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We appear to have filled another thread

Found you! Been lurking but too busy actually planning my party to post (plus discovered Draw Something which has been keeping me rather busy )

DS's knights party is tomorrow!! I'm pretty much sorted but the bloody weather is plotting to ruin everything . We've hired a bouncy castle, i've made bunting (white and dark purple, I thought it looked suitably riyal and would also do for DD parties in the future!) and have 11 guests aged between 2 and 6 who I planned to release into the garden for the best part if 2 hours. That might still work but showers are forecast so def need some more indoor activities just in case.

I have cut some shields out of coloured card and have a stack of pens (washable) and foam stickers which I'll set up on a small table throughout the party (regardless of the weather). Have planned pass the parcel too but think I'd better get together a list of party games to keep in reserve. DSis and my best friend are teachers so I can always rope them in to help (I can think of plenty of games but am nervous of trying to boss the children, especially as most parents will be staying so may observe my ineptitude!).

I have made thd castle cake that stealth made and I'm thrilled with it. It's the first time I've done something like that and it was easier and quicker than I expected. Was grateful to mumsnet for some if the tips tho, such as freezing the cake before doing crumb coat and not making the 'stones' too small (thanks stealth!).

Have also made cake pops using the cake trimmings, and choc marshmallow lollipops (two marshmallows on a stick, covered in chocolate and lots of sprinkles). They look good so hopefully should go down well. Other than that am doing traditional party food for the kids (sandwiches, sausages, cold pizza, pom bears , veg sticks, party rings, cheese and pineapple on sticks, strawberries). Just trying to beg enough chairs to get them sat round our dining table in thd conservatory as the picnic in the garden is off the cards.

Have inflatable swords (for towards the end of the party!), a dragon piñata (for which I've bought a plastic sword which should hopefully be string enough to use as a basher) and kids van put the goodies (moam sweets, loose stickers and party blowers) into their party bags. I've bought white paper takeaway bags, decorated them with each child's name and also put in a toy knight for the boys (from pound land but look more expensive IMO) and a soft toy animal for the girls (couldn't find dragons, and I know it's a but sexist but I know most of the kids well and know it's what they'd prefer!). Also put in a bag of choc coins (mine were 59p from home bargains and are really big and taste pretty good (I had to check of course!)), a cake pop wrapped in cellophane (to save cutting the cake up during the party) and they can each take a sword home.

For adults I've made three types of cake/tray bake and have crisps, wine, beer and soft drinks. Think that should be ok.

So I think im all sorted. Just need to clean and tidy the house, remove valuables and put as much furniture as poss from the lounge into the garage to create space for games if the rain comes.....

I've linked from the old thread so hopefully everyone should find us now.

The party sounds great Silver. Hope it all goes well

Quick post to get this on to my threads.

Hope the party all goes ok Silver. Does the bouncy castle have a rain cover?

Party sounds really good, silver - all set. Which part of the country am I crossing my fingers for good weather for (I know ours doesn't look good - next 5 days forecast are rain, rain, rain, rain and rain ).

Thanks for doing the link, Blathers - I just about managed to start a new thread on my phone but didn't want to use up the last post on the old thread in failing to link to it!

Good luck with the party!

Hallo again ,
stealth squiggle I think it was you that asked , we live near Carmarthen in west Wales .

Quick question , we've had 1 refusal , 8 invitees have accepted by phone , email and in person , so that makes about 12 who haven't replied , so I guess that means they'll be there . The rest are family who I know will be there , is that a sensible assumption do you think ?

Always assume that non-RSVPers will turn up. I had a Mum at School tell me when I asked if her DS would be attending DS's party that she just assumed I would assume he was coming if she didn't RSVP

We're in Lancashire, so I guess I should have expected rain really

The bouncy castle does have a cover, do we should be ok unless it really pours down.

Doilooklikeatourist - other side of Wales from us then (we are in England, but not far from the border). I would love an excuse to make a house-shaped cake. There is a cake shop in Oxford which has done a cake of the Sheldonian Library and I always spend ages admiring it (they have a dummy version on display in their window)

Knights party done. T'was good. There was a cardboard castle and pens, a balloon "dragon" to attack and "kill" (that was a good idea, the kids loved it) and the castle cake of course.

There were games too but the kids spent 90% of the party racing around the garden. I think a bouncy castle would have worked.

Good luck for tomorrow

Hi all. Silver, you have done amazingly. Make sure you post pictures on your profile asap before kids devour the lot. If theres one thing better than planning parties its seeing the results and details!

Doilooklikeatourist, i know the others said do a chilli (and indeed i always do at a large gathering) however i'm gonna throw in the trusty pulled pork idea. Shirley swears by it in the slow cooker and their are some recipes for it in the slow cooker thread running in food topic at the moment. Its bbq flavour, shred it up and put into rolls/cobs/baps whichever your regional word for them. I dont like bbq and we all deemed that it would work just plain pork with stuffing or apple sauce like a hog roast without the cost!! It would work well with salad and potatoes etc and calls for less ingrediants than a chilli.

I found a brill step by step for a fairy castle cake so im gonna try a practice run maybe the week after next. Seems piss easy by making the towers out of pastillage rather than cake. Im hopeful of emerging better than the "ingridants" rival.but i will need to buy a brick embossing mat i think. Now everything ive read says emboss sugarpaste then add to the cake but i like to cover my cake and smooth it perfectly before working it. Im nervous about adding the icing in sections!!!

While at the party today, DS got an invite to another party...Octonauts this time.

How on Earth am I going to make an Octonauts outfit!?

The knight looked really good today, even DH was impressed, just sticking him in a paper hat ain't going to cut it

Ooh, we had an Octonauts party last year! We didn't do fancy dress though. Hat and collar is key! There's an Octonauts page on fb and people always posting party pics so you might get some costume ideas there.

I know the party boy is going to be Kwazii. I'm thinking of trying to talk DS into Captain Barnacles then buying a blue boiler suit and adding a pale blue collar, belt and boot covers...?

Maybe a compass on the belt?

Captain Barnacles is great. You could even just get away with blue trousers and a l/s blue t if you could find the right kind of shade. H&M maybe? Light blue face-paint for his little 'tache?

Oooh, good call. Grey nose and light blue 'tashe.

A boiler suit would be about £10 on ebay - what do you think of this colour? Not quite right but close enough?

A cheapy compass is about £1.50 so could definitely do that and he already has a spy glass. Would need to make a hat

That would work! Felt for hat/belt? Captain barnacles plays the accordion but that's maybe going a bit far! There's an Octonauts magazine which often has character accessories - not sure what's on this month's.

I've found plain blue pyjamas in the right colour!! here if the link works! Much cheaper

I'm thinking cheap pale blue pillow cases to cut up to make the belt, collar and boot covers. Would that work? Bit more hardwearing than felt and would mean I could stick it all in the washing machine so he could wear it again.

I have zero sewing skills, but I imagine a pillow case would work perfectly, there's a little Octonauts logo on the hat, so I was imaging felt might be easier to cut out to attach. It's a shame you're a guest and not hosting, I still have the template for my Octonauts invites

I'm sure Stealth and DW can help with sewing tips

Felt might be better for the hat as it's a bit more rigid. Maybe even foam sheet? Maybe some of that puffy fabric paint to make the logo? I bought some to do the skull and crossbones for the mini hat I made for DS's dinosaur when he went to School as Captain Flynn for WBD so I'd just have to dig that out.

PJ's and compass have been ordered. Party is about a month away

What timescale are we talking, blathers? I have pale blue fabric...

Ah - you answered that. Catch me later in the week when DH is away and my sewing machine is home and I would love to help!

Just found endless "how to make a sailor hat" pages with a quick google. Will have a look tomorrow

Thanks Stealth. I love this thread

'tis indeed a great thread! I've loads of great ideas for DS's pirate party already and I'm sure I'll be asking for loads more advice once I get in to full planning mode.

Isnt captain barnacles that polar bear one. If it is then his hat is more pirate hat shaped than sailor hat so you could get away with making a ridgid catd crown/pirate hat. Foam would work too for reusable etc but may not be as rigid.

But adding the collar belt etc details in felt would be easy on the pj's. Literally cut out and stitch on or even fabric glue. Is peso the little penguin? He's my favourite.

Card i meant!

Yes, Barnacles is the Polar bear. There's also a Penguin named Peso, a Cat named Kwazii and an Otter named Shellington, a Squid named Inkling, a Dog named Dashi, a Bunny named Tweak and a Vegimal named Tunip

This is Barnacles.

Felt is fairly rubbish to wash which is the only thing putting me off using it as it would be easier. I was thinking about it in bed last night (saddo) and wondering if just buying a pale blue school shirt would be easiest for the collar as I could cut it off and sew it into the neck of the PJs. I could use the spare fabric for the belt and the shoe covers. Shirts are fairly cheap from Supermarkets.

The only felt bit I am thinking of is some sort of holder for the compass. Hopefully, it could be made detachable. In the picture it has a wide yellow band around the edge. I might ask my Sister. She occasionally makes hand stitched baby bootees in felt so she should be able to help.

I am a little worried we're going to overshadow the birthday boy with this outfit though!

Do you mean a polo shirt, blathers? That would work... I did have a polo shirt that colour (promotional one of DH's) but I think I used the last of it to make a scarft for a dragon and a rugby shirt for a mouse I am pretty sure I have cotton that colour, though (and can check the stack of throwgiveaway T shirts as well)

I was thinking a cotton shirt but a polo shirt might be better. I was going to pinch one of DH's work shirts (he goes through the elbows fairly regularly) but I think it would have to be a kids one else it wouldn't fit.

A scarf for a Dragon and a rugby shirt for a Mouse sound perfectly plausible to me - see above for the leftover paint from a Dinosaur pirate hat

damn - just realised that you mostly need the collar. I might well have thrown away the collar as I used the rest (before the scarf and rugby shirt) to line a bag. I will check tomorrow when DH is not going at me...

I've had a look online and it would seem our local supermarket does 3 pale blue polo shirts for £4!! Enough matching material to do the collar and all the other bits I should think so no panic if you can't find one

Lol at the full octonauts breakdown.

DrsW - I meant to say about the brick embossing. The bit no-one but DH saw of the basket cake was me cursing and swearing and crying because the basketwork embosser didn't work properly on bastard chocolate sugarpaste once it was on the cake - I simply couldn't press hard enough to get it to go in without crushing the cake. It was too late for me as the paste was on the cake by then, so I had to settle for what I could get (not much) but on that basis I would definitely recommend having a trial run. You could always cover the cake with a thinnish layer to get it smooth and then stick panels of brick on top?

I def need a trial run!! And to make pastillage bootees. But at least with those i can keep them for final day. Actually i could ice a dummy cake couldnt i. And keep the pastillage towers.

Blatherskite - this month's Octonauts mag has Captain Barnacles accessories - compass, badge for belt and something else that I can't remember!

<runs out to buy Octonauts mag> Thanks Scottish

We got the actual invite this morning. It says "Siblings welcome" and now I'm plotting a Tweak outfit for DD too

cool - so we you get to play with 2 outfits - I made DD a jedi youngling robe for a Star Wars party DS went to when she was ~18mths old (she was invited, because I was helping).

I've been asked to help too like i could help myself !

The birthday boy has a little sister about the same age as DD so at least they'll each have someone to play with while the boys race round like loons

I can't believe I didn't know there was a on MN (presumably for today only?) I meant to say, Blathers - the knight party you went to sounds fab but the idea of killing a balloon dragon would have either of my DC in floods of tears - we are very definitely on the dragons' side in this household. DD in particular likes Jane and the Dragon, and any other knights who are friends with dragons, but we definitely don't approve of dragon killing

I didn't know we had a either!

The 'dragon' was pretty much a collection of green and red balloons and if I hadn't have been told what it was, I would never have guessed I could- -have --done better

Blathers look at the cake on here...

karaspartyideas.com/2012/03/lego-themed-5th-birthday-party.html

Wow! That's amazing

That is exceptionally cool. I really must start thinking about what theme(s) I am going to get DH to talk DD into for this year. She is stuck on "dragons" at the moment, but I am not sure how much scope that will give me with
6yos (well, 5yos, really, since DD is the oldest)

Yes i thought that cake was cool but surprisingly simple.

Dragons is tough. Is she really into nothing else?

www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/how-to-train-your-dragon-birthday-party/
projectnursery.com/2012/04/a-dragon-party-tips-from-the-trenches/

She is into everything - she is mostly into dragons because DS is, TBH, and she loooooooves her big bro (especially right now, as we are a week into him being away for 2.5 weeks and she really really misses him --and so do I--). I have always resisted "branded" parties (so themed to a TV show ones, mainly - I wouldn't have the same issue with books [hypocrite]) so I would want something generic, and gender neutral - so far she has had princesses&pirates, and a cooking party.

Well, I've just been on the most pointless shopping trip ever and have managed to buy nothing I went in for - including an Octonauts magazine

I went into the huge WHSmiths and looked through an entire aisle of children's magazines but there was nothing!! We are getting close to the end of the month I guess so maybe they've sold out?

I'm not too worried though as I have ordered a proper working compass from ebay which I'm planning to make a little felt holder for and I have some transfer paper left so I can print out and iron on Octonauts badges to the outfits. If I'm making DD an outfit too, I'll need more than one badge anyway so that works out well as they'll match this way. From what I can see online, the other gift seems to be 2 mini megaphones Not sure I've ever seen Captain Barnacles use those before but it's been a while since DS watched Octonauts so maybe it's a new thing.

Knowing DS, I think he's going to be fascinated by the working compass any way and it probably cost around the same as the magazine would have and at least this way, we'll get some long term use out of it.

I love the Puff the magic dragon take on the Dragon party. That table is beautiful. The little lunch boxes look great too

You could print out a load of these for a dragon party and let each child make one? If you printed them on card, they'd be better. I did them a while ago and they really work

I think dragons could actually work really well actually. Nice generic theme that could work for all. Do our usual suggestions, pinata to slay or balloons like blathers said, those magic dragon heads look fab, whilst googling i saw a cake where the candles were positioned as the fire from its mouth. And these...

tatertotsandjello.com/2011/03/guest-project-dragon-tails-sewing.html

For when you get the sewing machine back!!

Those tails are great! You could make everyone a tail and some dragon-y wings to wear.

Being as the Stealth house are very pro-dragon, maybe you could make a balloon knight to slay? Should be easy with balloons as long as you get some long ones.

Have you and the mini stealths read Zog? Might give you some ideas for some games. We have it if you haven't got it and would like some bits out of it...

Easy dragon wings

I want some!

I want a tail and wings!!! How come every time we start a new party discussion i start wanting that party.

Glad it's not just me.

I now need to do a Knight's party, an Alice in Wonderland party, a dragon party, a Gruffalo party...and they're just the ones off the top of my head!

If DD hadn't spent the past few days being such a living nightmare, I might even consider having more kids just to make sure I can fit more parties into a year

Although, it's DH's birthday and my birthday next month and I'm planning absolutely nothing!

Adults-shmadultz forget you and dh!!

On that website if ideas it says dragon tail tag so maybe make one tail at least so that kids take it in turns to be the dragon. Lots of talk about hunting dragon eggs too so maybe hunt out some easter eggs for cheaps as dragons eggs to give as party bag gift.

I want a rainbow party and a playdoh party which i reckon i could combine. Dd1 said she wanted a princess party like her cousin is having and i stupidly said what about playdoh. Now she wants that and i think it woulda been better for dd1's first birthday as all the kids would be 1-5 so catered for all. What could i steer dd1 into? Dont want fairies or princesses as sil will think im copying.

Or maybe she could have playdoh and dd1 has rainbow but too similar?

Dd2 even.

Quick post - the Octonauts mag is fairly new I'm sure (we have a fanatic here) and yes, Captain Barnacles def uses the megaphone! Doesn't sound like you really need it though.

At work, so must dash!

posted and then lost it all.

Honestly, I go out to earn my living for a change leaving a vague idea and come back to find a complete party plan. Am I really making 20 sets of wings and 20 tails, though ? (it's either 20 children or <10 and I don't think DD could manage to downselect, social butterfly that she is)

I am off to work my way through the links while listening to a webcast.

DrsW - if this is the cousin with the hairdos and make up and dubious clothes then I wouldn't touch princesses with a barge pole after she has done it. How about Jungle? That was the one I was missing from my list earlier - we did it for DD's 4th birthday and it went down a storm.

I love the wings and the tails. Dragon games are going to take a lot of negotiation in a house full of dragons and dragon experts... DC have very strong opinions about dragon training and so do their imaginary dragons (DD's is called Susan and is sometimes allowed in her room, but I think DS's lives outside).

girly dragon tails??

That would definitely work. Very scaly

I've just made a felt carrot. After all, DD can't be Teak without a 'Buncha Muncha Carrots" The blue PJs, the compass and the bunny ears and tail arrived today too and I've been to Hobbycraft. I forgot yellow thread for the compass holder though so I might make a trip out for that and the blue t-shirts later on when DH gets home

Did someone mention gruffalo party earlier. I loved these

DW had a Gruffalo party. I was amazing - especially her cake!

The compass holder is done. I'm not totally happy with it but I keep reminding myself that this is just a party outfit. It's perfectly good enough I think.

My Mum is coming down at the weekend to help me with the outfits. She's made wedding dresses in the past so it should be a walk in the park for her. Save an awful lot of posting stuff across the country too Stealth

blathers - I meant to say - I did look, and I had indeed thrown away the collar of that shirt - and the remains are not even large enough for the belt. I do have another cut-uppable one but annoyingly not quite the right blue... you are still welcome if you need/want it though

sewing machine is ready to come home - hopefully I can collect it tomorrow whilst spending an obscene amount of money on a new tyre after my car managed to get a nail embedded in one

Thanks Stealth but I think my best bet is probably the Tesco ones as then I'll have 3 to go at to make the 2 outfits. I'm going to need 2 collars and then fabric for 2 belts, 2 sets of boot covers, a headband and maybe even part of a hat!

Even if 3 isn't enough, for £4 I can always get more and be fairly sure that the colours will match.

DS is going to need a sailor-type hat. Any suggestions on the easiest way to make one?

Good luck with the tyre fixing tomorrow. I hope it's not too horribly expensive

T-shirts were actually only £3.50 for 3. Bargain!

Now waiting for Mum's arrival on Saturday so we can get the outfits made

Carrot and compass holder made, just need to find a toy spanner for DD now. I'm sure we've got one somewhere....

My sewing machine is home and I am too tired to even get it out of the car. Damned work.

Im on my way to wales for a long weekend. Yippeee a break in the pissing down rain.

Stealth you better get that machine out if you are to make 20 dragon tails on our instruction.

Scottish my gruffalo party is on my profile pics although i do love the mouse droppings!

LOL DrsW - I think I need to make one first, if only to work out how much fabric I need! I think the wings are going to have to be fleece, looking at the instructions. Anyway, I have gift bags for a couple of other parties (1 pirate, 1 unthemed) to make first. And a living to earn...

