just discovered. Apparently they were a little bored with the tie-dye, so opted for the crayon art instead. The kids drew on sandpaper (medium worked best), putting a LOT of crayon down, then we put the shirts inside out over the art piece and ironed it. When turned back right side out, the crayon had transferred over to the shirt! We found you could also layer pieces for a cool effect, but you just had to remember to draw everything BACKWARDS if you wanted it facing a certain way (like letters!). Another quick pass with the iron over wax paper and 20 minutes in the dryer and the shirts were ready to wear! It was a super easy craft and the kids really LOVED being able to wear their shirts for the first week of school! It would be a fun class project too, and a great way to get rid of those old crayons you have hanging around! Unfortunately the pix of the final shirts got accidentally erased, so no group shot to share!

All in all the kids had a SUPER time, and they all were really excited about starting the school year with their new items. It gave them the confidence boost they needed for the new school year!

The prices at Oriental Trading are SO great, and it always seems like they are running a special promo for a sale code or FREE shipping (right now you can use PS17530 for it)., plus you can get special offers if you sign up for their newsletter, AND their clearance is typically 65% off or more! We like to stock up after holidays for future projects! And with so many party and craft choices, you really can make YOUR Back to School party extra special this year!