We’ve been on a bit of a neon kick lately. Neon friendship bracelets, neon Easter eggs… I have a new banner with my logo dipped in neon pixels. I may have finally reached full-saturation on the out-of-gamut color spectrum. I might even say neon is the new pink or something like that. Well, at least for us anyway. I know the rest of you are probably ready for it to be over.

Anyway it’s been fun to play with and to photograph.

Even clean-up is pretty.

Some of it not so much…

But whatever you say, you can’t say it’s boring.

You guys all know my neighbor, Boo, right? She’s popped up a time or two on this blog. She’s a super cute girl who lives across the street from us. I love her. Anyway, she turned ten and her mom (my friend Wendy) threw her this fabulous circus-themed birthday party. It was awesome.

I may be a tiny bit biased because there was FACE PAINTING!!!

Done by ME!! I know. You’re rolling your eyes because I have to brag about every little thing but seriously, I have wanted to be a face painter since forever. I have gone to carnival after carnival and paid the five dollars or one dollar to watch some mediocre painter paint some kind of blob on my daughter’s face and call it a butterfly. I have been holding myself back from grabbing the paintbrush right out of their hands and taking over on the spot. You don’t know the willpower that requires! It was painful!

Bethany bought me this kit (I added my own paintbrushes) probably a year ago but I haven’t had the chance to break out until now. I didn’t even get a chance to practice. But guess what? I didn’t need to! It was totally easy and kids are such great sports about things. They were thrilled with everything and if a bit ran or looked funny, mistakes wipe right off with a baby wipe. It was the most pleasant experience ever. I’m going to hire myself out starting tomorrow. Need a face-painter? Call me up. I’m serious. How much do face-painters charge these days anyway?

So right. This party was about Boo, not me face painting. I hope she loved her party because it was super sweet.

Her mom (that’s Wendy on the right) is the best game-inventer ever. I might need to tap into her talent and start a company or something. Too bad we both have plans to move out of town next year.

There was hot potato.

Musical chairs.

Freeze Dance.

You might wonder why Bug is dressed up as a lion. She was part of the show. She was the ferocious lion that Wendy (the lion tamer) led out on a (necklace) chain. You should have seen Wendy play-acting that the lion was growling and giving her a terrible fight in the bathroom before she brought her out. Then this little pip squeak in a tutu came out and everyone rolled on the floor laughing. Bug ate up all that attention of course.

There were a ton of other games too, all carnival style but due to privacy issues and some funky bright lighting, I didn’t get any photos of those. She had tic-tac-toe toss games and a spider toss game that Boo made up herself. It was so cute. You had to throw a spider onto a giant web and if you got it in the middle you won. And of course there were prizes.

Fun photo ops.

Cupcakes with circus-animal cookies!

And random break-dancing.

And of course a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday complete with whistles.

It’s great to turn ten. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOO!

Sometimes when a craft works out really well, you just gotta do it again and again. In fact, I think I’m going to make this a tradition for us.

It’s just fun and CHEAP! All you need are some cardboard boxes (which I have plenty thanks to a super fun backyard Angry Birds game—hope you didn’t want that guitar box back Carrien), paint, maybe a box-cutter and some box-cutting skillz.

Cut them out, paint them, let them dry and you are set for Halloween.

Put them in your window and let the creepiness take over.

This one really gets me. I keep thinking it’s a real cat out of the corner of my eye. That’s Bug’s handiwork. I guess she knows how to draw cats pretty well.

The cool thing is: as it gets darker and darker they just get cooler and cooler.

And creepier and creepier…wooooooOOOOOOoooooooooh……