Enjoy Wales. We will be spending Sunday driving to North Wales and back to collect a picnic table which we are never going to get to use because it is never ever going to stop bloody raining

I will enjoy it. Were going to trecco bay porthcawl. We've been before and dd fell in love with their characters and she sleeps with a toy version. We thought it would be nice to treat her as she's been so good with me being ill and dd2 arriving. We're just gonna stay on site and let her do swimming and every kids club thing. Dh says i can stay in the caravan reading if i want!

Just dipping in, as I know you guys are the teddy bear picnic experts and am too lazy to go through the last thread on my phone to find the relevant bit . Not a party, but I need to source a dirt cheap tablecloth, am thinking red check, also ideas for other teddy bear picnic type decorations (was thinking maybe bunting); and food - from shops not homemade (pombears etc). Oh and any other bear related products which you might have seen at bargain prices, I know poundland sometimes has teddy bear tea cups, etc. It's for nursery/school age, so not too babyish.

Will be back properly nearer ds 3rd party, might do dinosaur one, and when dd1 has emerged from her regression, don't think I could do a Dumbo party for 8yr olds with a straight face! Thanks girls!

The Teddy Bears picnic was mine. I had lots of tables to cover so bought disposable red check cloths from ebay. I think they did do individual ones as well though and even just lengths of red check fabric that you could use.

I home made all of our food - although we did have pombears. I found it was a lot easier to stick everything on bear plates than try to theme it all. There are loads of different styles and some even come with matching bunting. I got loads and loads of red check bunting from an ebay seller for not a lot of money and it's proper fabric stuff so can be used again. Paper stuff is easy to make too.

Cutting sandwiches into bear shapes wouldn't take too much doing if you wanted. We went with traditional triangle in the end though. Bear cakes are fairly easy to buy, as are Haribo type bears. You could put out slices of that bear shaped ham maybe?

I got fabric like this for tablecloth for DD's cooking party. It is now being slowly used up even more slowly as I failed to measure and bought twice as much as I needed in various costumes, bags, etc.

Thanks, will go off to ebay looking for table cloths. Fabric shop might be good too never need to be told twice to go to a craft shop . I'm not being lazy not doing home made (honest), but needing ideas that other people can go and buy and contribute, it is more for show than consumption on the day iyswim. Was thinking maybe nice jars of marmalade and honey to pay homage to padington and pooh. Think m+s or somewhere do teddy bear biscuits as mine are offered them at friends houses who are too good to their children rather than giving them tesco basic biscuits like me , glad you said bunting as that was my main idea beyond table cloth.

Hoorah, my mum is here - let the costume making begin

DH dragged us all out to IKEA and wasted valueable costume making time!!

Still, the bits we did get done are looking really good

Has the man no sense of priorities ?

My sewing machine and I managed the time-consuming bit of making a bag for Pirate party boy (the applique) - but yesterday was spent driving to Wales and back in constant driving rain/sleet and there was no electricity at home anyway so I certainly haven't got as far as dragon wings/tails. In fact, the way this week is going, sleep is going to be a luxury, let alone fun stuff .

Blathers - I we need pictures

Hi all i'm back! You know that rain, hail, wind etc you were driving in stealth? I was holidaying in that!!!

Had nice enough time but caravanning in that weather wasnt great, even with heating in each room it was freezing and i kept worrying about dd2 freezing to death. Although i did bring her into bed for a snuggly breastfeed which i hadnt dared do yet as she's so tiny. Was lovely to be snuggled up with her. Sleeping with dd1 involves constant chatter at 2am followed by feet in your face or being physically slept on. She's lost all co-sleeping appeal that one.

Lovely to hear of all the sewing sessions. I must promise to try my machine this week no excuses. And i want to see pics please all!

Did DD1 have fun, DrsW? I did think of you! We also passed a field full of people camping in tents which looked truly miserable. New table looks great, except that we need several strong people to help us get it out of the trailer

Hello , just reporting back from my housewarming party which was a fantastic night though I say it myself
we decided on the pulled pork idea , and I found a fab recipe www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pulledporkwithsausag_88807
so good in fact that a VEGETARIAN was seen eating a huge plateful !
Cold turkey breast , pasta with creamy tomato sauce , potato wedges and a couple of cheeseboards , homemade bread and some bread rolls . I made a huge chocolate tray bake , covered it with fudge icing , chocolate stars and glitter ( obviously )
We had about 50 people ( including the teenagers ) had a fab time , last people left about 2-30 am .
Thanks for the advice , happy party planning !

Sounds like an excellent party

Yeeeeaaahhh glad the party went so well. Did these party go-ers have to help actually decorate the house? Wasnt it a grab a paintbrush party? And glad you went with pulled pork, shirleyknot would be thrilled.

Dd1 had a fabulous time thanks stealth. In fact i felt terrible as i spent most of the time feeding/cajouling dd2 and so dd1 was pretty much under dh's rule. Nevermind im sure i'll get some 1:1 time with her as dd2 gets bigger.

And stealth im not sure if your hinting for a hand with this table but cough cough cough wheeze groan...i've got embolisms ya know

I am not normally much into pre-made "ranges" for parties, but how cool is Sir Bakealot??

Forget him!!! I just found wheres wally party stuff. <counts out seven fingers> seven years til my 40th thats a long time to wait for a wheres wally party.

I saw Sir Bakealot a few days ago and thought of you Stealth

Will try to get round to taking pics of the outfits soon but DH was away last night and it was 2 on 1 round here!

Only 6 years and 26 days to my 40th DW

Only 6 yrs and 26 days wow you're even closer to a wheres wally party then!! Oh and i saw your 'fugly' convo. Pmsl at you getting judged.

I've had an offer from vistaprint, one of these freebie jobs. If i order by thurs i'll only pay postage and because ive got ages i can choose the slowest option so i should get it all for cheaps.

Instead of invitations where you get ten free, ive done postcards as you get 100! Still invite wording etc.then ive tailored a brochure into an order of service as you get 10 free but 25 is around 8 quid. Then thank you notes 100 free. The brochure doesnt match perfectly but you wouldnt notice as ive kept the fonts/colours etc the same. Just waiting for my lovely minister to agree the readings so i can order them before thurs. she'll say yes though, shes so cool she wears fishnets and stiletto heels with her cassock!

Only 5 years and 4 days to DHs 40th. He's just announced that he doesn't want a birthday cake though so I might not be around to organise a Where's Wally party as I will have divorced him.

Between sodding off on a work trip (curry and beer while being buttered up to buy software is "work" right?), no cake and Octonaut costume sabotage, he's not in my good books this week!

Yes, judged because clothes can't be fat

PS to my update
We chose the pulled pork because I don't eat red meat ( and porks not red , it's pink ) and as I was cooking , I was choosing !

No , it wasn't a paint party , we moved into my parents house , Mum sadly died about 10 years ago , Dad has remarried and is a bit difficult
It was a long , difficult , and at times heartbreaking move , so we had a party to thank our lovely friends for their support .

We do need to decorate , bring a paint brush party, hmmmm < walks away , clutching a Farrow and Ball paint chart >

Did you make the mistake of asking him if he wanted cake, Blathers, or did he come out with this heresy out of the blue? My DH is not getting a vote - I know exactly what I want to do for his birthday.

I asked what sort of cake he wanted. He said none. I have done cheesecake in the past but not even that apparently.

He is getting a birthday Dinner though and has asked for syrup sponge so I'll stick a candle in that

He's a bloody grinch about celebrations in general. Doesn't want cake, doesn't want presents, doesn't want to go out....it's no wonder I go to such extremes for the children!

I spy a common theme here - DrsW, what about you?

Ha ha miserable sod.you need to make a grinch cake.

Doilooklikeatourist - that must be very emotional and it sounds like you have some lovely friends. Perhaps best not have a paintbrush party then, you dont want some overzealous teenager sloshing about with a roller really!

Ive never made my dh a cake. Perhaps he'd like a full on fairy castle as an excuse to trial it.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=grinch+cake&hl=en&client=safari&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Sp2gT9i3AoLb8APZ6qyGCA&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=320&bih=356#p=0

Here he is blathers. Just change his hat to a party hat ha ha. In fact give him one of those party blower things.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=grinch+cake&hl=en&client=safari&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Sp2gT9i3AoLb8APZ6qyGCA&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=320&bih=356#p=0

Convert links!

Just seen this on active!! (cat got me up -damn him)

How lovely that this thread is still going!

Hi shirley we've missed you! I hope you dont mind that we'be kept on? We just chat idly amongst ourselves until a party planner stumbles in and then we pounce! And run amock with all our ideas. You'd be proud of us. Stealth had a 30ft dragon or some such thing for chinese new year, how very shirley like!

To have a stash of props i mean not a striking resemblence to a dragon

Hahah! When I get five minutes I'm going to read the thread.

I've been dieting [sadface] since Xmas on and off, and had some dental surgery which is ongoing, and have been exercising and giving up smoking and cutting back drastically on the booze....

therefore I have been DISTINCTLY unparty like.

Of course I don't mind that you've carried on - I'm chuffed!

at comparing Stealth to a large dragon!

It's good to see you Shirley, we've missed you.

Many of my colleagues would agree with you on the similarity to dragon (I appear to be having that kind of week)

DBro and his GF are visiting on Saturday so I have an excuse to do a birthday lunch even if DH doesn't want one

It's got to be trifle for dessert as Dh and Dbro (and I) all love it - It'll be with jelly I'm afraid - but what shall I make for main course?

I'm sort of fancying pulled pork with rolls and coleslaw and salad but there'll only be 4 adults and 2 kids so that might be a bit much maybe?

Do the pulled pork and freeze surplus? I love trifle with jelly!
When i was pregnant i craved them and my foodie friend went on a rant about how trifle had to be with fresh fruit etc etc. i was saying i like the cheapest ones best fruit cocktail and jelly. Chav tastic!

Mmmmm trifle. If I could get away with it, I'd just have the custard and topping to be honest

I'm making 2 this weekend. Saturdays will be Strawberry jelly with sponge and fresh strawberries in, topped with custard and cheap nasty dream topping and crumbled flake.

Sundays will be much more foodie with cherry madiera cake soaked in Kirsch with fresh cherries, kirsch soaked cherries and cherry jam, topped with custard and proper whipped cream decorated with more fresh cherries.

I'm betting Saturdays will be nicer. I made something very similar at Christmas and DNiece devoured it. Both her parents are very foodie and I'm not sure she'd ever had one like that before

I've been and bought Pork but I couldn't get as big a piece as I would have liked and I couldn't get a joint with the bone in. Will it be OK or should I go on an emergency shop tomorrow?

I've got salad, coleslaw, soft rolls and posh crisps to serve it all with. It's only lunch so that will be enough right?

That'll be plenty, Blathers. Who doesn't like pulled pork rolls (with loads of crackling and apple sauce of course)? And trifle - I love the jelly & birds custard and the foodie versions - not sure I could choose between the two, TBH.

Are you going to stick candles in the trifle for the grinch DH?

I got thoroughly carried away in a stress-relieving baking session last night - today's team meeting got 3 types of cake + decorated cupcakes for 2 birthdays (fortunately I work with lots of greedy appreciative people)

Bedtime soon. DS finally home tomorrow.

I'd forgotten about apple sauce! Luckily, I have some in the fridge. I got some gerkins too. I hate them but DH likes them and they seemed to be part of every recipe I saw.

And yes, I was considering sticking candles in the trifle for the Grinch who stole birthdays

I'm going to be having a very foodie day tomorrow. DS has been invited to play at a friend from pre-school's house. Whenever he comes here, his parents send over some sort of delicious polish cake/pastries so I'm feeling the need to reciprocate. My plan is to make Lemon drizzle cake as most people tend to like that and it's reasonably 'British'. I also need to do the jelly layer for Saturdays trifle and get the marinade made for the Pork as well as Dinner. I've found since I've been doing weightwatchers that I cook from recipes far more often so most nights end up being a proper cooking night at the moment. Tonight we had steak and fries with chimichurri sauce. It was nice but I'm glad DH had some too as it was very garlic-y!

See i was gonna say the only foodie type trifle i like is cherry.mmmmmm

I think ive switched back to my two tier bootee cake again rather than the shades of pink. Unless you can find me sandwich tins that are bigger than 8"?

I've got to make the castle cake a week before dd's service so im thinking if i make fruit cake and one sponge to stack then its only one cale i have to make in dd's week. Not 4/5 shaded layers.

Type in swiss dots cake on pinterest. Thats what im aiming for.

Can you buy ready made royal icing to pipe? I can never ever make it right.

I feel I need to jump in here and say that the words " pulled pork " and " leftover " tend not to appear in the same sentence !

They would do if I followed the recipe I had tourist! It's supposed to feed 20 and I'll have 4 adults and 2 small children! That a LOT of pork for anyone

I'm sure I've seen ready made royal icing but I'm not sure where #helpful

Could you not part fill bigger cake tins to make your layers if you can't find sandwich tins?

We'll see you around 12 on Monday then ready to go to MILs and eat the cherry trifle? I'll have plenty of leftover puller pork you can eat too

If you buy the royal icing sugar (the purple packets) then the secret, IME, is to use a stand mixer and beat it for a long time. Thinking about it, I think you basically need to beat the egg white in it until stiff IYSWIM.

Agree. I put mine in the KitchenAid and beat it for at least 5 minutes.

I have a packet in the cupboard. Right tomorrow i'll practise piping dots.

What size tins would you use for a two tiered cake? I tell ya i cant make any decisions i think its because so many people will be looking at it. If i do bottom tier fruit and top sponge will i still need dowels or will the fruit cake be dense enough to support it?

Ive got 40 adults 11 kids.

When I did 3 tiers for PIL Golden Wedding (which I had nightmares about, so I do feel your pain!) I went for 12", 9" and 6", so I think for 2 tiers I would fo with 12" and 9".

Oh - and I wouldn't personally bother dowelling the fruit cake, I don't think.

I did a 12" cake for 60 people recently (NIGHTMARE) so I would agree with stealth and go for a 12" and a 9", doubt you'd need dowling.

I had to mix the mixture in a (new) Washing up bowl so be prepared! heh!

I am officially getting a divorce!

I told 'D'H that I was making him slow cooked pulled pork for his birthday lunch and how meltingly tender it would be after 16-24 hours in the oven.

His response - "That's going to cost a fortune in electricity to cook"

<sigh>

Feck him, it's only his birthday. I've got some sausages to go with the meat and been out and bought a selection of the most wonderful looking rolls from M&S this morning - the cheese knot ones were still hot out of the oven! I'm impressed that so far, I've only had to eat one

I've even invited his parents <polishes DIL halo>

12" and 9" sound about right for the tiers DW. I doubt you'd need to dowel the fruit cake too. Assuming it's going on the bottom that is?

bleeding typical, Blathers.

One word of warning - we discovered that our smartass oven times out and decides that you have left it on by accident after about 8 hours - it turned itself off in the middle of cooking 24 hour pork .

pirate bag is done (for party tomorrow)

Mine's not smart - it's from IKEA.

Although it is the one they used in the advert <preens> Their's wasn't covered in bloody fingerprints though!

Bag looks really good. I wish I could sew like that. The Octonauts outfits are still in the same state my Mum left them in. The DC have been taking it in turns to get me up early while the other one has a lie in making me simultaneously knackered and late for school DD's so tired, she's having to have a catch up nap right now! I'm making lemon drizzle cake and trifle to cheer myself up while trying hard to resist the bread rolls that are smelling soooo nice on the table

I feel your pain blathers dd2 keeps waking about 4-5, then dd1 is waking between 5.30-6.00. Today its been lazy day, no time to practice piping dots. Im actually scared to cook the bloody fruitcake now you gits. Washing up bowl?!!! But ive got tons of ingrediants left over from cooking xmas cake and i need the cupboard space so i'm going for it. In fact dh is away next weekend i'll do it then. And feed it bottles and bottles of booze.

I asked the venue to do chilled desserts like cheesecake/gateau instead of a fruit platter. They were extremely hesitant which i dont understand and came back to say how about a chocolate fountain?!!!!

Yes because with 11 toddlers near a christening gown what i really want is a chocolate fountain.

Blathers i love cooking esp from new recipes. In jealous of you being able to bake and cook so leisurely. I seem to have a limpet on my boobs all day. Im not enjoying feeding at all really. It feels like a chore because the whole time im sat there im looking at all the jobs etc i could be doing!

I remember those days! DD refused any sort of teat so bottles were out and I BF her until she was a year old when she swapped straight onto cows milk from a tippee cup.

At least this way you're not having to wash bottles between feeds and faff about with boiling and cooling water and powder and all that mess. No sideboards full of bottles when you're BF and no need to be quite so organised when you go out either - I never forgot to take my boobs

I hardly ever get the change to bake like that as DD was my attention all of the time so it was lovely that she napped - for 3.5 hours in the end!! - so I could get on. The cake went down perfectly too as apparently when the Dad was a child, things like lemons were very hard to get in Poland and were a big treat so he's loved them ever since

Turns out my oven is that smart

Good job DD got me up at 5.45 so I could turn it back on!

That bag looks fab Stealth.

Is the pulled pork recipe linked to further up the thread? I have no use for it just now, but it sounds like it should definitely be noted for future use.

Is the birthday lunch today Blathers?

It wasn't linked to but it is now

I did this one except to cheated and added 5 spice podwer instead of grinding up the individual spices and I added a bit of cayenne pepper and some paprika. It was very yummy. Possibly a bit dryer than I'd have liked but it was hard to scale the cooking times down for my smaller bit of meat so I'd say that was mostly my fault - plus my magical, self switching off oven of course.

Yes, DH is 35 today. Pulled pork and trifle lunch done - spaghetti, meatballs and syrup sponge dinner to go. What with me collapsing in a heap and demanding pizza last night after DDs random sleep patterns this week, it's going to be a bad weekend for the diet!

And now the meat is done, my smart oven is actually being useful and cleaning itself while I MN.

It's a hard life

LOL at underestimating your oven's intelligence, Blathers.

Turns out party is tomorrow - just as well I checked the invitation before I sent DD to get changed (just).

Evening all. Ive been up since 4am. Dd2 woke for a feed then dd2 came bounding in wide awake.

Glad the recipe was nice blathers. Im not mad on pork except bacon/gammon etc. but even im tempted to try it.

Dd1 says she wants a play doh party when she's 4 in nov!! Shes getting in early. I'd mentioned wanting one to dh and she's jumped on it. So i've been sat breastfeeding planning it in my head.

Aint that the best bit, planning it all. Play doh actually have great ideas on their website like make a play doh donkey and tails and take turns to pin the tail on it. And google images even has reasonable cake ideas.

I'm not a big pork fan either and much prefer bacon/gammon too. I likes this though as the salt in the marinade made it taste very gammon-y.

The trifle was amazing. I tweeted pictures as I was going along just in case Stealth was around.

Yesterday would have been even better if DD hadn't been poorly. Her sleep has been all over the place for a week and then she had that random nap on Friday. Yesterday, she woke up early again and was really, really hot and obviously feeling rotten. My brother arriving cheered her up and she raced round the house with him for a while before falling asleep on the kitchen floor just before lunch. She woke up from her nap even hotter and even grumpier! Everyone had gone by then so we just had a quiet afternoon but last night, she ended up in with us so everyone had a broken night and I think she's given the bug to DH and I as we both feel rotten today too

DH's birthday spaghetti and meatballs didn't get done yesterday as we were all too full of lunch still and too busy with DD so I'll do those today hopefully. I've been watching saturday kitchen and want to make Foccacia now too - I can't be that ill if I still fancy baking right?

Playdoh party sounds good DW. Party bags will be easy too

Sorry, blathers - I wasn't on Twitter (or online at all, really) yesterday. I shall attempt to catch up today.

We managed to move monster table without killing anyone, though!

I have found the perfect craft activity for DD's dragon party (she better not change her mind now ) - look at these

Oooh brill. I saw on pinterest a cake decorating party. Thats one i'm adding to the wish list.

Stealth wait for it... I've had the sewing machine out. Its actually really simple...and addictive. I've made two drawstring bags from fat quarters that i've had for a year to do for dd1's bedroom. One for laundry which is lined! Yes lined! And the other for her pj's. I gave it to her and she threw it at me saying 'but i wanted a pillow pet!' ungrateful little bugger!

I'm gonna do my bunting later whilst the machine is out and attempt the cot quilt.

I've also been asked to do a christening cake. Thank god dd2 is such a placid baby.

DrsW - I always line bags - because it is a damn sight easier than finishing the edges [lazy]. DD seems to have hit party season so I have one (car themed) to do for next weekend and one (bug and butterfly themed) for the week after .

I am just trying to sort out a way to get my old machine to another MNer. It is indeed addictive, DrsW - just wait - you too will be wanting a super dooper sewing machine for your 40th...

I've only ever made two things (sewing wise) a blue kangaroo and an egg cosy! Im so chuffed with these they are by no means great but they look decent enough for adding nice touch to dd's room. Only prob is reverse stitch doesnt seem to work? I keep having to turn the work and stitch back over it.

Hmm. reverse stitch a puzzle. Alternative is to leave it and just thread the ends through to the wrong side and knot them (might be easier?)

How did you do Blue Kangaroo? I DD would love a Blue Kangaroo (I was thrilled to find a stripy horse last year - DD was nowhere near as impressed as I was, though )

Pm me your email address and i'll send you my private blog so you can see it. But pattern is here

www.sewingpatterns.org.uk/kangaroo-sewing-pattern.htm

presumably since Blue Kangeroo is a boy you made it without the pouch and Joey?

Ive pm'd you the blog. Thick as mince no need for email is there? Not now pm is free!

I love the dragons! Brilliant.

I need to get my sewing machine back out and finish these Octonauts outfits. Got to get DD well again first though. She's been poorly since Friday which made for a fun bank holiday weekend!

What do you think is wrong with her blathers? Virus?

I had the night from hell. Dd2 screamed til 3am, keeping dd1 awake too. She then got up at 5. I've got the vicar coming so i sent her an email this morning saying could we please reschedule. Dropped dd1 at playschool and came home for a kip on the sofa except got woken by postman etc.

Checked my sent items and i havent emailed the vicar at all!!!! Its sat in my draft items. She's due here at half 1 and the house is a tip and i'm like the living dead! Sob.

Hi Ladies, is butting in with a question OK??
Trying to plan a party for eight 5 year old girls, don't want to do loads of games as such. It will be after school to finish at 5.30 (I think, does that sound OK?) Intending to do bag decorating on arrival, this will be their party bag, I thought this might be a good thing to do to cope with arrivals which may vary a bit. We have a treasure hunt, a pin-the-other-thing-on-not-a-donkey, and was wondering about some cake and shaped biscuit decorating. Don't mind doing a few games too of course. Not sure how to timetable these things. Need to fit in tea as well of course.

Course you can but in!!

Have you got a theme in mind? We always say if you have a theme its far easier to hang it all together with themed games etc. and when is it?

<lurks for 4 year old party games suggestions> am beginning to flap like a headless chicken as its on Saturday and only have a couple of things sorted.

I hate it when you do a party at home and you use up all your games and craft and realise youve got ages to go argh.

DisBoCo according to my DC it's not a party without pass the parcel. Other than that, small girls seem to enjoy prancing about, so a few rounds of musical bumps/statues would burn some time. If they get fidgety at the table try teaching them to play Chinese whispers - good for plenty of girly giggling.

YouBrokeMySmoulder - IME you have to teach 4yos to play games <tuts about the yoof of today>. Pass the parcel also good, and musical bumps - just don't count on anyone staying out when they are out, and when you they get bored declare everyone left to be winners and give them a round of applause / stickers all round. If desperate, Sleeping Lions will give you some respite.

For both, if you can get outside, then some sort of relay race to match theme would go down well too.

Was about to suggest pass the parcel and musical statues but I see Stealth has beaten me to it

Ds is just 5 so we've been to a lot of 5th birthday parties recently and they both seem to be staples.

Biscuit decorating has gone down very well with all ages groups at parties I've done in the past. My tips are:-
Make sure you have plenty (2-3 each min)
Have lots of sprinkles/sweeties to decorate with,
Make powdered icing sugar up on bowls (make different colours if you like) and provide spoons for spreading as it's much, much easier and less frustrating than the tubes
and
Give everyone a paper plate to decorate on with their name written on the edge - it means you will easily be able to tell who's biscuit is who's so that any non eaten ones can go home (wrapped in cling film) with their creator and really helps keep the sprinkle overspill in one place and off the floor which helps with clearing up afterwards.

If you've got a theme, finding biscuit cutters to match is easily done on ebay.

it's worth checking what games your own DC know, as that's a good measure of what their friends know. For example, both mine knew stuck in the mud and duck duck goose, but had no idea about some others which I would have considered more obvious.

Yes definitely to PtheP, DD has insisted on that already. I was just thinking that and bumps/statues and something I will call 'dress and dance' when you call out the name of a clothing item and they have to put it on (or take it off when you say it again) whilst still dancing - really simple things like hats, scarves, stretchy bracelets.
Blathers, yes agree with all that, I have done cookery at school with 3x30 of them so I think I can cope at home! Famous last words of course (tries to ignore image of the state of the floor at school.....).
Just don't want to run out of things to do and am trying to stop myself buying up the whole Baker Ross catalogue in bid to prevent this.

Ah, my tips possibly a bit redundant then

LOL at not buying the whole catalogue. I tend to acquire things over several months in the run up to a party and then shock myself as to how much I have

OK so other games <thinks> - do we have a theme at all? Dressing up races where they pile stuff on to an adult/older child in relay race style are popular, as is general silly dancing with animal impressions (as typically led by obnoxious overbearing "clown" entertainer)

..and a colouring table for non-joiner-inners, too.

Yes egg and spoon relays could work well with those big plastic spoons and eggs. So I am doing ptp, musical bumps, pin the tail on the diplodocus, relays, craft...if you've got a 2hour party then when do you do food, half an hour before the end or soone?

about 45 mins before the end and plan some fairly unstructured rioting-type games for after tea to send them home well hyped up suitably worn out.

I might do a piñata after tea maybe? That wastes lots of time especially as they are small and parents have to do it...<and breathe>

Blathers, goodness, no, not at all. I just meant I'm comfortable with that bit, much more so than the jolly hockey sticks, get everyone playing a game, lets have loads of fun type persona that may be required for more active things.

Hello again everyone, sorry to jump back in again about DS's 4th birthday pirate party. Now some stuff is out of the way I've been able to get back to planning the party and I wondered if you could tell me what you think...

Arrival - straight to a craft table to decorate a booty bag - basic pirate bag (with names on) with some stickers, self-adhesive jewels etc.

Once everyone has arrived and done that give them a pirate spy glass and a pirate card to go off and find the matching pair (sort of a treasure hunt as it's hard to do a real treasure hunt in an empty hall)- gold dubloon for the booty bag when they find it.

Followed by musical islands - when people get eliminated another prize/dubloon for their booty bag and take a turn at pin the patch on the pirate or similar.

Pass the treasure chest (pass the parcel) but get to choose a prize from the treasure chest

Sleeping pirates

Lunch - pirate themed for the kids, some snacks and drinks for grown ups.

Birthday cake

Pirate Pete (pirate story with a couple of key words that they have to do a pirate action for) - have a fab helper who's a brilliant storyteller for young children. While they're all occupied take the opportunity to put cake and a couple of bits in the pirate bag.

Also, have the craft table set up with colouring sheets throughout, hopefully a helper to do some very basic pirate face painting, balloons.

Finish off with walk the plank (if I can organise a plank) or maybe a piñata (how much stuff do I need for a piñata? DS hasn't been to a party with one before, do they just take turns to bash the piñata and then a free for all when it's bust?)

Any thoughts? Do I need more or less? Thinking around 1 1/2 hours.

Wow scottish that all sounds brilliant, craft activity would be good whilst they are waiting for face painting too so that sounds good.

No idea how much to put in a pinata, watching the responses to that with interest. And yes how do you stop some urchin from taking all the sweets once its burst?

It all sounds fab Scottish. Can I come

While in Hobby craft (yes again!) yesterday, I spotted an egg shaped cookie cutter in their clearance bit. I bought it as obviously, you never know when you might need an egg shaped cutter but when I went to put it in the box with the others, I realised just how many cutters I now have! I think I might need some sort of intervention

Just the one box, Blathers? Nothing to worry about there, then

I am not a huge fan of pinatas, personally, probably because I can never work out how to do it and because my DC would go all soppy about hitting anything cute. Having said that, the DC went to a kids club on holiday in Mexico, and they did it "properly" - pinata was dangling on a rope with a man on the other end - kids were given bags, took turns (smallest to largest), took turns again, were told to smack the hell out of it, eventually had to have some help, and then scrambled for the loot. They all seemed to come away happy and I couldn't see any "fixing" going on - but maybe it might be best to have some stuff in reserve in case some child comes away with nothing?

It's a big box though Stealth. I might count how many cutters...

93!

Still tempted to buy another 7 just to round it up

Thanks all. I got most of the ideas on here or through links on here! I will ponder some more on the pinata. Do you think 1 1/2 hours is enough time for everything? We've got the hall booked for 2 hours with quarter hour either side for set up clear up, but I'd like to give myself plenty of time to set up. Last year people were arriving quite promptly and making small talk while I was trying to rush around.

Blathers - if you're handy at face painting you'd be very welcome!

I know I have more than that but I am not counting them or DH might make me rationalise them

My box of cutters seems quite poor in comparison I think. I shall have to count them and buy some more. I probably need some pirate shaped ones I think...

I did notice I had 5 christmas trees, 5 stars and at least 3 holly leaves, 3 teddies and 3 elephants But they're all different sizes or shapes so I need them all.

I don't have pirate ones - but I do have a parrot and a skull so I think I could wing it

pirate cookie cutters

you know you want need to...

I need this one first

that's on my birthday list too

Ooh, I think my party shopping list needs updated! I definitely need to take the approach of buying things over the year. I totted up the cost of some pirate themed table wear and decorations etc and it soon adds up. Thank heavens for ebay though.

The thing about cookie cutters though, I have no idea how you go about decorating themed cookie cutters. Say for example these flower cookies - what icing do you use for the base flower shape? And what's the best way to add detail?

It's on mine too. Just over a fortnight to my birthday as well <excited>

just over 3 weeks to mine

scottishplayer - I think they are mostly done with a thin layer of fondant, and then royal icing, but actually, inspite of the large collection, I am not into very elaborately decorated cookies/biscuits. My DC get number biscuits at their parties, quite simply decorated with royal icing and sprinkles. I also have a set of these which I haven't had a chance to play with yet, but am planning on just flooding the letter imprint with royal icing.

FWIW, I don't generally bother with themed tableware - it is £££ for something which gets thrown away and I think the same money spent on decorations has more impact, with cheap plates and cups from costco instead.

Letter cutters added to wishlist. I might as well just copy your whole list stealth, I'm guessing they're probably fairly similar by now.

And only a week between our birthdays too!

I tell you what, I'll buy the Gingerdead cutter and you do the same - we can pretend we bought each other a birthday present

I tend to leave our cookies to the kids decorating talents so they just end up smeared in icing and covered in sprinkles. I have done some with those icing tubes too but only rarely. I'd agree with stealth that the ones you linked to are most probably thin fondant - cut with the same cutter to get the right shape and then finished with piped icing.

If no-one gets it for me Blathers, then you are on! Right now I need it on there to balance out the more expensive things like pasta extruder for KitchenAid and a compressor/airbrush kit

See, I even have a Kitchen Aid! Only a Classic though which means I can't buy so many gadgets for it

ours is a low-end commercial one, so some of the gadgets for the trendy coloured ones don't fit, but the bolt-ons like pasta machines and the like fit pretty much all KA's, I think.

I've just had a look and it seems I can buy more gadgets for my Classic than I thought!

This is not going to end well

I'm desperate for a Food processor right now though. I made shortbread at the weekend and it would have been so much easier with a Magimix!

Ok, gingerdead cookie cutters and letter cutters added to my wishlist too.

I've only used royal icing once and it was a disaster. I'm thinking those gingerdead cookies would work at a pirate party, so would you do the skeleton in royal icing? Any tips on making/using royal icing and doing them neatly? I'm a bit of a novice at these things.

Completely agree on the themed tableware StealthSquiggle - as well as being expensive lots of it is just naff too! However, I found a pirate range that I liked then found the plates/cups lots cheaper on ebay. Most of my shopping list is for decorations/games props etc.

Thanks again for all th tips and suggestions. It's made planning DS's party so much easier!

I think the gingerdead man, like the letters, should be fairly easy to ice - I would just make up royal icing (I buy the purple royal icing sugar, although I really shouldn't given that we currently have a glut of eggs) fairly runny (but still beat it lots or it won't set hard) and "flood" the skeleton shape which should be indented into the biscuit with white icing.

..then again I don't have one yet so that is purely theoretical.

OR just buy the white icing in tubes from the supermarket. Won't be quite as neat but tonnes easier.

Ok thanks. I've found a useful tutorial online re: all things royal icing so I think I'll do a few practice runs. It'll give me another opportunity to justify the fairly recent purchase of a kenwood prospero and eat cookies

Gah! I've got less than a week until the Octonauts party and the outfits are still as Mum left them!

Bloody poorly kids interfering with my costume making

What is left to be done, Blathers?

I am about to upload piccies of latest bag, which was a lot bit of a scramble before dumping DD on my parents for them to take her to party on Saturday.

Most of it

Oh dear

Have you done badges yet? cutting out felt shapes can be done in small chunks IME. As for the rest of it, it needs to be distilled down to "essence of Octonaut" and your inner perfectionist needs to back off for a while, I suspect. Are the DC getting better now?

Car bag added to set - I was really pleased with it, but in a moment of madness I decided that next weekend's bag (bugs and butterflies themed) is going to be "mixed media" cos I have embroidered grass on bags before and it takes for bloody ever and I don't have enough embroidery silk left so I was painting grass on bits on canvas last night

Right, I did Barnacles zip in paint before we left for swimming and now we're back I'm going to get on with DD's outfit. DS's is probably the more important one but he's not here to measure on.

So Tweak -
Done -
dyed baby grow green (badly but well enough for this I think),
Bought ears and tail,
Made felt carrot,
Found toy spanner.

Need to do -
Sew collar to baby grow
Sew boot covers (this is the job I'm scared of. Mum cut out the foot bit but I need to make felt copies to sew in to support the fabric and make the leg bit. I'm not a confident sewer so I'm nervous of stuffing it up)
Make a belt and add loops/velcro for carrot and spanner.

If I have time -
Find, print, transfer and sew on Octonaut badges to boots and to cover "Mummy's cheeky Monkey" logo on babygrow.
Create blue headband for ears.
Add darts to collar.

When DS is around - Captain Barnacles
Done -
Sewn collar to pyjama top
Added zip with fabric paint
Make boot covers - Just need to sew them on at the right height on PJ legs now
Made compass holder in yellow felt

Need to do -
Make belt and add compass holder
Sew on boots
Make hat

If I have time -
Add darts to collar and yellow stripes to belt
Find, print, transfer and sew on Octonaut badges to boots

Easy right

it looks like a long list, but not entirely un-doable.

Boot covers - the leg bit is fairly easy - and you could use glue / bondaweb to put in the felt bits to avoid tricky sewing?

You could assemble all the logos and print in one go. Do they all have to be transferred and then sewn, or could some of them be tranferred straight to where they are going IYSWIM?

Logos need to be on a white background so need transferring then cutting then gluing sewing on carefully as they're going on blue and green backgrounds.

I'm mostly worried about making the stitching neat and attaching the leg bits to the feet bits. Going to just have to go for it and see what happens I think.

On the bright side - the zip looks fab

You do know that absolutely noboby but you is going to notice if the stitching is neat, don't you ? I get a lot more paranoid when doing things (like bags, or costumes to be worn at school) which some other adult will have the chance to inspect closely...

Well yes but they will notice if it's all snagged up and sewn back to itself - me and my sewing machine do not get on

Do it by hand - much less hassle than prolonged negotiation with stroppy sewing machines

<<pats angelic sewing machine to reassure it that I am thinking of it's predeccesors>>

I'm doing Tweaks collar by hand. The boot covers would take too long though

Collar tacked and then stitched on the machine.

Feet-y bits of boot covers done. Hope they fit now!

To be fair to may machine, I think it's as much user error as machine stroppy-ness.

storming away... all I have done is to iron the fabric painting I did last night but I am working today

I have a "don't drive tired" rule with my machine. After I have unpicked something twice, I stop and leave it for another time. No matter how urgent it is.

Belt is on. Got to do school run now. Have tweeted you a pic stealth

Hi all. Think we've caught the blatherskite lurgy. Fevers and then we all have terrible cold but me the worst. Loving this blow by blow account of these costumes blathers. Does it actually say 'dress up' or is this your attention to detail packing the kids off in suitable garb?

We've got the princess party in a few weeks. Dd has picked some fairy dress out of the dressing up box but is refusing the wings on it. Im gonna have to unpick the whacking great bit of velcro on the back, and find a tiara and some shoes. No doubt niece will be in 3inch heels.

And i love that bag stealth. Does your machine do embroidery?

Sometimes when we visit my mil she'll say oh im just busy sewing and then sit on the sofa, the machine is going mad in the corner on its own having been programmed and shes sat drinking tea. We tell her, thats not you sewing!!!!

cheap ballet shoes (like these) would be my answer to "princess shoes" without resorting to silver high heels..

LOL - my machine does some embroidery stitches - but not the whole pre-programmed design thing. I did look at some machines that did that but they would have added another zero on the end of what already looked like lots of money to me (and to DH, who was paying). I make a lot of use of the "blanket stitch" for applique, and have used the satin stitch for some stuff, but previous bags with grass on have been done by hand with embroidery silks which I was given decades years ago.

Those shoes are brill i'd never have thought of it. Do u think they'd arrive before the 10th?

Oh i know mil's machine was 4.5k!!! We just let rip each time it comes out. We all start yelling, here it is the machine doing your sewing for you that cost more than a car!!

I wouldnt mind but she sells stuff at craft fairs, well no cos it dont sell, tissue box covers, felt pencil toppers, felt badges... Shite.

It says 11 - 23 working days - so touch and go, I guess - but probably OK. There are slightly more expensive options (~£6) from UK sellers as well. I need to get DD some more ballet shoes at some point (but hopefully I can continue to ignore forget to check them for the rest of this term and get some in September - after all, she only wears them for 45mins a week... ). As DC get bigger, all the angst about the cost of one pair of shoes becomes irrelevant - when DS's feet grow, that means school shoes, 2 pairs of trainers, football boots, home shoes, crocs, wellies (school and home)..... DD has less sports shoes at the moment (will change in a couple of years) but does have ballet shoes, and tries to insist she needs party shoes (but rarely gets them).

Sorry - totally off at a tangent there. IME, shipments from China/Far East take pretty much the time they say, so it might be safer to pay a bit more for a UK seller...

Oh my god.i never considered that about shoes! With dd is a case of one main pair, wellies, trainers and cheap party shoes.

<quickly thinks, swimming, gymnastics, judo/karate all barefoot so thats all i'll allow>

do you think i could send her to rainbows in slippers?

If they arrive at all! I ordered some egg/rice moulds from China a few weeks ago which have yet to arrive!

Ballet flats very princess-y though so worth paying for a UK seller I think.

Managed to fit in Teaks headband and Barnacles belt between the school run/DS's swimming lesson and my eyebrow threading. Have just inhaled dinner so will see what I can get on with next...

My machine does stitches. Nothing fancy at all - and it still confuses me! The light is going/loose i think and it's flashing like a strobe as I sew at the moment!

Oh and yes, it's definitely a costume party and at you have the lurgy. It does sound very similar to what DD had.

I'm actually impressed at how much I've got done today!

Tweak -
Done -
dyed baby grow green (badly but well enough for this I think),
Bought ears and tail,
Made felt carrot,
Found toy spanner.
Sewn collar to baby grow
Made a belt and add loops/velcro for carrot and spanner.
Created blue headband for ears.

Need to do -
Finish boot covers - shape of foot bit needs fixing and I need to make leg bits and sew the lot to now footless baby grow.
Add elastic underneath boot covers.

If I have time -
Find, print, transfer and sew on Octonaut badges to boots and to cover "Mummy's cheeky Monkey" logo on babygrow.
Add darts to collar - going to buy some blue fabric paint tomorrow I think to make this job easier.

Captain Barnacles
Done -
Sewn collar to pyjama top
Added zip with fabric paint
Make boot covers - Just need to sew them on at the right height on PJ legs now
Made compass holder in yellow felt
Made belt and added compass holder and yellow stripes

Need to do -
Sew on boots.
Make hat.
Add elastic underneath boot covers.

If I have time -
Add darts to collar.
Find, print, transfer and sew on Octonaut badges to boots.

I am very impressed, Blathers. I am looking at the cut out (mostly) bits of a bag and thinking I really must do something with it - but then I remember that (a) I am working (b) I need a piece of black felt and (c) we are going out tonight and I forgot to tell DS who will no doubt have a grumpy fit at me when he finds out that I am picking him up only to immediately dump him with a babysitter and (d) OMG said babysitter is going to have to go into the DC's rooms and I haven't done even the most basic slum clearance and, oh shit, (a).

Not having a very productive morning, so far...

Hello All <waves>

Oh. My. God.
I happened upon the first thread and between an incredibly slow internet connection and two whiney brats, it took me days, actual DAYS, to read it all. And now I find there are THREE threads!!! I can't go through all that again to read all the posts. I just can't!
<sobs uncontrollably>
So now I have missed the Gruffalo party that I started reading the thing for in the first fecking place and I am hooked, hooked I tell you, on the party tips!
<bangs head on laptop>
I will try to go through the second thread and find the party, but in the meantime, could you all help me a little?

I am doing DS1 a Gruffalo party for his 3rd birthday. It's not until August, but baby no3 is due then too so I need to be bloody well organised. Not my strong point!
I think I am set with food but I need help with finding transportable decorations!
Here's the plan:
Hire a BBQ in a local-ish park and let the kids run wild. As we will, in effect, actually BE in the deep, dark woods, there will be no need for decorations! Aha! Clever, no?
However, it will probably rain. In which case we will have to come home and have it here. So I need really cheap decorations that I can put up quickly IF (when) it rains to turn my living room into the wood! I must confess that I will only have about 6 children here, ranging from 1yo to 5yo so I reckon I am making a lot of effort just for myself, but I want it to look gooood. But I need it to be cheeeeeap.
Any ideas?
Oh. I am crap at art. Super duper crap. I can't draw trees. It will look like I have painted turds onto my walls.

<strokes Nonsense's brow soothingly>

It's OK, we'll help The lady you need is DoctorsWife, she is the resident Gruffalo party expert. She'll be along in a minute.

Love the BBQ in the park idea, that would save a lot of work. Could you maybe set up some gazebos and have it there even if it does rain. Hopefully buy August this awful weather will be over and done with and we'll have some actual Sun though!

I was going to say the same thing - as long as we are out of deep midwinter spring by then, I would be tempted to go for "a mouse put up a gazebo in the deep dark wood" - you could even declare it to be owl's/fox's/snake's house although that might slightly freak out any child with the imagination to think that they are going to be eaten and do the party outside anyway - you could always tell people to come equipped with wellies and coats for deep dark wood strolling whatever the weather...

otherwise, I know it's not very deep or dark, but how about this?

"buy August"

You know, I'm seriously becoming worried about my brain! It doesn't seem to be on my side any more when it comes to typing.

I forget what DW did for her party. I was going to suggest the same grass look table clothes I used for DD's Teddy bears picnic party...

I'm here i'm here! Look on my profile and you'll see mine. Hold on whilst i bollock dd1 and put dd2 down to type...

Well, it is a house and grounds thing, they have a park and lake and tea shop plus a field with BBQ's that they hire out and they are very keen to not let one group take over the whole field, so the rules are 1 small gazebo. That'll be for the food! I'm hoping we could brave the weather regardless, but his first birthday was a total washout. Didn't stop hammering down ALL day so I would like to be mentally (mental) prepared for any outcome really.
I'm loving the wall thing Stealth. As the kids are so small and only interested in the food and running riot, I don't think they'll care as long as they see a tree. I could always print off some pictures for them to colour and stick on it should we be at home. I snuck a peek at DW's photos and I love the inverted balloons! I was thinking I might get a camo net thing to hang from the ceiling and dangle things kids from, but just the balloons look really good. And I plan on putting some up outside and on the gazebo, so they wouldn't be a wasted expense, unlike the netting should the weather be dry....
I am sorry, I know I am waffling, but DH just doesn't GET it when I talk about little details etc. He hears "roasted fox" mumble mumble "BBQ" and that's all he needs to know!! I am excited at finding like-minded people! geek

Blathers - I was thinking a grass tablecloth too, but if we DO manage to keep it outside I'm thinking it'd be a bit overkill and kind of a waste. But I am going to think about it proper, because I could either use it for another party or, sod it, go overkill!

Right i'm here.

Firstly i was gonna do mine outside as our local woods had a function room but it was nov and they'd only cater for kids i thought no. However, had it been outside i was going to do nature trail sheets/scavenger hunt with prizes at the end.

If you look on the woodland trust website they gave heaps if activities for kids and free printable sheets. Job done.
http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/learning-kids/Pages/children.aspx#.T7JiTrd5mc0

Inside the house i hung green balloons from the ceiling like a canopy. I themed it around woodland. I collected loads of dried leaves and fir cones. I know that sounds tricky at this time if year but ive got two fir trees on my road this week dropping fircones so you should find some. I got a grass effect tablecloth and tiny toadstool decirations. I bought potted herbs from the supermarket and put them on the table with tiny toadstools scattered about. Green plates/cups/bowls but red and white spotty napkins and bunting to match the toadstools.

I did make a huge tree which was pretty easy actually and dd liked helping and i got the gruffalo characters blown up for the walls. Photocopy shop/printers should do this for peanuts.

My dad photoshopped a gruffalo invite so it had three candles on a cake with dd's name in and i just had to print them off. If you want them with your ds' name pm me and i'll get him to change them for you then you just print.

For games we made gruffalo masks/mouses from the gruffalo website. We also did a hunt for giant floor puzzle pieces and the kids all put it together. Dh of course read the gruffalo. We had scrambled snake jelly with owl icecream.

Party bags i got papertakeaway bags and glued the image my dad made to the front. Then i got a julia donaldson pack of books from the book people. One book each, then woodland stencils, woodland notepad, squirrel jumping toy thing, a sugar mouse and jelly snakes.

I think thats it. There is a gruffalo.com website with free party stuff on it. Do not be fooled into buying the party book. Much of it you can download off the site. The didnt get to do pin the wart on the gruffalo.

That help at all?

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/learning-kids/Pages/children.aspx#.T7JiTrd5mc0

Nonsense - where in the country are you - I have a small-village-hall-sized camofluage net...

I am in Oxfordshire.
That all sounds pretty darn amazing DW. I vaguely remember someone having about 20 kids though. Was that you? I will have about 6. (I'm not going to be very nice here) There will be DS1 and 2 girls, one 3yo and one 4yo who will be the only ones interested in doing proper games and using their heads. The rest, unfortunately, are DS's cousins and are too excitable uncontrollable to try any kind of treasure hunt or anything with! Which is a total shame, because I was hoping to send them down to the lake to find the 'gruffalo cake' etc etc. while the fox was roasting! (Unfortunately, my sister would be too interested in drinking her wine and talking to our other sister to worry about the welfare of the children)! There is a really good playground there so I imagined that that would be the main thing the kids would want. It is a way from the BBQ field though, so I would love some proper games. I just don't know how I'd manage it. It's a really stressful dynamic for me to work with as I know the type of party I want, but I also know the type of co-operation I will get!
Also, I am worried that my 'treasure' would get nicked or unsuspecting people would join in thinking it was something being put on by the grounds! I can just imagine being some kind of demented pied piper of random children, marching down to the lake too embarrssed to tell them to naff off!!

Oooh ooh oooh!!
ORRRRRRR
The invites include/are masks of the characters (seeing as I will have so few guests - sniff) and then they can wear their masks while on the treasure/gruffalo hunt so that any observers/gawkers know that we are a seperate party!
I tend to worry about random stuff that doesn't need worrying about!
I'm also thinking that just any kind of outside games would be fine, no need to keep up with the woodland theme too much. Although it would be perfect if I could!
I do think I can rope in a teenage neice or two to help. But aforementioned sister usually uses them as babysitters..... I'll just have to get to them first! I really like the idea of the puzzle. I was also thinking of maybe getting a game of gruffalo pairs and whoever matches a pair gets a prize. That way, we can keep them in our vicinity. But that works with the treasure hunt too.
I'm waffling again...............

No way to 20 kids! It was in my house. 10 kids and 30 odd adults <dead faint>

I had the same issue regarding childrens ages etc howver all the families were known to me so i was going to group them into teams. Like my dd has childless couple godparents but i always invite them and their niece and nephew. And my sil and her kids etc etc. so i thought about teams, scavenger style sheets like do a leaf rubbing/ find a fir cone/ what colour is the tea shop sign etc and send them off, well all go off i'd be on my dc's team. Then leave dh and my mother tutting guarding the food and loot etc.

Prize giving for correct answers, like sweets for the party bag and an overall prize. Could you do it like that? Theres no real winner cos you'll even it all up with sweets so it wouldnt matter too much if everyone pooled together. Or just do it together follow a route looking for the next item brining you back to base. Save the playground for winding up time when you've run out of planned stuff or you're prepping the cake etc?

I'm waffling too. My mind goes gruffaloing and i cant stop. And this year my dd said in the back if the car 'ooo i could have gruffalo's child when i'm four couldnt i mum?'

No. It is a complete sentence indeed.

Yes to masks!!! Or you could download image to turn into a badge and put it around your gazebo too so passers by willsee its your party.

Oh yes DW, I am liking your style.
I also thought about printing off characters and sticking them around the place to hunt the character. It's all a varient of the same theme though, so I definately need to think of seperate games. But going on a scavenger hunt could be really good. Especially if I could incorporate all of the elements. Oh no, wait, that means less games if I do that! But yes, the puzzle/pairs game is good as that can be transferred into the house if need be.
Guarding the food isn't a problem. I will have about 30 adults to go with the extremely small number of kids and I can guarantee none of them will be dumb enough to tramp through the woods with me!
I am so looking forward to this party! I want it now!!
And putting prizes into a party bag is a fab idea too. Less sugar circulating the party.
Where did you get your party bag bits from? I was going to pinch someone else's idea about a cone of sweets instead of, as I can never find the stuff cheap enough, but would prefer to stay on theme. Although a cone of popcorn could be gruffalo crumble and so cheap it'd be criminal. Possibly too criminal.......

LOL at both of you waffling - Nonsense you might have noticed that you have inadvertently wandered into the home of like-minded party nutters enthusiasts.

It is me who is mad enough to routinely have 20 DC (although the make up and dynamic and general atrocious behaviour at parties of DD's year group is causing me to consider a complete about face in my objection to "girls only" parties) but never, ever, at home (and sadly not in parks either as I have very badly planned October and November born DC)

popcorn for gruffalo crumble would be inspired - especially if you added chocolate to make it brown (not sure how that would work, but I am sure there must be a way). You could tie something to it - like one of these, maybe? - that and a balloon would be more than enough IMHO.

I did the cones of sweets. It was really easy and very cheap as I got huge tubs from Costco as I was doing almost 30 cones.

Love, love, love the chocolate popcorn idea! Could you do chocolate-y popcorn with purple sprinkles prickles, orange smarties eyes and green jelly tots warts maybe to go the whole hog?

I'm know you can find single coloured sprinkles easily and the sweets shouldn't be too hard...

Will google for you after dinner.

Orange Smarties If you were feeling really dedicated, you could put a dot of black food colouring on each for the pupil

purple sprinkles or here

Chocolate popcorn recipe

Still looking for green sweets. Jelly beans are easy to get in a single colour and might be wart-ish?

Oh my LORD you lot are brilliant!!
I was thinking perhaps popcorn, a balloon and maybe a woodland creature whistle thing. Can you still get those? But I really like the pencil and dangler <childish giggle> and the idea of chocolate popcorn and all the trimmings is just awesome!!
I'm going to be gutted when I have it all sorted. I'll want to keep adding things as it'll be done so early!
I also think the jelly beans would be brilliant. Perhaps a tad big in relation to the eyes, but as he's crumbled, I shouldn't think it'll matter. Could I make my own orange jazzies? No, no NO! No I bloody couldn't!!
Could we play a game where we actually crumble the gruffalo? Not sure I'm going to make sense here, but I was thinking of the invite saying something about going to look for/catch a gruffalo - and then going on our scavenger hunt/walk. I was thinking of just putting up a big cut out gruffalo somehwere (how???) but actually, if we could 'crumble' him, then they could be taking him home in their (truly inspired) cones. Am I overthinking, seeing as they're all so small? But we can't search for a gruffalo and not find him! I could always change the invite though. That'd be easier!
Unless they find him already crumbled? I am giving myself a headache.......

warts should be green jellytots, surely?

If you could fashion some gruffalo biscuits you could crumble those. Maybe have owl icecream and ask whether they'd like gruffalo crumble on top.

We had a link to good diy party bag stuff here:

http://madebybronwyn.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

In fact take a look at her other gruffalo ideas too.
My party bag stuff came from this fab shop near me that blathers went on a pilgrimage to. Things cost literally pence. I need to go in this week so i'll see whats left 'woodlandy' if you like. The other idea, would you be any good at cake pops? I toyed with trying to do a gruffalo fox and owl, then jelly snakes and choc/sugar mouse.

Jesus i apologise for my typing and failure to convert links today. D
We're all ill and dd2 wont be put down so theashing her hands on my iphone.

madebybronwyn.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

Thrashing even. <stop it dd>

ggjjfg jjv ic

ffs!

Hmm, I reckon I will just change the invite (I keep forgetting I have months and months) and there's no need to then overthink everything.
In my excitement of reading about the gruffalo trimmings I didn't properly read the bit about jelly tots! D'oh! Jelly tots would be fab.
Owl ice cream - well. I have stolen an idea from someone else that I found on google and I am going to do a cone, with a scoop of ice cream and then 2 raisins for eyes and a jelly diamond (that you decorate cakes with? In 1972) for the beak. Looked really cool in the photo and you can't have a kids party without ice cream.
Hope you all feel better soon DW.
I am REALLY liking the popcorn cone, so I don't think I will do a traditional party bag. Taking home gruffalo crumble would be brilliant!

Another random question: Does anyone know the font used? Basically I want to scam as much as I can for free, so that would mean pinching using images from t'internet and making my own invites etc but they'd look even better in the proper font. Is that question too much of a naughty one?

Just looked at that link DW.

WTF is she on????
In my head, that is what my stuff will look like. In reality....................

Green jelly tots would be perfect as they have that bumpy, almost warty look to them (I'm never going to be able to eat them again now!) but I was trying to find something you could buy just green ones of to save waste.

Unless Nonesense really likes Jelly tots and doesn't mind eating all of the other colours

The pencils are lovely and would go wonderfully tied onto your cone of popcorn but I thought I'd link to these just in case - Owl whistles or wriggly snakes

When I did my sweets, I tied a teddy bear reflector into the ribbon round the top and it went down really well. You could even buy Gruffalo ribbon to tie the backs up with.

I do indeed like jelly tots! But, alas, green are my favourite.
Oh I really like those whistles! And the ribbon! The snakes are a bit (dare I say) cheap looking, but they suit my budget perfectly! Although I got DS1 a wooden one for his stocking at Christmas for a quid so I may keep looking around. I love the idea of tying a present to the ribbon and I hate the tat you usually get so I do try to make the effort to get something a bit fun or useful.

They are cheap but the owl whistles were more expensive so I thought I'd cover both ends of the spectrum

You can get rubber snakes that are less cheap but more expensive. I do think the cheap ones can be nice though, I remember being fascinated by the way they moved as a child.

DD is currently obsessed by the Gruffalo and can quote whole sections from memory so there is a very good chance I'll be pinching all of these ideas in December

Oh i had those cheap snakes too. Forgot them. The kids loved that crap!

Anyway in regard to the font, as i mentioned up the thread my dad is in graphics (actually typesetting and produces the artwork for huge companies - like the olympics) anyway, he can access pretty much any font and the gruffalo one is actually called something like axel scheffler2 or suchlike and wasnt available to use. My dad used Blackfly mambo for the best 'look'.

I had this image, but doctored to only 3 candles on the cake and dd's name on the cake.

cmistesting.edublogs.org/2009/05/27/happy-birthday-gruffalo/

Awww, DW that's a perfect picture! I'm still thinking of invite plans, mask, snake, log, badge etc. Not sure how any of these ideas would work, but I still have months to go thankfully!
Thanks for the font tips.

I tend to be style over substance! so I go for look and what I would like over what the kids would like! <bangs head on wall>

Invite:
A big chocolate/sugared mouse with a luggage tag around it's neck? Perhaps with a Gruffalo stamp. Not sure a luggage tag could hold all of the info though...

Blathers - Go for it! I really thought DS would be 'over' the Gruffalo by now, but we still have to watch it and read both books EVERY day and now DS2 really enjoys it all too! As do I

Well, all I've got left to do on the Octonauts outfits is put some elastic on Barnacles boots, put the badges on and make Barnacles hat.

Then DS comes home with a request from School last night that we send them in dressed as their favourite animal next week! He wanted to be a Killer Whale but I think I've talked him into a Tiger. Looks like the sewing machine isn't going away just yet!

tiger fabric

He'd roast in a fleece suit for a full day a School!

I was thinking black fabric paint/felt strips on a long sleeved orange t-shirt and some black trousers. Considering a tail and ears. Maybe I could get some plain cream-y fleece and make him a furry tummy?

It does say "help them to make a costume" and he could help me paint on stripes on the t-shirt and maybe paint a mask to match? In which case, I'd only need a tail. He's not particularly interested when it comes to doing art-y things so anything we do would have to be easy.

Yes, you're right - he would roast - but it would be very cute

If you masked up stripes on an orange T Shirt (with torn masking tape) then you could let him loose with black fabric paint and not have to worry about the quality of the result

I bought a Baker Ross pack of foam sheets the other day - I could easily extract one orange and one black for mask making - foam masks being a bit more durable and wearable than cardboard ones?

All fabulous ideas.

I've ordered a cheap long sleeved orange t-shirt from ebay. Will get some black fabric paint from hobbycraft. While I'm in I might as well pick up some foam sheets and save you posting them stealth. DS is fairly handy with scissors so he could do a few of the stripes for it. Shall I do the furry tummy? Paint/sponge one on with white fabric paint? Not bother?

I'll get some black and orange felt and make a tail too. I've got a huge bag of stuffing that I bought when I made the felt carrot to stuff it with.

The fleece suit would be very cute but I have visions of the poor girl who came as a wolf for WBD and was sweating in the morning line up before they even went in!

I vote sponge on tummy with paint once DS is done with stripes.

You're dead right about fleece, though - one of DD's friends has a tiger costume (inherited from older siblings) which has emerged for WBD (Tiger who came to tea) and for various parties. She always ends up shedding the costume after a couple of minutes hours as it is fake fur and very sweaty. We have a bear "tabard" thing which is a bit easier as it is sleeveless.

I also have a complete spider costume from when DS was in YR if you are interested - I found it still hanging on the back of his bedroom door the other day 5 years later

My egg moulds have arrived

You lot will understand the excitement of being able to make car/fish/teddy/bunny shaped boiled eggs and sticky rice. Everyone else is going to look at me like I'm mad - including DH!

Am quite amazed that just a few weeks ago they were in China too. Seems so odd somehow

link me to these egg moulds - I am having problems picturing them..

(please)

Here. I have the 4 that are together in the middle.

They look fun - you will have to feed back once you have played with them and I need to play with some of the other toys MN made me buy first.

Blathers they look brill. Are you getting into bento boxes now as well as sewing and cake making etc?

Im in the isle of wight next week but when i get back its all systems go on making the pastillage bits for these various cakes. I need to make building blocks for this other christening cake. Three blocks stacked on top, but im toying with fondant or pastillage. Pastillage i can make ages before and get a really clean crisp edge rather than just flattenening fondant, but it'll be far trickier putting it together. I've watched so many youtube clips now.

I want the blocks like this :
cakes.jordandchan.com/images/ethanbaptism1.jpg

Not this:
casacostello.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cakes124.jpg

Which method is best do we reckon? Cover a cube cake in fondant or pastillage? Make cubes from fondant? Or cut squares from pastillage and glue into a cube? I want that clean sharp look that makes them believable as blocks.

I just wanted something to brighten DS's lunchbox up a bit. He likes eggs and a fish shaped one would be lots more fun

No idea on the pastillage, I've never got more technical that roll out icing - I'd guess stealth is your lady for advice.

Steaaaallllllthhhhhh......

I'm at work - back later

Bollocks.
So I was counting on at least 3 of the children (1 of whom is DS) to get in the spirit of the Gruffalo birthday party but I have just spoken to one of the parents and they have no idea about the Gruffalo!!!
Firstly - how????
Secondly - What is the point in doing all of this just for me and one other mum to 'get' it?
I may as well just save a load of money, have the party at home and buy some multi-coloured shit from Tesco! (Other supermarkets available).
Balls.

Sorry, DW, no idea what you would need. I just mix icing sugar with water, food colouring if I'm feeling really adventurous.

Blathers - Do let us know how you get on with them. They might actually make DS's eat eggs! And they look cool too.

Oh we had that problem with the gruffalo. Dh sat all the kids down and read it and we also put the dvd on later for stragglers and hangers on!

Ive had my hair done. Whoop. Havent had it done since september!!!! And prob a year before that. I need to find 'me' again. Nails done, hair done need to get over the blatherskite lurgy (coldsore up nose) get some makeup on and get out of the maternity clothes. The over the bump jeans are perfect for hiding wobbly belly when im feeding

As we're (hoping to be) outside, I don't think they'll sit still to listen to a story. But I have until August, so perhaps I'll start 'teaching' my family members...

I never want to get out of maternity clothes! You can buy a vest thing that only goes up to your bra, so that when you lift up your 'normal' top, you are fully covered!
I'm not good at adding links like you lot
here goes
You must feel rather good today. I am envious of your new-ness

Nonsense, could you get some cheap copies of the book and use it as the invite maybe? Print the party details on paper and then use it to wrap the book? Or make a book plate type thing with the details on to stick into the front page?

That way you've got unforgettable, keep forever invites and can guarantee that everyone knows the story before the party.

There's paperback copies of the Gruffalo on Amazon for £3.91 each at the moment....

I'm getting my hair done tomorrow and even got my eyebrows threaded earlier this week. I'm loving feeling like me again.

How can people not know about the Gruffalo, FGS <<despairs of the state of the world today>>

Right. Am home. Feeling like shit. I think I have DD's sore throat/cold lurgy (she managed to come home in tears having lost her dress and her cardigan yesterday ) but with added period pains and the fact that I got up at 4:45am. Still, have to stay awake until DH gets home or DD will cut the house up and stick it back together with sellotape while I am asleep...

DrsW - blocks - I remember asking the same question a while ago on a surgarcraft thread. I think squares of pastillage, dried, stuck together, dried again, and then sanded to get the sharp edges. If I was not feeling brave enough to make them hollow then I would assemble them around a block of fondant (solid pastillage would cost a fortune and take about a year to dry) but I suspect they would dry better if they were hollow.

gruffalo is £2.99 on red house but unless you are buying other stuff then the delivery charge would probably make it more expensive than Amazon.

Stealth it sounds like you've got blatherspox like the dw household. You must have caught it here like me. Last night i coughed so much i was monementally sick. Then i cried like a baby cos i'd thrown the warfarin up! Not like you can just take more, nor can i take anything for the blatherspox. Apparently 5 paracetamol in a week!!! A week??!!!!

I do wear vest to pull down and top pulled up when feeding but the mat jeans really do give me that extra coverage and stetchy snuggliness. Why dont they make all jeans like it. No more muffin top!

Stealth i still cant decide on the cubes now. I did think what if a put a ball inside each joining corner of the cube and weld it in. I need a practice run along with bootees, towers and turrets and the fruit cake layer.

Nonsense sending out the book would be really nice idea!

If it's any consolation - and I'm sure it's not - but I still have my own Blatherspox and it's getting worse. I have the full itchy lungs/dry face/chapped lips/ever streaming now thing going on along with the coughing so hard I have very, very nearly puked.

Sorry I've managed to pass it on over the internet

Oh yes, that IS a good idea. And seeing as 3 and 2 of them repsectively are siblings, I wouldn't actually need that many copies! The adults can just get the details.
I think I will leave you all to it for tonight in case I catch your lurgy!
Feel better soon everybody xx

Yes yes blathers thats how fetching i look too. Dry tickly rasping cough. Awful. Everytime i get a coughing fit i wake dd2 on the boob!

Nonsense think you should def put some kind of bookplate in the book but you just have to do rhyming verse as your invite wording! It would be rude not to.

I read the Gruffalo's Child to the DC this evening. How about...

The Gruffalo says that all children should
come for a part in the deep dark wood
at 12 o'clock
because if you do, lots of fun will be waiting for you

Ok, lame but a start maybe?

<<sticks fingers in ears to ignore the news that blathersplague is going to get worse>>

Sleep time now

It occured to me this morning that I may now have a justifiable excuse (for DH) to start hoarding fabric offcuts and leftover paints for all of these outfits DS seems to need making. DD isn't going to be far behind, she starts pre school in September and will then need the odd outfit too.

Definitely. In fact, you need several a craft cupboard / box / trunk / room..

I might have to settle for a few boxes in the garage I think but it's a start.

DSis has a craft room

I can't wait to show you this week's bag because you are the only people who will appreciate the thought behind the lunacy of making such a thing for a random 5yo - it is not finished yet but is shaping up to be one of the best I have done - if it didn't have the recipient's name on it I would be seriously tempted to keep it...

It's Octonaut party day tomorrow. I shall take photos

bag is done if you ignore the bits of hand finishing I need to do later

Oooh stealth i love it! Thats just my kind of thing.

It's gorgeous. I'd be pleased if I got it for my birthday.

Thanks, both. I hope birthday child likes it.

That is a lovely bag! Blathers - will you post Octonauts pics?

I need to go back through the thread to recap all the pirate party suggestions, but does anyone have any suggestions for cheap small clear bowls? I'd quite like to try the blue jelly with a shark in if I can.

ScottishPlayer - I would go for something like this for shark tanks, personally.

They're perfect. Lovely clear sides so you can see the sharks.

How are you going to do blue jelly?

Just doing the badges then the Octonauts are ready to go. Will get pictures

Thanks Stealth that's a great idea and I think we may actually have a box of disposable wine glasses somewhere. Must have a look.

Not sure on the blue jelly Blathers - way back when I asked for pirate party ideas there were some links and mentions of blue jelly, so I need to go back and read them properly. Hopefully it's something I can get/do. If not, I suppose I could just do green.

I think the American's have Blue 'Jello' if you could get some shipped? Or make your own with Gelatine and some blue pop?

Oooh, I wonder if you could set jelly on top of a thin custard layer for sand? If you made powdered custard that set with a skin in it would work maybe?

Green liquorice laces for seaweed too?

It was me who linked to blue jelly hold on....

www.sanza.co.uk/Aeroplane_Jelly_Berry_Blue.asp

Ahhh shite. Out of stock. Damn.

I think Blathers is on the right track <<ahem - still waiting for Octonauts photos>> - get some of that icky blue fizzy pop (why is raspberry flavour sugar water always blue ?) and set it with gelatine.

You have to do it in 2 layers, though, otherwise the sharks will sink.

this is what you need..

Guess who came today to drop off invites to her 5th birthday party....... Thats right folks dniece and guess who'd had her eyebrows threaded.....thats gotta the lowest point surely??!!!

That's just wierd.

Yep. Five year olds look might odd with groomed eyebrows.

A 5 year old with threaded eyebrows!!! Jesus Christ!

I was thinking of maybe Blue Gatorade for the jelly - although as it's an energy drink that could be a REALLY bad idea, or maybe lemonade with a few drops of blue food colouring?

Octonauts photos might take a little longer as poor old birthday boy came down with what sounds suspiciously like what DD had yesterday morning and the party was cancelled. They're hoping to reschedule and I hope they do. Feeling a little responsible though as he was here last week for a play date and I'm worried we gave it to him

I took pics of the unworn outfits that I can upload but I didn't get the chance to put them on the children.

Photos added

Cool bag. I wish I could do things like that. I wouldn't feel bad about passing on sickness. My eldest just had chicken pox and we are literally being treated like we have the plague, even though he is no longer contagious! [Youngest probably has it, but that's beside the point. We don't know he has it yet]!

Hang on. A 5 year old had her eyebrows threaded? Is there a reason for this? Is it because you had yours done? Am I sensing some SIL sick can't be outdone on anythingrivalry thing going on?

Blathers, they are absolutely fxxking fantastic. Gutted that the party was cancelled. Honestly you should be so so proud of those. Well done you!!

Loved looking at your updates pics. First i always forget to ask, did you pipe 'rose victoria'

And i see that you've shown dd's birthmark has faded. How long did it take? Dd2 has a big v shaped storkbite in the middle if her forehead. I call her the vulcan. Is it likely to fade do you think? Although it feels like she wouldnt be her without it!

Nonsense nooo. This is dh's niece. Sil has been known to stick her in heels, clip on earrings, nail varnish makeup, hair extensions, hair curled on straighteners. This was a new low high.

Yes I piped Rose Victoria. I marked it out in dots with a toothpick first to get it right then piped over the top. It took ages!

DD's is a hemangioma rather than a storkbite (DS had a storkbite on the back of his neck) and it's almost gone now - she's just coming up to 2.5. They can take up to 10 years so she's been lucky. Hemangiomas are raised and puffy and deep, dark red, she used to get stares and comments when she was tiny Luckily it is in her hair so it was covered a bit as her hair came through even with her super fine blonde hair. DS's storkbite is in his hair and he has the thickest hair ever so it never gets seen any more. My guess would be that it will fade but I don't know for sure.

Crikey! Child cruelty this time surely???
Anyhooo

Blathers, I am thinking of a rhyme for the invites. However (and I can't believe I am admitting this) that is from The Gruffalo's Child. My theme is The Gruffalo. I cannot mix the two unless I go all out mixing and include lots from the second book! I actually feel a bit ill thinking about it. Am I weird? I do believe I am, but even whilst explaining it, it makes total sense to me........

I did say I'd been reading the Gruffalo's Child. The rhyme was stuck in my head

Those Octonauts outfits are AMAZING Blatherskite.

Thanks for the blue jelly links - party not for a while yet, so fingers crossed it comes back into stock before then.

at 5 yr old with threaded eyebrows.

Finished outfits look great, Blathers. I hope the party gets rescheduled and they get to wear them soon before they grow out of them

I hope so. I spent ages on those outfits!

On to the next one now though - have stitched a tiger tail tonight

how is the DS participation element of tiger construction going?

So far, it's not DS has never been particularly creative so it's always a struggle. However, I've now done so much that I risk not wanting him to help for fear of spoiling it!!

T-shirt arrived yesterday and has been washed. I need to go out and buy black fabric paint today (I got orange last time for some reason ) and then we can have a go at the tummy and stripes tonight. I've painted most of the mask too, I just want him to do the stripes.

Ah, sticky spray mount fingers. I remember them well

Tiger t-shirt is finished. Tail is done. Last hurdle is to get DS to help me with the mask.

Have I bored everyone else off the thread with my costume updates?

Im here, lurking, im on the whole family holiday on the isle of wight. It was going lovely. Then my brother announced his new girlfriend and her 2yr old were on the ferry coming to join us for the week?!! Only i'd ever met her, no-one else!! And now shes here the two of them saying they skint. My mum is buying all food and the dw46 clan buying drinks. They've paid zero. We've bought her child ice creams drinks etc, then she gets her child one and offers mine nothing.

I'm ready to get the ferry home! Oh and my brother who is 31, got pissed, crashed out in my caravan and pissed all over the lounge!!!

I am here too, but largely only lurking because I have been away for work (being forced to concentrate, and take exams and stuff ). I was so bored that I have a whole page of dragon doodles and lists for dragon parties (which I couldn't find when I packed this morning but is probably buried in course notes somewhere)

Costume sounds fab, Blathers, with or without DS's "help". DrsW can your mother not give DB a good slap a stern talking to?

On the plus side, it must be never boring in your family DW

DS has wrecked painted the stripes on the mask. I painted it orange and did some white bits and he's artfully splodged black all over it. Still, he's happy and it definitely looks like he's done it himself. I have wrecked the t-shirt all by myself. 1 over damp brush and 1 lot of dodgy paint meant that a few of the stripes are a bit blurred but all in all, it looks OK. From a distance, it may even look good. DS thinks it's ace - until he has to wear it! TBF it does have long sleeves. I think I might be sending him with a back-up t-shirt tomorrow.

The tail looks good though.

T-shirt pics are on my Twitter timeline if you're about Stealth. Congratulations on your win too.

Put pics in profile....and what win???

Sounds brill blathers. I'm in awe. Although mil showed me how to reverse stitch on my machine so maybe one day!

Well they still aint putting hand in pocket. Dh bought the kids a bubble gun. The new GF said it was amazing, not thanks! Dh asked if she wanted a drink when buying a round, she said 'no but i'll have some
crisps'. My mum is ready to blow as shes paying for their caravan too and we watched my bro win on a fruit machine and hide the winnings.

It's a faff but for you....I'll try pinching them off twitter.

If I can't make it work, I'll text them to you.

I can see i can see from your link. Absolutely brilliant. Honestly you are so good at costumes!

I've been lurking too. Though as a novice party planner I'm taking more than I contribute to the thread!

Did I say thanks for the re-post of the blue jelly? I've got my fingers crossed it will come back into stock before I need it.

I've decided that instead of wording about getting an extra helper to do face painting I'm going to turn my craft table into a kind of 'pirate station' - leave out some face paints and some of the foam masks someone linked to from baker Ross etc - their own parents can help them get ready. I might get some cheap pirate rings too, as well as the paper bags to decorate for booty bags. Plenty to keep them busy while everyone arrives. And of course just loads of balloons about the place for those that just want to run around!

I found a silicon mould on eBay to make skull and crossbow chocolates which I'm quite pleased about! I'll put a couple in cellophane bags for the treasure chest/party bags etc.

Thank you

Now I've just got to hope Ds will wear the bloody thing tomorrow. I'll get photos of the whole lot on if he will.

In other good news, the Octonaut party is being rescheduled to a time we can go too so all the outfits will get worn

DW46 - holiday situation sounds a nightmare!

Remember scottish, we insist on photos. And take them before pesky kids trash all the detail!

Excellent news on the Octonauts party Blathers!

Don't worry about the giving a receiving of help ratio Scottish - you're helping but helping us get all this stuff out fo our heads so we can carry on with other important stuff

If you haven't got the masks yet, it might be worth asking DW to look in her cheapy craft shop for you as they sometimes have them super cheap in there. DS has one that my Sister got him. I got fabric aprons for DD's party from there for something like 35p each! They've been washed and reused many times so they have been an absolute bargain!

I'll upload proper Tiger outfit pics tomorrow when I can get on the computer

Thanks Blathers! This thread has totally inspired me re: DS's party and given me loads of confidence to organise everything myself! We're on holiday next week do when I'm back I can really get into organising it

I haven't ordered the craft pirate masks yet so will await more details of cheapy craft shop!

I do need to find a black waistcoat for DS's costume but apart from that his outfit mostly sorted I think.

Blathers - my timeline is full of work stuff and Eurovision and seems to have lost you... I will try again in the morning.

DrsW - so far in the last couple of.months I have won Jamie O fish book & vouchers and a signed Julia Donaldson book

I saw the Jamie O book and vouchers but missed the Julia Donaldson book. Now I am very

The DC and I got to meet Oliver Jeffers once and each of the children have a signed book from him which is rather cool.

Have accepted you back on Twitter - seems it's still playing silly buggers and unfollowing random people - had to lock my timeline as I got busted in RL. Should really namechange on here too but I like Blathers and post most on this and another long term thread where a namechange would be obvious and confusing

On my lists for dragon parties (which I still haven't found - really must check through those course notes --before I put them in the bin--) I realised I already had more than enough stuff to do and caught myself contemplating making the party longer... It would be really cool to know someone who could teach them all to do a dragon dance, though

<<slaps sense into self>>

I am going to have to, aren't I?

Oh goodness that's cute!

DS went off today in his t-shirt but refused to wear his mask or tail when he got to School. Hopefully the teacher will have talked him into it. Some of the kids had full furry suits! They're going to be baking

meant to say on Twitter - my MIL's birthday is the day after mine - it does get in the way, doesn't it?

I should persuade DH to go the Pandora route for MIL, I think - would solve present problems for a few years, anyway..

I have ordered a pink dragon kit and a blue dragon kit (I know, I know, but they were the best colours...) - I think they will be the mascots/themes for the party and then be presents for DD afterwards.

I think that's why BILs like them for SILs and FIL for MIL - easy, peasy Birthday/Christmas/mother's Day presents.

Am tempted to order a dragon kit myself and I don't need one!

I got the Gingerdead and letter cutters for my birthday! <skips off to make biscuits>

Cool! I was planning on tweeting birthday greetings, but got distracted by old friend announcing they were going to drop in for tea, which is lovely, because we don't see them often and their DC and ours get on extremely well, but I suddenly remembered that he is precisely a week older than me, so emergency baking had to be done...

How was Jamie's?

His birthday today as well then?

Jamie's was OK. My choice was limited as I can't eat chilli and pretty much everything had it in and my main course was sopping with grease but everyone else's food seemed nice and they were really good with the children.

I doubt we'll go back but it was nice to try it.

Yes but he's lots older than you

Shame about Jamie's. I don't remember a massive amount of chilli, but then I don't suppose I would have noticed.

I'd say about 75% of the menu had chilli listed as one of the ingredients and my Sister's meal didn't have it listed yet she was sure she could taste it. I am really, really crap with it. It used to make my face swell up so I've avoided it and have never built up a taste for it so now it blows my head off. Carluccio's is very similar and uses much less chilli.

Do you have anything nice planned for your birthday? We'll be on holiday but I'm sure I can manage a tweet on the day

Mine co-incides with lots of jubilee stuff, so not sure what we will end up doing.

You lot will be able to help!

Ds's school have just sent a mail reminding everyone about dressing the children in red, white and blue on Friday and also to "request that you put something special and ‘celebratory' in their lunch box". The fundraising team are "giving each child a Union Jack flag and a celebration red, white and blue cake". I was thinking of putting a decorated biscuit in but that seems a little overkill on the sweet stuff now. I was planning a strawberry/melon/blueberry fruit salad but he has fruit every day so that's not really a treat.

What else can I put in that's 'celebratory'?

coronation chicken sandwich ?

Ha! I'm afraid he takes after me and doesn't do curry though.

I'm considering a red, white and blue jelly. Strawberry from a packet and then some lemonade and scary blue pop set with gelatine?

or, if DS will eat it, you could get brown and white bread and cut it to make a "union jack" sandwich (I have tried to find a picture to show what I mean and have failed completely)

..or sandwiches cut into crown shapes?

Popcorn! With red, white and blue sprinkles!

Ours is a air popper so the corn doesn't come out sticky enough to colour 3 batches individually but I could mix some with multicoloured sprinkles. I think I'd rather do that than try colouring the popped corn with food colouring. I could make it quickly in the morning if it was just a case of tipping sprinkles in and then it would be fresh.

It's also then a wholegrain too so I don't have to feel too guilty--

Genius idea. I just have to come up with red, white and blue clothing for DD. Should be do-able, but I am hoping that it remains hot as I am reasonably sure she has a red, white and blue sundress - job done!

DS has a cheap t-shirt with a union jack on that I got from the supermarket (DH has pointed out that it's actually red, grey and almost black but it gets the idea across I think), some red or blue shorts depending on which he chooses and some union jack socks. DS is obsessed with "our flag" ever since my brother gave him an atlas so everything will get worn to death I'm sure.

I keep looking at all the stuff in the shops and resisting the temptation so far. If I look at the dress that I have in mind and decide it is not suitable, then jeans and a newly acquired T-shirt it will be.

Saw these and had to show you guys. Aren't they cute

Oh they're gorgeous. I haven't started investigating "cute" dragon cakes/cupcakes yet (party is not until October, after all...)

I was going to say that we need a new victim customer, but I guess once DrsW is back from nightmare holiday then it will be all systems go for naming/blessing planning and the various cakes she is committed to.

I am tempted to do union jack cupcakes for village party - I bought a magazine to read on the plane last week and it has templates for a complete set of cupcake toppers which make up a union jack from 24 cupcakes... Currently the DC are making crowns for the same event and I am mostly refraining from interfering helping too much.

Bonjourno i'm back. Good lord what a holiday. I'm ashmed to say i had my judgey pants on. The GF and her child were filthy. Childs clothes made me sad, and i know thats wrong and very un mnetty but flame me if you will. Child in same two outfits for a week and absolutely crusted up. GF wasnt bothered, shes very into festivals etc so fair enough thats her thing but this gorgeous little 2yr old was just pure grime. Anyway, who am i to judge.

Everyone except my lot got a sickness bug so we had a lucky escape there. Glad to be home as my mum just kept taking dd1 off all the time and i could feel the tears pricking. I'd told dh i wanted to use the opportunity to do stuff with her as its harder now dd2 is around. But i literally got left holding dd2 whilst they all went on rides, treetop walks etc etc.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I've got nothing to do really for this service of thanksgiving. Dresses are bought, invites/order of service is done. Need to re-do bunting and make the fruit cake. I want to do flowers for each table but not sure what to do yet as it'll be a diy job. Ive done enamel buckets before but they may be a bit big.

DD 3 months old will be wearing this union flag sleepsuit and DS will be wearing a black T with "keep calm it's the diamond jubilee" on it. I have bought these with the thought of using on a cake for our street party, but tempted to keep as keepsakes instead cos they are cute. (Am not even a royalist disclaimer)

cute sleepsuit

do you think I can persuade DD to change to pirates as a theme? (A: not a chance. Might as well try and divert an avalanche )

maybe I could sew wings onto these? (and WTAF is Easter-y about them??)

The dinosaurs are way cuter than the pirate bears. Them with wings would be perfect.

Ooh, pirate bears! (but yes, the Easter dragons are way cuter).

Blathers, have you tried the gingerdead cutters yet?

OK, I am persuaded. Dinosaurs with wings Dragons it is, although I still want to know how they are Easter dinosaurs dragons. I am ordering stuff now (ish) because DH is going to the States soon, so I can get them shipped to his hotel and he can bring them home.

Blathers - I think I need feedback quickly on Gingerdead man (so I can delete him off my list if he's no good ), and the letter press thingys which I am ashamed to say, having bought them for myself with an Amazon voucher I was given by work, I haven't played with yet.

I haven't tried them yet. Will try to knock up some gingerbread mix later and make them with the DCs after school just for you lot

Ooh look! a

I asked DS which was his favourite part of his Jubilee packed lunch today and he said "the sweets" so I guess the jelly diamonds I put in with the popcorn when the edible glitter didn't work were more of an inspired move than I thought!

Jelly diamonds = Diamond Jubilee. Thank goodness for my cupboard full of assorted cake decorations

That is very inspired blathers. My dd came out of playschool on thursday all forlorn saying they having a party tomorrow and i'm not going. Had to hot foot it back in and book her a slot.

So today i dress her as a princess complete with tiara at her own request but then she starts 'whats this jubilee? Everyone on telly says jubilee!? ' she's most put out! And we have a weekend of festivities. On monday she has union jack ribbons for her hair 'i dont like these flags'.

<Head in hands weeping> i cant win!

My DC are obsessed. They spent the afternoon making union jack bunting, (their idea, not mine) and DS's crown for village competition is fab [proud parent] - I even mostly managed not to interfere. DD's is good too, but not quite in the same league.

Right, wish us luck with the weather - we're off up North on holiday!

Have packed coats, gloves and hats and suncream. Hoping the suncream makes it out of the bag.

How did it go, Blathers? We drowned one day, froze one evening, and I made lots of cakes (will post links tomorrow) and first ever cake pops. I feel ill now and need to come up with easy but impressive cake for MIL next weekend.

Hi, I need some advice on making princess and knight came pops, I have even making normal round ones with various sprinkles etc but am going to attempt to make princess and knights heads.
Going to use strawberry chocolate so it's skin coloured. Thought could use yellow icing piped on for princess hair and make little crowns - what would be the best icing to use for these??
Knights I was going to do faces with a silver helmet I with a visor. I can make these fairly easily but how do I make helmet silver - spray with silver spray score/after putting in cake pop or can you get ready are silver icing???

Also making pink castle cake - was think baking towers in baked bean tins what Rods should I use to keep upright?have read straws but not sure will be strong enough??? Would kebab skewers be ok or too thin? V

Thanks

Do they have to be actual princesses - I really like these?

I would use moulding paste (sugarpaste with added sugarcel) or gumpaste (aka flower paste) to make the crowns, personally.

As for the knights helmets - you can't get silver icing that I have seen, but you can get paint, which might be easier than selective spraying?

Towers - how about chopsticks as a central support? If you are not planning on transporting it, I suspect straws would be fine, but if it needs to go in a car I would be tempted to go with something stronger.

Hi everyone, back from holidays and about to embark on the pirate party with gusto! Took delivery of some skull and crossbow silicon moulds today to melt chocolate into - I'm planning to get some cellophane bags and make a topper to staple them together.

I'm just having a think about the costume for DS. He does have a pirate costume which is a bit rubbish, so I thought he could wear some cut off jeans with a strip t-shirt (which we already have). I've been looking for a waistcoat or pirate type jacket to buy on it's own but no luck so far. Any ideas? I thought even if I got a plain black waistcoat I could iron on a pirate patch. Any other suggestions for home made pirate costumes welcome!

How's your sewing? Waistcoats are really easy to make (honest ) - I always line them because making 2 and sewing them together (then turning it inside out) is a lot quicker and easier than finishing the seams.

Sewing you say? [puzzled]. Sadly lacking in those skills. I wonderweb my curtain hems!

However, I'm quite handy on the computer and am v pleased with the invitations I've just designed!

How big is DS? I have a selection of waistcoats around...

Thanks Stealth - that's really kind of you. He's going to be four - but he's quite titchy so usually in about an age 3.

If you did have a spare waistcoat about that size I'd be more than happy to paypal some money for it.

Don't worry about money - always glad to re-home things. I will have a rummage and let you know.

Thanks Stealth, that really is good of you. DH has found my notebook so I can get on with the party planning now!

Hi guys

I was about to start a thread but came across this one and thought I might get more traffic, and also thorght you might be up for a challenge.

DD is soon to turn 16 and has asked for a small party with family and friends. We have decided to do it as a vintage tea party, but it obviously needs to be "cool" for 16 year olds. My conservatory has began to take on the appearance of a vintage tea room, hence the idea for the theme. I've given DD a budget of £50 to buy decorations/props for the party. We have googled images for inspiration but I'm struggling on ways to Make it age appropriate and not fuddy duddy.

Up to now I've said I'll Make her a cocktail which she is going to serve in mini milk bottles with paper straws. That's it smile

Voldermort... Does it have to be vintage as we had lengthy discussions about mad hatters tea party on here before the 'madness' may make it more appealing to teens?

www.karaspartyideas.com/2012/05/mad-hatter-tea-party.html

www.google.co.uk/search?q=mad+hatters+tea+party&hl=en&client=safari&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NrPTT8ieD8-U8gOSg-yUAw&ved=0CHYQsAQ&biw=320&bih=416#i=8

www.google.co.uk/search?q=mad+hatters+tea+party&hl=en&client=safari&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NrPTT8ieD8-U8gOSg-yUAw&ved=0CHYQsAQ&biw=320&bih=416#i=92

I'm back...

We were fairly lucky with the weather and managed to be inside for all but 2 massive downpours. Totally knackered now so will have a sleep before I attempt any party planning

Sorry to butt in but I'm loving this thread. It's putting me to shame as I'm not crafty in the slightest but would love to be!!

I'm wondering if any of you ladies could give me some advice on planning a party for my daughters. Their birthdays are a week apart and they'll be 3 and 1 so I'd like to do a joint party for them. I've only done small, tea parties for my eldests first 2 birthdays but this year I'd like to do something a bit different, but I don't know what.

I don't know where to hold it, my house is only small so I could either hire a hall or ask my mum and dad if we could have it at their house. I'd like to hire a bouncy castle and have a themed party as my eldest would love this. She is obsessed with mr tumble and peppa pig so I'm thinking one of these for a theme.

Has anyone hired a hall for a party for little ones of this age, I'm not sure if it would be a bit of a waste and I'd be better off taking them to soft play.

Btw their birthdays aren't til September so I'm a bit early planning, but I have some peace this morning so I have been googling venues

Hi DrsWife
We discussed the idea of mad hatters tea party,but DD wasnt so keen. I really liked the idea and found loads of great props, but she was having none of it.

We have just come through the jeans and baggy band tshirt stage. But DD now seems to be more girly, so I think she wants to embrace that. She's chosen a very pink theme.

We are having tissue pompoms which we're going to make ourselves.

mini milk bottles with red stripey paper straws to serve cocktails in. i need to find a nice alcoholic cocktail recipe that I can make quite weak on the alcohol but full of flavour. DD has been to a few partys in friends houses where parents have been on site and allowed them enough alcohol to be merry but not drunk. We have bought a pink pitcher to serve drinks in.

I have a nice tea set and a few 3 tier plate stands and glass bonbon bowls. Im also looking round the charity shops for other bits and pieces. We thorght stole the idea we'd use the tea pot as a vase and use the cups ans saucers as serving dishes rather than serve tea. Im not sure what to serve in them yet. Oh and I will makesome bunting

Little friend- if you want a theme then maybe spotty for mr tumbles spotty bag. That way you'll get way more in decorations etc rather than paying through the nose for character bits. I hired a hall with a bouncy castle for my dd's 2nd birthday and it worked better than soft play as i had place to myself and could cater cheaply. Other theme ideas a rainbow party is all the rage, im doing a playdoh party for dd's 4th.

And never to early to plan on this thread, welcome.

Voldermort ok no mad hatters, think you'll have to go garden party chic rather than fushia pink madness. Sounds like you have it pegged tho, not sure you need help! Maybe raid charity shops for tea cups and do little flower arrangements. Is it girls only party as sounds very girly?

Welcome back blathers i need your help re weight watchers. X

Thanks doctors wife, that's a good idea about the spotty theme and she'd know exactly what it is, anything spotty is mr tumble

I'm glad you preferred the hall and bouncy castle idea. Did you plan any party games? I'm thinking the children will be too little to understand most games but would like to do something with them.

I felt very guilty last year as my little ones birthday was the day after my due date and I wasn't feeling the best. She still had a lovely little party but I promised myself I'd make more of an effort this year.

Btw voldemort, your dd's party sounds great. Just the type of thing I liked at that age. As for cocktails, what about woo woo. I think it's normally just vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice but you could change it a bit so it's weaker.

I love the mad hatter idea, def keep that in mind for next year (or could I get away with throwing one for myself!!)

Party games for littlies:
Pass the parcel
Musical bumps or statues (show me show me your groovy moves...freeze!)
I did a hunt for puzzle pieces and we made a big floor puzzle

And of course the craft activity. You could get mr tumble pics off cbeebies no prob. I'll think more....off to a princess party right now.

Thank you, I love those ideas!! My daughter already plays show me show me your groovy moves haha, she makes me and her little sister play with her. I love the hunt for the puzzle too, would never have thought of that.

Getting very excited now, have to think of something my one year old will like too although I'm sure she'll be happy whatever we do.

LOL Voldemort - I was going to suggest Alice (and this book) but since your DD has rejected that idea, if you are going vintage, why not take advantage of all the jubliee stuff and go more specifically '50s? There is oodles of stuff around at the moment and it would widen the scope for decor to all florals (makes making bunting easier, for a start - although actually prices like this might make it not worth making it - or mixing homemade and bought)?

For spotty/Mr Tumble party, there are similarly lots of nice things around - like this range if you don't mind the pinkness

SayHello - DS's third birthday party was in a hall with a bouncy castle. The kids loved it. We didn't have any organised party games - tbh, they were mostly happy just running around. However, we did have a few garden sports games (the type that are always on 3 for 2 at elc) and we took them along for the kids to play with e.g. big plastic egg and spoon. We were going to have some races etc but decided not to bother as they were so happy just running around and playing on the bouncy castle (it was a really big one with a slide built into it). You could also take ride on toys, pop up tunnels etc with you.

If you use a church hall that normally has a toddler group, you might be able to use some equipment that the toddler group has?

For the 1 year olds (assuming you're inviting some others) I would set up a baby corner of sorts in the hall, with a ball pit, some mats, baby toys etc - just take some of your own stuff with you.

We had play for 1 hour, then about half an hour for food and cake then finished off with DH reading some stories. We also had a table set up with colouring in sheets.

Justin Fletcher has a newish CD out with action songs - could be good for the three year olds as an alternative or addition to party games?

Yes we had that cd at my nephews party lots if action songs that you could all get into. I just came back from nieces party ( nothing to see here folks except heels on the 5yr old) and we did lots of musical bumps/ statues/conga/pass the parcel/hokey cokey

<dont tell my sil but it was best kids party ever>

the best bit was we got to do 'superman' you know swim, ski, wave, ring the bell .... Superman. Loved loved loved doing that with my 3yr old.

I agree about asking if the hall has toys or contact your local toy library(surestart will know where it is) they'll loan you big garden toys/slides/rockers/jumperoos etc for peanuts and i mean peanuts.

If your worried about them following games do a big action songs session and pass the parcel, if you made a spotty bag, fill it with sweets and kids take in turns to take from the bag. Way easier to control who has had a turn and no waiting for littlies to open paper.

Maybe do a game based in eye spy with prizes... Lets look over here when you see it wave or cheer!

www.amazon.co.uk/Quadra-classic-book-bag-yellow/dp/B002BAI1ZI/ref=sr_1_6?s=shoes&ie=UTF8&qid=1339361436&sr=1-6
Cheapy pass off as the bag

Or real deal..

www.amazon.co.uk/Anvil-Messenger-Bag-Yellow-OS/dp/B004L6WZWU/ref=sr_1_105?s=shoes&ie=UTF8&qid=1339361627&sr=1-105

Seems you can get a lot of mr tumble stuff!
shop.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/searchresults?cmd=SKW&pg=1&kw=mr+tumble+party

www.partypieces.co.uk/kids-party-children-s-parties-party-supplies/kids-party-themes/spots-party.html

More spots!
Off to bed i'm googled out.

http://mytinyvintagewedding.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/sweet-avalanche.html?m=1

One more for you voldermort...loving the pearls draped over and old stacked books.

TheScottishPlayer - I rummaged, but the only waistcoat the right sort of size is a cowboy one. There is a rather splendid Captain Patch (from The Night Pirates) jacket, but I am hoping that can be repurposed for something for DD at some point, since it is adapted from an small-adult sized jacket. However, DH is away and I was avoiding tidying up bored, so I made a pirate one. If you PM me your address I will stick it in the post. I am hoping it's not too small now - it looks teeny for a 4yo (was based on being a bit smaller than a 5yo T shirt) but since my DC are bloody enormous big for their ages I find it hard to judge. Anyway - fingers crossed, and if not maybe you can pass it on to a younger pirate?

Discovery of the weekend, BTW - chocolate roses are easy (if time consuming) - MIL's cake.

Stealth, that is so kind of you. Thank you so much. I will pm you later from the computer.

drsWife] no boys as such, apart from family. I'd love the mad hatters tea party too. I should have made it a surprise but as Sayhello says, maybe I could have myself a party.

stelthsquiggle that book looks great and has really good reviews, when I have an excuse for my mad hatter party, I will have to invest.

Thanks for the thumbs up on the bunting. I've compromised by buying some pre cut flags that just need sewing together. I have bias binding already so it works out cheaper and twice as long

littlefriend don't forget Simon says. A good one for the toddlers to join in too. Also make sure you have loads of balloons blown up. Bag them up into bin bags and then empty them all out. Little ones will play for ages with a balloon. You can even make a game of keepy uppy with the older ones.

Stealth that looks fab how'd you make them? Choc roses i mean. And thats so sweet to make scottish a waistcoat. I love this thread.

Voldemort - I have the book (DB2 bought it for me for Christmas) and it is indeed lovely. I am trying to judge the right age to talk one of my DC into a Mad Hatter's tea party - this year is definitely Dragons for DD (all the stuff is hopefully being delivered to DH in his hotel in the US later today - for a party in October ) - how old do you think you need to be to properly appreciate Mad Hatters - I am thinking 8 or 9 minimum?

DrsW - if you google you will get lots of descriptions of making roses, but I basically cut small circles out of belgian chocolate sugarpaste (which I have loads of left over from sewing basket cake, and I have finally got the hang of it) and rolled the edges thin with one of these and then wrapped them around a small cone of sugarpaste. And repeat for hours and hours on end.

Wow thank you so much for all the suggestions / links, that's really helpful. I didn't realise you could get all the mr tumble range. I also love the spotty stuff so I'm not sure yet what I'll go for.

I've looked in to venues and am going to contact a centre not far from my house, I'm sure they do toddler groups so I'll ask about any equipment too. I've checked prices of bouncy castle hire and found someone who can hire soft play equipment too so that may be good.

I'm going to have to write all the ideas down, how geeky am I. I'm going to have a party folder Told my dp if we do well planning our girls party then we'll start planning our wedding haha.

sayhello - we hired a hall and soft play stuff for DS's 3rd birthday - it was great. We had a small bouncy castle (the sort you can buy from ELC), a blow up house/maze thingy (I will try and find a link), a ball pit which was a huge hit with littlies (so would work for your DD2 and her guests) and a ride-on train. The whole lot cost about the same as hiring a big bouncy castle and they got a lot more out of it, IMO.

I just about corralled them to do pass the parcel, and I think we had some colouring sheets and crayons (it was a monster party, so lots of monsters to colour in) but other than that they just rioted and a good time was had by all.

I'm gonna try that stealth thanks. I'm waiting for my cake tins to be delivered today then i'm making christening fruit cake tomorrow i think. Then i need to finish the bunting and think about flowers. I was gonna do balloons but think i'm gonna splurge and have flowers but i want to do them myself. Def need a trial run of that. Then i'm gonna attempt the fairy cake but i cannot get the girl to confirm numbers. Keep trying to say i'll need a rough idea as the cake recipe/pattern has two small cakes and need to check its enough.

Mind you as im not charging i should just do it and say well you never confirmed!

You can (obviously) make roses the same way out of normal sugarpaste / modelling paste / gumpaste.

I would just go for the recipe amount on the fairy cake - if she comes back with a larger number, then you/she could just make a plain iced cake for cutting behind the scenes. It's not worth re-working the whole design for especially as you are not being paid. I need to come up with an idea for my father's birthday now, and start on DH's cake which is all planned in my head. I am hoping I can get several cakes worth of decorations sorted this week since I don't need to be sociable in the evenings. I may also make a start of end-of-term presents for teachers in my dreams.

I need to post a picture of the cake my Sister got me for my birthday. Hang on....

oh those are fab, Blathers. I have never tried piping roses - I noticed a friend posted some she had done at a cupcake course over the weekend - I must get her to show me how. I have just about mastered getting a good piped "swirl" on cupcakes, but I think the roses need a different nozzle (yet more "stuff" )

I must admit, I've kept the box and the polystyrene ball the cakes were skewered into so I can try one myself one day

TheScottishPlayer - waistcoat will, I swear, make it into the post tomorrow. It seems bizarre given that I haven't talked to a real person (other than the postman and the odd "Good Morning" on school runs) so far this week, but I have not had a chance to go to the Post Office at all.

In the meantime, look what I treated myself to - apart from being a general good investment, I wanted something to make cakes/ cake pops which would appeal to small boys for the village fete. I think it should be about the right size.

No worries, Stealth, the party is a few weeks away yet. Love the skull - I got www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SKULL-CROSSBONES-CROSS-BONES-PIRATE-ICE-CUBE-TRAY-MOULD-CHOCOLATE-SILICONE-/230794845830?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Food_SM&var=&hash=item7b69f80005#ht_1392wt_1156this recently to melt chocolate in. I'm going to get some cellophane bags and make some cardboard toppers to staple on to them for the party bags. I've just come up with the menu for the party, what do you think:

Grub & Grog:
Cutty Sark sarnies (using pirate ship cutter)
Cutlass cheese biscuits (nigella's cheese biscuit recipe, using cutlass sword type cutter)
Peg leg crudités
Cap'n blueberry muffins
Jelly rodger boats (from Fay Ripley book - I've given up on blue jelly)
Brownie ships (brownies with sails in them - could do with a better name)
Cannonballs (melon balls)
Ruby treasure (strawberries)
Apple Grog

Just realised I'd forgotten about the deadman gingerbread - did you try out the cutter Blathers?

To save you balling melons what about cheesy ball crisps as cannon balls? Food list looks brill though. Please take photos of all these details its what makes it.

£4!!! I got that exact same ice cube tray from Poundland a few weeks ago.

I guess it's too late for telling you that now though.

Could you cut the brownies into boat shapes and print some red stripey paper to make the sails? I would call them....hmmm, going to have to think about that one.

You'll never guess what happened last night. Talking to an old work colleague and were talking about me maybe working for her - doing children's parties!! It'd be helping out doing games and face painting. I've never face painted anyone but DS though and I'm wondering if I could...?

TheScottishPlayer - food plans look fab. Do you have a suitably pirate-y font to print labels so that everyone "gets" it?

Brownie Bateaux???

and Blathers - really exciting about the party-related job - I am sure you could do face-painting no problem (although I have to admit there is a lot of skill to the high-end stuff - I did hire a face painter for DD's jungle party because I had seen her at other events and she is fab - website here - now a team of about 5 or 6, I think, and they are fully booked, so there is clearly money in it).

Long John Brownies?

The photos of the faces on that site are amazing!! I've only ever done DS as a pirate and Spiderman! Bit worried now.

I've got loads of face paints so I guess I could practice though and I'm fairly sure I saw the local ACE doing a face painting course....

It would be great if this works out as I've already worked with both the ladies so know they're nice, they want some help doing crafts and games as well we I'm definitely more confident with and they run a song and rhyme type class most mornings which I could maybe move into helping out with then DD goes to school. In the meantime, weekends suits - and it might provide an outlet for my party planning obsession

I've got it! Brownie Celeste

Not technically a pirate ship but famous enough that the adults should get the idea?

A face painting course would be fun anyway and is bound to come in handy for something..

I thought of you today, TheScottishPlayer - in my endless hunt for ink cartridges for DS (common or garden washable blue ink cartridges - do no children other than mine use fountain pens any more, FGS?) I passed a charity shop where one of the staff was just finishing a complete window display of pirate stuff. I was wondering how pleased she would really be if someone walked in and said "yes - I'll have all of that" - she had toy telescopes, bunting, costumes, a pirate ship (duplo, I think).... all the makings of a pirate party.

Well, I'm already pretty much booked to do a party in July

Sh*tting myself. Have found a course for beginner training but it runs this Friday and the coming Tuesday and then not again until September! It's by a proper Face painting Association painter so should be good. Waiting to see if MIL can babysit so I can go. It'll be worth the cost just to be the 'greatest Mum ever' the next time my kids want their faces doing

I've been practising on poorly DS and wriggly DD today.

You will be the coolest Mum ever - I can just imagine DS bouncing into school to tell everyone that his Mummy is a proper, qualified face painter

look what I found for dragon party

I am going to run out of time at this party if I am not careful

Stealth they are brilliant. Im actually laughing out loud at them.

Blathers well done on the face painting thing. My mil does glitter tattoos so now im wondering whether i could do similar and go in with her. Never knew there were courses. Im actually really jealous.

Stealth - waistcoat received and it's fabulous! Haven't tried it on him yet but I think it will fit. Can't thank you enough -MN and the people who use it are just amazing sometimes!

I am glad it arrived ok and fingers crossed for it fitting!

I've been asked to do 2 parties and I've not even had an "interview" yet! <faints>

So scared that I'm going to be rubbish.

Couldn't swing the babysitting for the course so can't go until September. Got to wing it until then. Have volunteered myself to paint friends kids faces at an upcoming party for practice. If it goes badly, I'm going to cry

Blathers if it goes badly so will the kids

Perfect fit Stealth - DS loves it! Thanks so much. He particularly liked the red stars lining!!!

I've got my hall booked now they do a deal for hire of hall, bouncy castle and some soft play shapes (and even a member of staff to supervise the castle). It also has a huge park outside so hopefully we'll have some nice weather for the kids to play outside after the party.

I keep googling things to buy for it and am now looking for party bags. I'm thinking I might just get plain white bags and make them spotty / mr tumble myself as I can't really see any.

Also, what do you all usually put in party pags? I was thinking things like bubbles, sweets, crayons, a picture of mr tumble from cbeebies website to colour in and then I'm not sure what else.

Blathers did cellophane cones of sweets for toddlers before. Thats nice and cheap and easy to do.

m.partydelights.co.uk/product_detail.aspx?mobileredirect=true&ProductID=LOOTDOTS&src=gbase&utm_source=google&utm_medium=googlebase

Spotty cellophane

sayhello - it depends how OTT creative you want to be - you could get something like the multi coloured one in this (can't link properly, but it's efabrics.co.uk and it's £4.49/metre) and make bags?

I'm not very good at making things unfortunately, although I would love to be able to. I think I'll have to practice so when my girls are bigger I can go all out and make everything!

I'm starting to have doubts about my party now though. We have 2 hours booked but this has to include the setting up and clearing away. It doesn't seem very long for the things I had in mind. I'd thought of lots of party games we could do but the reality is we won't really have much time. By the time the kids have played on the bouncy castle, had something to eat, sang for the birthday girls it'll be home time.

Is one and a half hours enough for a party? Think I'll use 15 minutes either side to get things ready and tidied, if I get lots of help it should be time enough.

With littlies 1.5 hours is plenty, and TBH you will be challenged to corral them into more than one or two party games - at that age I would focus on the visual "theming" rather than on the party content IYSWIM. Mind you, you have to be careful - I had to go outside and talk one little girl into coming into DS's 3rd birthday party - the theme was monsters, and we had put monster footprints from the car park into the hall, and she was too scared of the monsters to come in .

1.5 is enough for littlies for sure. I agree focus on your theme and dint worry about the free play time.

Right, service of thanksgiving, bunting made, invites sent (bank holiday weekend so wanted to give a heads up), dd's gift is bought..tiffany necklace to put away for her (dd1 had one when we were well off, and i was wracked with guilt that dd2 wouldnt have the same, so i did it) order of service printed as readings are chosen.

I have just made the cake in an ikea trofast storage bucket!!! Jesus its heavy!!! Hope to god it comes out okay as im not in a hurry to do that again. I need to buy a rose each for the godparents.

Dh and struggled over the readings as our siblings are doing one each. One reading was about 'daddy' and we ruled it out as it made us cry! But dh said he loved it. Do you think it would be okay to get dd's godfather to read it out to dh at the 'reception'? I didnt want it in church as i'd look a mess crying but by the party i wont care. Dh really wanted it so i wanted to surprise him but i cant read it myself.

Is anyone of Facebook? I'm following 'Kara's Party Ideas' and she has some lovely stuff.

Very American (but some lovely stuff). I shall install the app on my iPod as soon as I can wrestle it away from DS.

OTOH maybe not - she wants £1.49 for her app, without any way to see if it is any good first.

I'd agree that 1.5 hours is more than enough at that age SayHello. At DS's 3rd birthday party last year we gave up on anything organised as they were having so much fun playing on the bouncy castle and the play equipment.

I'm intrigued at the making of a cake in a trofast tub!!!!

Scottish it was too big for any of my bowls. 1.6kg of fruit aline. Dont worry i cleaned it first..

But my oven is shit in a rented house and the bloody thing didnt cook!!!

Ive gotta do it all again on friday and drive 50 mins to my mums to use her oven. Nightmare.

What a pain. Only ikea would kids storage be oven proof though

I've just ordered some blue jelly for DS's pirate party! Very pleased it's back in stock in time.

I'm glad you all agree that 1.5 hours is plenty time to play, I thought it was when I booked it and then started worrying the next day.

Do you have all your pirate stuff for your sons party TheScottishPlayer? I've been looking on hobbycraft website and they have a lot of nice pirate stuff. I was in the shop today and picked up a load of spotty plates, napkins and cups and just been checking online to see if they have a tablecover. I've saw loads of things I want to get.

I know a girl who makes cakes and have asked her about doing me a spotty, mr tumble cake too.

Oh i meant i only mixed it in it i used a tin for baking. Or not baking as it turned out.

I did wonder

I pretty much know what I'm getting SayHello but I'll have a look on the hobby raft website to see of anything catches my eye.

Christening plans all sound fab, DrsW - what are the flowers - trees, or buckets, or somthing else altogether?

DH arrived home with a suitcase full of easter dinosaurs dragons and other stuff (the make-your-own dragons and some pencils and stuff). Easter Dinosaurs Dragons are larger than I expected. All I need to do now is work out how to make and attach their wings.

I was gonna ask you if it all arrived stealth, how was his trip?

I have no idea what flowers you know. In my head i want summery arrangements of peonies roses etc. im pretty confident to arrange them its just the cost really.

We've decided to move, a house haa come up in our village which puts me in the catchment for the school i want and that will be it then. No more moving until we can buy our own again one day. Anyway that means i'll have less free time what with breastfeeding too. So i may have to resort to balloons as its quicker to set up.

You don't have anyone who can source you some flowers at wholesale prices, I guess? Peonies would be gorgeous, I agree - but £££. You need a flower expert (i.e. not me!) to suggest lower cost alternatives. I am a cheap date when it comes to flowers - my favourites are those big daisy-like white crysanthamums (sp?) - SIL used to be a florist, and she used several acres of daisies to decorate the church and hall for our wedding.

Yes, the order arrived as promised, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to get it ordered and confirmed. They are not easy to do business with from outside the US. However, the make-your-own dragons look absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't find those anywhere else, so worth the hassle and DH having to cram all his stuff into about 1/3 of a suitcase to get it all home.

No access to wholesale. Although mil has a cash n carry card for this place that does ribbon etc. hmmm wonder if they do flowers. Tesco had bunches of pale peonies and ive toyed with ransacking supermarkets a couple of days before.

Well done dh for cramming it all home for you. Although i bet a trip to the states without kids was no hardship for him

He's going back again next week

I am sure an arrangement with a friendly florist to just take a couple of boxes of flowers with no work for them should be cheaper than supermarket flowers - worth a conversation or two, anyway.

Quick, lets all get an order together for him to bring back

I can just imagine the reaction, Blathers . He has managed to establish a pattern of bringing DD back "pretty dresses" when he goes to the US - with 2 trips in 3 weeks, he has just tried to persuade her of the existence of the concept of "enough" pretty dresses... Good Luck on that one, DH

I'm not sure I can be convinced of the concept of "enough" pretty dresses and I am considerably older than your DD!

any good to you, DrsW?

Oh thanks stealth. I went to chat to a florist and she was pretty unhelpful. I asked what flowers are a blush colour rather than baby pink and she pretty much shrugged at me.

I'll do a practice run and work out how many stems i'd need.And im def moving in about three weeks! eek.

What a rubbish florist.

Never mind the catchment area, does the new house have an oven that works?

Yes yes the new house has a glorious double oven and five burner hob.
Im getting really excited to move. Dont know if you saw the hideous asbestos shed on my blog but ive had contractors here for two days taking it down. It was about 15 x 20ft big and full of crap.

Anyway landlord finally took it away and dh said i'll want to stay. Nope it looks just as bad and still as hazardous for two small kids. So excites to get a new kitchen with wall cupboards! Yippeeeee

Hi everyone

Can I please ask advice for a party I'm doing for DD2(4) and DD3(2) in August?

As you all seem very expert in party planning I thought I would ask here instead of starting my own thread.

The plan so far is

-- hire the room attached to the local church and have party from 11 - 1

-- a lady is coming for the first hour to do music and dance using props

-- after lady has finished the lunch for approx. 20 minutes

-- cakes being made by a friend. DD2 wants hello kitty and DD3 will have some kind of car.

Can you please help with the following

-- do I need something at the beginning before the lady starts or should I just let then play together?

-- do I need a theme?

-- there will be 40 minutes after the food has been eaten. Can I let them run around out side or should I do party games?

Also does anybody have any other tips?

Thank you

Forgot to mention that the guests will range from aged 1 to about 6 and will probably be a mix of boys and girls.

Guess who just got herself a job doing kids parties for a living

Whoooppp well done blathers. Not just face painting then?

Thing3. We always say a theme helps you hang a party all together so even if the kids are playing games you can gear them to your theme etc.
We always recommend a craft activity as it allows everyone to get there and those who are shy to hang back. You may find it takes longer than 20 mins to eat if you have littlies. We always recommend doing a lunchbox per child if its large numbers as then at least stragglers cab pack it away/carry it along etc.

I'd do games esp for the older ones as they are just getting to the age where they love musical bumps/statues/ pass the parcel. If pass the parcel is a bit tricky for babies have a bag or a box that they take fron rather than unwrapping. Free play is always fine for preschoolers so dont fret if kids just wanna run about, have some balloons to chase etc.

If you come up with a theme then we can help you with more ideas.

Oh, and welcome

No, I'll be doing crafts too and eventually songs and games too.

Putting some music on and letting them race round with a balloon or some bubbles is always a good time filler but I think you might be pushing it to entertain them that way for 40 minutes - but then as DW says, food might take longer. Musical bumps/statues with a few little prizes might be a good way of stretching it out a little. The bigger ones can play 'properly' for a little prize and the little ones will be happy wiggling along with everyone else even if they don't quite get the rules.

Themes really do help if there is anything specifically the DC like?

They both quite like bubbles at bath time, ninnies mouse, dolls and books. DD3 loves cars and stands looking out of the window at them!

The website for the woman doing the entertain saying the parties can be themed to suit individual tastes ie high school musical, rock, Disney, CBeebies, mamma mia ect.

If I have a theme it wouldn't really work unless the music was included in that as well would it?

Thanks for the replies and the welcome.

Not sure who ninnies mouse is!

They do like minnie mouse though.

Minnie Mouse could be quite fun. You could make ears for all of the children as your craft activity - with or without a spotty bow for the 'Minnies'. Black band of paper sellotaped to fit with some ear shapes stuck on maybe? Colouring sheets would be a breeze to find and print too as a back-up activity.

Red and white spotted table cloths, plates and cups would be easy to get cheaply too - much less expensive than the proper Disney stuff. Music should be fairly simple to theme too as I'm sure you can get Disney CDs. I think I've seen ice cube moulds, cake moulds and cutters too to make themed food. Disney activity packs for the pass the parcels present would be cheap too.

Or bubbles? Lots of white and blue balloon 'bubbles' and a bubble machine. White and blue plates and cups. Your only problem might be a sticky/slidey floor if you're going to have bubbles on for the whole party.

I have had a thought...

They both like teddies so how does a teddy bears picnic sound? The seats at the venue aren't really suitable for small children, they hold down if sat on wrong, so the children will be eating picnic style on the floor.

I could start the party at 10.45 instead of 11 and have a craft table where they could make something bear related. Then from 11 - 12 have music women and ask her to include some bear songs.

Then lunch in a picnic box to include pom bears and other bear related food. They could have a different bear cake each.

Then maybe bear related games, pin the tail on the bear, bear races face painting until 12.45 or even 1.

What do you think?

Ah, now if it's a Teddy Bears Picnic you want Thing, I am your girl

Am just back from a run and in desperate need of a shower first though. Check out my DD's cake in my photos and I'll be back later...

Ah yes. I did teddy bears once and blathers did one in dec. stick around and she'll come back with loads of ideas that she did.

Blatherskite your cakes look amazing!

ExH has a cash and carry card so things like crisps, sweets and drinks I should be able to get cheap.

Instead of doing party bags with lots of little things in I was thinking of giving every child a huge bubbles wand with maybe a little packet of jelly bears.

I'm really excited about doing this party now

If you think my cakes are good, you ought to see DW's and stealth's! They make mine look very amateur.

Right, teddy bears picnic parties... I did one for DD's 2nd birthday in December and it went down really well. I had children from 6 months to 13 years and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was going to make invites but ran out of time and found that buying Teddy themed invites was fairly easy too. There were loads of teddy themed plates, cups and napkins availbale online and I added some cheap, disposable, red checked tablecloths that added a real picnic feel. We had balloons and bunting too.

For food we did little triangle sandwiches, chicken nuggets, tray pizzas, Pom bears (of course) and some crudites and fruit to go with the cake - which was a cheap Costco one that I just decorated.

For games we just did pass the parcel as I wasn't sure DD would cope with many more and then did craft activities to fill the rest of the time. We had colouring and teddy bear biscuit decorating. You could also do pin the nose on the bear and good old musical statues to some teddy bear music. We got "The Many Songs of Winnie the Pooh" which did most of the party and fitted in well.

For party bags, I found it really hard to find something that would suit everyone because of the huge age range so I did little plastic cones of sweets tied with some pretty ribbon and a little teddy bear reflector keyring. They went down really well and were very cheap as the sweets all came from Costco too.

Blatherskite Thank you there are some lovely ideas.

As it is a joint party and DD2 is starting school in september I am probably going to invite at least 20 children. Do you think it would be easier to give them a ready made lunch box instead of a buffet?

Also after the food is finished I thought maybe have a few game stations that the children could go around as they please. I was thinking maybe a bear hunt, pin the heart on the bear and something else but not sure what?

I was wondering stealth, do you have a pattern for those beautiful bags you make?

DS started reception with one teacher who then left to be a foster parent. I was a bit concerned about him getting a new teacher just as he'd settled into school but the new one has been really, really good and we've really noticed a positive change in him. His reading has come on loads and he obviously feels very safe with her as if he ever has a problem, she's the one he wants to go to. It must have been very hard for her coming in after the first term too. I'd really like to get her a gift before term is over and I think she might quite like a lovely bag - who wouldn't.

I figure if I start now, I might have the chance to mess it up 5 or 6 times and then just buy one

We had 25 children plus adults and the buffet worked well but boxes can be very good too, especially if you're sitting on the floor.

Colouring in was very, very popular with the children at our party. I printed out some sheets from the internet and provided pens and some stickers. Cheap and kept them busy for ages.

Blather, apologies for drunken response, but which bags? I have patterns for some, others are made up as I go along...

Drunk on a School night! Hope the hangover isn't too bad

I was thinking the shopping type bags. Something she could transport school books home in for marking.

I was away for work - this morning was not fun [selfinflicted]

I don't really use a pattern for those ones but there was a tutorial I started with. I will see if I can find it again.

Blathers - try this tutorial

Is it easy? I'm panicing just looking at the instructions to be honest!

For £6, I might just buy something like this and save myself the tears #wimp

It is easy, honestly - the only complexity in mine is the applique - assembling the bag is dead easy once you have done it a few times.

I'm wondering whether a plain bag might not be a bit, well, crap and I'm not sure I'm up to applique.

My Mum wrote a bloody book on the subject (machine embroidery that is) and I'm scared of my machine. How does that work?

oooh, really (the book)? "proper" machine embroidery is something I have always wanted to try. My sewing machine probably sulks about how little of it's real capabilities I use .

A plain bag with a bottle of wine or something in it would be fine - or you could let DS loose with fabric pens/crayons?

I think these things skip generations - my grandmother made almost all of my mother's clothes, plus dancing costumes and the like, my mother sewed (and sews) only when absolutely neccesary (although she did used to knit a bit) and I sew all the time.

I think there were just too many of us to teach. I have 2 sisters and a brother and 1 sister can make her own clothes on a machine but the rest of us are clueless.

I have some of the sample clothes from the book still that the model wore, I wore when I was little and DD will wear too. She might fit the apron now actually, I'll try it later and tweet you a picture

Hi everyone.

Stealth - I had to come back and let you know that DS has barely taken his pirate waistcoat off!

I'm just making a list of the games for the pirate party and I have:

Pass the treasure chest
Musical islands
Sleeping pirates
Captain says
Walk the plank (if I can get one)

I think I'll need this chunk of games to last between 30 - 40 minutes - do you think it's enough or any other ideas? I've ruled out a treasure hunt (too hard for the hall) and anything to do with swords (potential for too many tears).

I can't remember if I came back and said - but I did manage to get some blue jelly, so I'm very excited about that!

I linked to that jelly so let me know if its any good as i want to do a rainbow party and rainbow layered jellies. This is a hypothetical dream party though.

Will do. Thanks for the link. I bought some spare packs to try it out. In fact I might make some just now!

I am glad DS likes the waistcoat, Scottish. Probably best to wash it on a cold wash though as I wouldn't want to vouch for how colourfast the black is (they are both cotton though so should be otherwise ok).

I have spent the day making asparagus put of sugarpaste and a BatGirl costume out of lycra for a 'dress as your favourite superhero' sponsored walk DD is doing next week

I've spent the day just round the corner from DW I'll give you more notice next time and maybe we can meet up again?

Just sewn name tags into DS's pirate outfit as he has to go to school dressed as a pirate tomorrow and Friday as this terms topic has something to do with pirates.

I need to make a sample butterfly and caterpillar for my first party next weekend - oh and practice the facepainting a bit more. I am getting scared now!

I went on a family photo shoot, it was a groupon offer. I thought it may be tricky with a 4.5 month old but nooo she was a dream. The three year old however played up a treat. Dd2 cant sit unsupported so dd1 had her between her legs cuddling kissing etc ...lovely. Then she pushed her away so she could get up and dd2 just crashes face down. Luckily she was just shocked.

Then dd1 sulked so bad. We actually paid for the worlds grumpiest photo as its just hilarious. Dd1 laid on these lovely teddies scowling. I may put it in the playroom as its so funny. But i wont be in a hurry to do it again!!!

LOL at the grumpy pics. I did one with DS when he was about 10mths as a surprise for DH. Halfway through, DS went flying (as he often does did) and smacked his head hard. Even after I had calmed him down, the photos from the second half of the shoot had him looking distinctly blotchy from crying . I only bought one picture, though.

This weekend I have made a Batgirl costume, 3 Scottish dancing sashes and a load of sugarpaste asparagus. Bedtime now.

I saw on the baking thread about the asparagus cake the link looked brilliant. Its for your dad or fil isnt it?

Oh and squeeeeeeeeeeee remember i said my mil has a wholesale card for some place that sells ribbon? Well its floristry place so i should be able to do my flowers for cheaps!

very very good news on the flowers - that's brilliant.

Yes, asparagus cake is for my father. All I have to do now is to make the actual cake and assemble it all and hope against hope that I have enough asparagus tips. I don't actually have a present for him yet though - or for DH, whose birthday is next (and is next cake up).

Stupid question then, is the asparagus made from normal sugarpaste? If not, if its modelling paste etc can you actually eat it? I always take it all off?!!

It is normal sugarpaste but I am beginning to regret that as it is quite fragile - I could have added sugarcel to make it more resilient but it's too late now. Modelling paste and gumpaste are both perfectly edible, but TBH everyone in my family except DD takes the icing off anyway as none of us particularly like it (we have chickens with sugar highs after birthdays ). DS won't even eat things with buttercream on - he generally just eats the trimmings from cakes / the reject cupcakes that didn't get iced. Strange child.

I'm going to have to go looking for this asparagus cake aren't I?

DSis got a Gruffalo's Child cake for her DD at the weekend. It was done by the same lady that did my cake roses. Will try to upload a pic

Blathers - I will link to it/ tweet it to you tonight when it is assembled. So far it is a kitchen table covered in sugarpaste asparagus here

Bumping this before it drops off my active convos. We can't have run out of parties surely?

Bumpity bump.

I wasnt ignoring you, my house and car were trashed in the leics storms. Car is likely to be a write off. House is badly damaged so landlords been. Just as im moving in two weeks!!!

Buuut dd has told me forget playdoh or fairies, she wants a rapunzel party so ive been trawling pinterest for ideas.

Oh no! Sis was saying that her car seems to be the only one she knows that wasn't damaged in that storm. It totally wrecked some of her garden chairs though.

Rapunzel could be fun. Get everyone to come in their favourite princess dress and make them all headbands with long woollen plaits. Castle cake with a figure in a high window. You could even do those chinese lanterns if you were doing 'Tangled' Rapunzel....

I've not been ignoring anyone either. DD has been poorly with a rash that saw us end up in hospital. She's better now but it was very scary for a while

Oh no what was the rash???

Not sure. The blood tests didn't show up so it could be anything. Possibly a virus.

Well i hope she's ok now. Must have been sooo scary.

She's fine. You'd never know there was anything wrong with her this morning

Hi everyone, I'm no further forward with my mr tumble party yet but I'm going to start properly organizing in the next few weeks. Very excited!

Sorry to hear about your car and house TheDoctorsWife, hope you get everything sorted.

Your poor dd Blathers, that must have been so scary for you. Strangely enough, a few weeks ago I had to go to the doctors with a rash (it looked like purple pinpricks, very strange) Nothing came back from blood tests either and doctor said they thought it must be a reaction to a viral infection (I know it's much worse when it's happening to a child, I just mean that it may be some sort of bug going about) Really hope she's feeling better

Aaargh on the storm damage, DrsW. It was nowhere near as bad here, but I was 100 miles away and knew nothing until I got in the car to come home and it was all over the news - was dreading what I might be coming back to, but all fine as it turned out. Was the new house damaged as well?

Blathers, did they ever decide what was up with DD or did it end up being generic "virus"?

I have done DH's birthday (well, it's today, but cake done and about to take him out for lunch). So now I need to sort end-of-year pressies for teachers and find time to work between attending dozens of bloody end of term things and then I can start thinking beyond the summer to Dragon parties.

Rapunzel sounds fun. We can do rapunzel. Don't forget you need lots of whatever sort of lizard Pascal is - maybe you could pin his tail on???

sorry, Blathers, you answered that qu already [must read thread]

I bought a pretty tote bag for DS's teacher in the end <shame> I am going to try making one but decided that my first attempt should probably be one for me rather than the teacher so it doesn't matter so much when it's an awful mess. DS picked one with a Peacock on and I bought some peacock feather ribbon to tie it up with. It looks really pretty even if I do say so myself

Little Pascals are a brilliant idea for the Rapunzel party. I bet they wouldn't be too tough to make or buy and then you could put one in each party bag maybe? The Octonauts party was at the weekend and they did the game where you race a paper fish across the room by flapping at it with a piece of card which was fun. Maybe you could make a paper Pascal?

The 'Pin the....on the...' has to be plait on Rapunzel surely? Lots of yellow wool to make plaits with a different coloured ribbon tying the bottom of each so you know who's is who's.

DD's rash looked more like insect bites that spread and joined together to form big patches, then faded in the centres before turning to bruises all over the little body. She's totally back to normal now though thankfully.

Looking forward to the Mr Tumble party plans.

Do you know any demon knitters, DrsW - chameleon pattern?

Stretchy lizards?

Im stood outside playschool drowned. Dd is gonna be most pissed off. Its a 45 min walk on buggy board in pissing down rain and all i have with me is a banana! She's gonna go toddler apeshit. I could have caught the bus in ten mins but i liked the idea of practicing the school run, until i got poured on. I will be back to this later to show you the ideas in existance for rapunzel. We have to make this good people, huddle round, we have to show that a homebased party diy job can be better than a fice year olds wedding reception birthday.

Stretchy lizards would be easier, but there might be tears from pedantic 5yos insisting that Pascal is green. DrsW do we need a gender-neutral option for this party (i.e. are there going to be boys there?).

My DC have perfect Pascals which I nabbed at some work event - neither of them cares that their Pascals have "Suse" (Linux vendors whose logo is a chameleon) embroidered on them

We can easily make this better than a pink glitter fest, don't worry!

Im back from the school run. We are soaked through so jumped in the bath together. I underestimated her, not one grumble, we had to stop for every. Single. Slug. All the way home!

Right i have trawled the net for ideas whilst doing night feeds. Thinking of having purple bunting with the 'sun' logo. Yellow braids of wool right round the room. Pin the braid on rapunzel or nose on flynn rider.
Colouring in sheets. Obviously. Maybe a 'hair station' to plait hair and have flowers and tat to clip into it. Or maybe wool braids to weave in or something. (lets hope we dont all catch lice).

As dd is a nov birthday it'll get dark at 4, so can do some lantern release. New house has a conservatory (will be the playroom) thinking if i use that i can put fairylights/lanterns all around and it'll reflect back off the conservatory windows in the dark.

But stealth you found the problem. Boys. There will be cousin who will be 2.5, godmothers newly adopted son(squeeeeeee they should get him aug 1st, but he'll be 11 months) and his cousin who will be 3.

As they are all a bit little i could let them sit on the sidelines without guilt. Or invite girls only. And now for some links to the good stuff...
http://birdonacake.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/rapunzel-tower-cupcakes.html?m=1

http://m.pinterest.com/recessionhome/rapunzel-tangled-birthday-party-ideas/

http://recessionhome.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/how-to-host-a-tangled-party/

I need more for the actual party. Dress in princess dresses. Do hairstyles. Pin the tail on the... Ooo ooo instead of pass the parcel could we take stuff outta flynn riders precious satchel? Make crowns? Or decorate them?

Sil has a disney print company type thing as a new venture so i can get some stuff knocked up with rapunzel on it and mil is heavily into beading (hobby before sewing) so crowns can be done. Bags. Mil also dies these really cute ballet dresses that you can clip hair clips to. I can get her to knock rapunzel ones up. ...
http://family.go.com/crafts/craft-953109-pascal-party-blowers-t/

Wow that was mammouth. Apologies.

ffs after all that i forgot to convert links. Hold on...

And it interupted the link at the bottom. Im tired!

Oh can someone relink for me? My phone wont let me select it all now.

recessionhome.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/how-to-host-a-tangled-party/

birdonacake.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/rapunzel-tower-cupcakes.html?m=1

family.go.com/crafts/craft-953109-pascal-party-blowers-t/

blog.littleavocado.com/2011/08/peytons-5th-birthday-party.html?m=1

m.pinterest.com/recessionhome/rapunzel-tangled-birthday-party-ideas/

cakephoria.com/new-cakes/rapunzel-tower-cake-inspired-by-disneys-tangled.html

I can definitely recommend the Baker Ross crowns and their stick-on jewels. (we had plain crowns, but I notice they now do colour scratch ones, coloured ones, and gold and silver ones - spoilt for choice) I think I would keep those for a craft activity rather than pre-make them TBH. A monster dressing up box and a "best dressed princess" (in which everyone wins prizes for most colourful/ neatest / messiest / whatever) would be cool.

Hmm - small boys - give the walking ones hobby horses and they can be Flynn? Just involve Flynn, Pascal and whatever-the-horse-is-called (my resident Tangled consultant is busy) a bit more to dilute the princessiness? Are you aiming for "Tangled" or "Rapunzel (non-Disney)"?

You could also consider a "build the highest tower" contest (for all, not for small boys) - we did if for DS's science party, with wooden coffee stirrers and marshmallows?

Stealth that tower idea is brilliant. And def 'tangled'. Im thinking i can go round singing mother knows best!!!

And we have a hobby horse. The problem i always have is that dh's family always want to see the party and so we end up having to invite everyone and it turns into 50 guests for ten kids! Im dreading it and dh wont budge on it. I might do a family tea but half the adults would still end up at the kids bash anyway! I could use the local hall but it wouldnt be as easy to decorate or be as sparkly.

And your cake is fabulous by the way!! Is the asparagus one done?

Tower building would dilute the glitter a bit and keep the adults busy if they are anything like as competitive as my family. If you have access to a cheap hall I would be tempted to go for it, though - it would give you more room to do stuff without falling over all the excess adults.

I think we could fill a hall with decorations quite cheaply - some of these inside paper lanterns would look lovely, for a start...

Did you not see finished asparagus cake? Full set is here and it is at the end.

How is DH's/your woodworking? A truly spectacular Tangled cake would need scaffolding, but would be otherwise relatively easy, IMO.

I absolutely love the asparagus. Fab. What did your dad say?

Yes to do the cake well ive gotta get a platform screwed into a pole into s base aint i? My fil is really handy but he drags his feet with requests. Hmm but if i screwed a pole like a broom handle or hanging rail into a big cake board and a smaller board on top, that'd be simple surely? Then just make the house part and 'glue' it with royal icing?

Yes - cake just needs 2 cake boards and a nice sturdy pole. I would be tempted to make the tower bit out of rice krispie cake and only the top bit out of cake cake IYSWIM.

My father loved his asparagus cake

I have a Suse USB stick! You pull the Chameleons tail off to plug it in